How To Set Up Affiliate Marketing For Authors

Curious to learn about affiliate marketing for authors? Affiliate marketing is its own breed and can be confusing. In this article we will walk you through how to exactly set up affiliate marketing for authors.

Your book is out and has launched, but where are the book sales? Time is ticking, and you need some solid strategies that will help support book sales. Have you tried using affiliate marketing to promote your book?

Too many authors don’t incorporate affiliate marketing into their long term or short term book marketing strategy. As an author, you can quickly increase book sales by starting an affiliate marketing for authors program.

What Is Affiliate Marketing for authors And How Does It Work When It Comes To Book Marketing

First, what is affiliate marketing for authors? Affiliate marketing is an arrangement where you the author pays a commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways people make money online. Bloggers, social media influencers, vloggers, and at times media outlets usually look to become affiliate partners with trusted brands as a way to make some extra money on the side.

What Does An Affiliate Partnership Look Like?

Affiliate partners who agree to promote your book will share an affiliate link to your Amazon page or website on their blog or social media channels. The affiliate links track the book sales and traffic to your author website that an affiliate partner sends your way. If an audience from your affiliate partner clicks on the affiliate link and goes to purchase your book, the partner will receive a percentage of the sales.

The Basics Behind Affiliate Marketing For Authors

Before you approach influencers, blogger, or vloggers and ask them to become an affiliate partner you need to set up an affiliate program.

Creating an affiliate program can be quick and smooth depending on the platform your website uses. Shopify and WordPress make it very easy to create an affiliate program for authors and other companies. Both offer a wide range of apps and plugins to help you build out your affiliate program. It is up to you which app or plugin you want to use.

In general, here is what an Affiliate Partnership that promotes book sales looks like:

1. The author sets up an Affiliate Program and Strategy.
2. Partnership with an influencer, blogger, vlogger, etc. is established.
3. The author sets up an affiliate link to share with their new affiliate partner.
4. Affiliate partner uses that link to promote the author’s book.
5. People click on the affiliate link which takes them to the author’s website or the book’s Amazon page.
6. The book is purchased.
7. The authors pay the affiliate partner a commission for helping them get another book sale.

Here are some of the common terms associated with affiliate marketing:

• Affiliates: Where you the author are using affiliate program links to promote and make book sales.
• Affiliate marketplace: Is an easy way to find and participate in affiliate programs. It gives companies and authors offering affiliate program a broader group of potential partners to reach out too. There are many marketplaces like Amazon Associates, Avangate, and Clickbank.
• Affiliate software: Software used by companies and authors to create an affiliate program for their product.
• Affiliate link: A tracking link to track the progress of affiliate promotions.
• Affiliate ID: Similar to the affiliate link, but many affiliate programs offer a unique ID which can be added to any page of the product site.
• Payment mode: Different affiliate programs offer different methods of payment. Some payment methods are already built into the affiliate software. But you can always use other methods like PayPal.
• Affiliate Manager/OPM: Some authors and most companies hire a dedicated marketing manager to help affiliate partners earn more by giving them optimization and marketing tips.
• Commission percentage/amount: The amount or percentage an affiliate partner will receive in affiliate income from every sale.
• Landing pages: A single book sales page used for the purpose of increasing sales.
• Custom affiliate income/account: Many companies and authors will offer a custom affiliate income to people making the most affiliate sales for them. This means you might offer them a larger commission for every sale they make you.
• Custom coupons: Custom discount coupons help increase your book sales by giving your affiliate partner a chance to provide a discount to their audience.

There are many affiliate programs available today, which means getting an affiliate partner on board to promote your book can be competitive. So it is essential to make your brand and value proposition stand out and catch the attention of the blogger, media outlets, influencers, and vloggers that you want to become affiliate partners with. Once you have done that, you are on your way to implementing a successful affiliate marketing campaign for your book.

Here are a few tips on how you can make your affiliate program stand out and start making you more book sales:

Locate niche partners whose audience is your target reader

As an author, you should have already defined your target reader. Now it is time to find who your target reader is following on social media. Why? Because you want to partner with people whose audience is your target reader.

Develop compelling promotional material

Provide your affiliate partner with creative messaging and graphics that they can use to promote your book. You may also want to send them a copy of the book so that they can take photos of it to share with their audiences. Your goal is to make their job of promoting your book easy. The less work, your affiliate partners, have to do the more conversions you will see.

Always look out for new affiliate partners

Always look to grow the number of affiliate partners you have. You can find new partners by advertising your affiliate program on your website, marketplaces, and your personal social media page. Or you can always send a cold email.

Look out and help your current affiliate partners

Communication is key. Communicate with your current affiliate partners regularly and ask if they need any support from you or if they have any questions. By continually engaging with them you and giving them tips will help ensure their success in promoting your book.

Here Are A Few Affiliate Marketing Platforms Authors Can Use To Promote Their Book:

Aerio

Authors and publishers can upload their books to Aerio to find new affiliate partners. Authors can also become an affiliate partner by choosing from Aerio’s inventory of fourteen million books to create a curated online storefront on their website.

Amazon Associates

Amazon also offers an affiliate program to people, authors, and companies. You can add your book to the program to attract new affiliate partners. You can also sign up as an affiliate partner and promote other author’s books while receiving a commission.

SmashWords

The Smashwords affiliate program can help you make a little extra on your book and other books you recommend when you use affiliate links. As with Amazon, you can promote other authors to your network or post reviews of books on your web page with affiliate links to Smashwords.

Can Affiliate Marketing Help Authors Make More Money

Affiliate marketing can help you reach your readers and earn some extra income. However, success won’t happen overnight. You may have read claims that affiliate marketing programs can make you tons of money by just spending a few minutes a day working. This is far from the truth.

You will not be able to get rich quick through affiliate marketing. You may get rich from it after spending consistent time working on growing your affiliate partners and following a strong well-planned out strategy.

Affiliate marketing is a strategy that works. It will get you book sales. It will help you grow your readership. But your success depends on how well you execute your affiliate business plan. Remember success takes work and time.

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