Category: Free Resources

Automating Your Apple Books Affiliate Links

Do you want to make extra income from your Apple Books sales but don’t want to manually create an affiliate link every time you add a new book to your website?

Great news: Apple has a cool (and free) tool that will simplify the creation of your affiliate links on your website by automatically adding your affiliate token to (any) itunes product, your e-books and audiobooks included.

So here’s how to get this to work on your website (WordPress or any other kind of site).

Continue reading Automating Your Apple Books Affiliate Links

Can you earn Amazon affiliate income through Facebook Ads?

Some writers use Facebook ads to attract newsletter subscribers while others run them to sell books. Since minimizing your Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and increasing your net income is the ultimate goal for the latter, authors who’ve joined the Amazon Associates Program are probably hoping to maximize profits and earn Amazon affiliate income through their Facebook ads.

The commonly accepted wisdom is that they shouldn’t (at least not directly).

“Why not?” I hear some of you ask. “I want my 4% commission in addition to my royalty share. Every penny counts, man!”

Well, sorry to break it to you, but using your Amazon affiliate link in your Facebook ad goes against their operating policies and can get you kicked out of the Associates Program.

Continue reading Can you earn Amazon affiliate income through Facebook Ads?

Beware of Infringing Upon Amazon’s Trademarks

As an author, chances are that you make your books available on Amazon. Whether you do it exclusively is irrelevant to what I’m about to explain here.

I recently read a post in a Facebook group associated with a well-known/highly reputable advertising course for authors. Someone got kicked out of Amazon’s associates (and lost the affiliate commission that he had yet to receive). Thankfully for him, that amount was small. But many authors make the same mistakes he made, so I’d like to help you avoid those mistakes (and lose your hard-earned income), if at all possible.
Continue reading Beware of Infringing Upon Amazon’s Trademarks

Using Canva to Create Images

If you can’t afford to hire a designer to create header/slideshow/advertisement images, all is not lost.

You can use free tools to create your own images. They probably won’t be as great as what a designer could do for you, but they can be good enough for now, for your budget.

Watch the following video to see how I created a slideshow/header image step-by-step using the following free tools:
Continue reading Using Canva to Create Images

How to Back Up and Update Your Site

Keeping your WordPress site up to date (WordPress version, plugins, themes, and translations) is an essential task if you want to keep it secure and prevent hackers from exploiting whatever vulnerability may have been discovered by the ruthless bots who have been programmed to wreck havoc on the world.

“Why?” you ask…

My guess? For no good reason other than the entertainment of some low-life hacker. But there’s probably some good money to be made with porn, malware, or whatever they’re into these days.

Continue reading How to Back Up and Update Your Site

Make Affiliate Income from Kobo

If you are “wide” and publish books on Kobo, you may be interested in learning how to make a little bit extra from your Kobo book sales.

I’m fairly new at this self-publishing thing, yet I’ve already earned over $1,000 in sales from Kobo. I also get to earn a little tiny bit of extra money when people buy my books through my Kobo affiliate links. The commissions aren’t huge, but extra money is extra money, right?

See below for what I made in affiliate income from Canada over the past 30 days. It’s not much, but I’ll take that extra $34.62, please.
It’ll cover the costs of quite a few poutines. Thank you, Kobo! 😍  Continue reading Make Affiliate Income from Kobo