As serendipity would have it, I picked up not one but two golden nuggets this week related to Amazon affiliate links, which I felt compelled to share here. Trust me, they are small and insignificant things that you’re probably unaware of, but could get you in trouble unless you take remedial action at once.

Obviously, this post is mostly of interest to those who are Amazon affiliates. That is to say, people who embed affiliate tags in their links to Amazon products (in order to gain a small commission from any purchases incurred). Still, even if you are not an Amazon affiliate, the information may still be of use to you if you’re an author so you can warn your reviewers. Stick with me and it’ll all soon make sense.

GOLDEN NUGGET NUMBER 1

You’ve all heard that Amazon deletes reviews (sometimes hundreds in one go!) of people that they suspect know the authors personally. In my post, How to not lose your reviews on Amazon, I discuss some of the ways Amazon finds out when a reviewer and an author know each other. Also, in this post by Gwendolyn Kiste, you will be shown clearly how Amazon sees who knows whom via the use of Super URLs that many authors share without knowing the risks.

Now, to the nitty-gritty of this post – this tip has been shared recently in my writer’s group, eNovel Authors at Work:

Amazon now deletes the reviews of those who use affiliate links to connect to a book on Amazon from a book review post (on a site or blog).

Think about it: You’ve read a book, you post your review on Amazon (so far so good), and then you blog the review on your site but you don’t just link up to the book on Amazon, you add your affiliate tag to the link. Bam! Wham! You just gave yourself a financial benefit from your review! Big mistake… As you know, the Amazon TOS forbids reviewers to receive payment. And yes, you guessed it, Amazon considers the addition of your affiliate tag as payment, even if no purchase is ever made!

We can all continue to blog our reviews, of course, but, without using affiliate tags in the review posts.

GOLDEN NUGGET NUMBER 2

There I was yesterday, browsing through my timeline on Twitter, no care in the world, when this post by Meron Bareket on Social Quant drew my attention like a magnet: “7 Ways Using Twitter Can Leave You in Need of a Lawyer”. Seeing that I use Twitter heavily, I couldn’t ignore that! I am always careful not to step on any toes, especially where plagiarism or image copyright infringement are concerned. This means I breezed through the article, feeling quite safe, until I got to number 3: “Failing to Disclose Affiliate Links/Paid Endorsements”. I’d never heard of The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) before. I live in Greece and don’t even know if, being a Greek citizen, I am within their scope of supervision, but being as careful and law-abiding as I am, my immediate decision was to comply anyway. Read the whole article, it’s well worth your time! I made sure to amend all my automated tweets so I can disclose the use of affiliate links. Phew! Another bullet dodged as I roam the obscure paths of Cyberspace! Thank you Meron Bareket!

I know the title of this post refers to two ways… but having discovered the aforementioned tidbits this week my apprehension hit the red part of the scale. I felt compelled to research further and stumbled upon this terrific article by Al-Amin Kabir on Marketever. It lists the various ways Amazon could ban you as an affiliate for using your tags in ways you’re not supposed to. I mean, who would have thought you could get banned for using them on email for example? Phew! More bullets dodged there.

And with that, I’ll let you go. Hope this helps, folks!

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