Fastlane Opportunities for Writers

[chimichangatime]

It's also important to remember that it's hard to judge a book objectively if you aren't a part of the target audience. I could say that a book written for 16-year old girls is cringeworthy but to them it perfectly captures what they're going through (or what they dream about). A writer who can capture the imagination of their target audience without being a part of them is definitely a good storyteller. This is actually a very difficult skill to have but one that's crucial to becoming a successful author in many genres.

By the way, the funny thing is that, as far as I remember, David also mentioned in one of his books or videos that Twilight isn't superbly written. Still doesn't matter. Sometimes beautiful prose distracts too much from the story, and I assume that's particularly common in YA and romance.

It's not that her book isn't beautiful prose. The main character is basically along for the ride and people had a hard time imagining her because she's so dull. Or maybe that's the appeal? I dunno; I didn't like the movies, either, but she got my money

To that point, the books did sell and she's got boatloads more money than I do. I often say the same thing about [insert famous pop star here with no talent]: well, maybe they suck, but they're doing better than I am, so there's something to getting out there and sucking anyway.

I try to do that more as I get older and care less about what other people think.

 

[Charnell]

Which audience do you think presents a better opportunity for fiction writers these days: adult fiction, young adult, middle grade or perhaps children's books?

Young adult, without a doubt. As you said, it's has a broader range of accessibility. Plus, if you can get teenage girls onboard, you've "made it." You don't necessarily need fantastic prose to appeal to the audience (Twilight, 50 Shades), and in some genres, you don't even need an editor (urban fiction/street lit) and can crush it.

Speaking of street lit, according to their YouTube videos, those hood romance authors can consistently jam out 5k words a day. They're dropping a 3-part, 250-page-each series in 6 weeks. They have raving fans that push them to triple-digit and sometimes double-digit rankings on Amazon with each release. The books are dialogue-heavy, written at a lower reading level, but have drama that keeps people interested.

Middle grade: I don't know much about it but it seems to be very lucrative if you create fun characters that can be featured in long series and/or adaptable into TV/movies. It also presents interesting opportunities in selling directly to schools, libraries, etc.

This could be interesting if someone wanted to jam out a ton of novella-length stories. Thinking of serials like Goosebumps (235), Sideways Stories from Wayside School (wow, 4, I thought there were more because they're short story cycles), Junie B Jones (28), etc. When a kid discovers one they like, the rest are read. The downside is they're probably borrowed from the school library.

 

[Madame Peccato]

Jarvis just got an update, it should be a lot less touchy on some subjects. Here's their news email talking about this:

Real-talk time.

We have a content filter set up to help stop Jarvis from writing about super sketchy stuff. As many of you have noticed.... this filter has been a little heavy-handed.

The filter was getting triggered by clean words like:

• squid
• pregnant
• bladder
• nuts
• detox
• sexual health
• etc

Well today, we made some massive updates to our content filtering model to GREATLY improve the filter.
The new version is way more flexible with the good stuff, while still keeping the not-so-good stuff from being written about at scale.

For everyone who has been frustrated by this before, give it a try again. I think you'll find it massively improved.

And remember – CONTEXT MATTERS.

Example:

"I bought a pair of panties." will likely be fine.

"I sniffed a pair of panties." will likely get flagged.

It's not just about the words you use, but the context you use them in.

 

[MTF]

Jarvis just got an update, it should be a lot less touchy on some subjects. Here's their news email talking about this:

I was happy to see that in my inbox. I'm using Jarvis for some brainstorming for my novel and it's great that now it won't constantly come up with these annoying sensitive content warnings. As long as I don't write about sniffing panties LOL.

 

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[Antifragile]

Funny thing... I started using Jarvis to help with a few e-mail replies. He seems very good at "rewrite" part for what I need.

 

[Andy Black]

I've not used it (nor intend to), but CopyAI: Create Marketing Copy In Seconds might also be similar to what you guys are looking at.

 

[DWX]

What are in your opinion the best Fastlane opportunities for writers? Which opportunities are exhausted and which ones may still have a bright future? Is writing still a lucrative skill or should writers consider it more of a supplemental skill?

I've been in the self-publishing industry for the past seven years. It's no longer such a gold mine as it was in the past. With no strong competition for Amazon on the horizon, it's becoming more and more of a business dependent on just one company, with thousands of competitors both corporate (traditional publishers) as well as individuals (who often flood the market with cheap, low quality ghostwritten books and manage to game the Amazon's system).

I'm wondering if writers today should still first consider going into book writing/publishing or perhaps try something else and stay away from books.

What are your thoughts on various business models for writers? How would you monetize your writing skill in the most Fastlane way possible?

The way I see it there are three main paths:

• book publishing - crowded, Amazon-dependent, you can sometimes spend months working on a book only for it to fail miserably (there's no easy way to test a product before creating it),
• copywriting - may become a career instead of a business, though some copywriters earn incredible amounts of money (like Jay Abraham who's technically more of a consultant),
• blogging/courses/other digital products not sold as books - this requires a personal brand and narrowing your expertise to one main topic. Also, writing seems to be more of a side skill here, with marketing experience and personal branding being the primary skills needed.

Any other thoughts you have, feel free to post them here. I'd like this thread to become a regular discussion for writers on the forum.

Tagging @ChickenHawk, @MJ DeMarco, @Bekit.

It doesn't help that most of the fiction authors who seem to be "killing it" are exclusive to KU. Sure, there are some earning six figures a year being wide but nowhere near as many - at least from what I've observed (and I'm in a fair few author groups).

I can go into the upsides and downsides of Wide vs Kindle Unlimited, but it won't serve this thread.

Regardless of what path a writer chooses, however, there are two things those who do really well at this gig do:

1. Publish often (3-5 or more books per year).
2. Market consistently.

Both require grit, skill, and the ability to let go of perfectionism (which writers suffer a lot from).

While self-publishing has never been more crowded - and will likely become a sweat fest with the advent of AI - I still believe there is plenty of corn to be had.

The key is building and nurturing a fanbase as quickly as possible.

And you can only do that through publishing books.

 

[MTF]

I do sometimes question, however, where book publishing is heading. Will it go down the same route of subscriptions/mass consumption like Netflix has for TV/movies and Spotify for music or will there always be a market of buyers?

Yeah it's tough to predict what's going to happen. Logic would say that it would eventually follow other media, particularly for fiction that few people ever read twice. Non-fiction is more often used for reference so owning it makes more sense.

For now, traditional publishing houses still have incredible power and say over the market so they would block any real attempts at disruption. But eventually... who knows.

Who knows. I do think if they rope more reputable authors into the programme, the tide could sway that way.

It's not about the authors but about the publishing houses. If a traditionally-published author (and most "reputable" authors are still traditionally-published) has a nice lucrative deal with a publisher, it's understandable they'd rather stick to it than risk it going on their own.

As far as I know Amazon sometimes allows big names to be in KDP Select without requiring them to be exclusive (which is IMO extremely unfair to indie authors but that's another topic). As long as they require exclusivity from the authors, "streaming" books won't become super mainstream.

For fiction book, do you already have, or plan to have, a dedicated website?

Yes I'll probably set up an author website for the newsletter and stuff.

You talk about several books you sold in the past since 2006. Do you have build this business only with your main website think8020 or do you have a bunch of other websites you create only to market your new selfpublished books?

I started publishing in 2014. Think8020.com is my hobby project where I sometimes post my thoughts that could be relevant to the members of this forum. It doesn't make me any money (it actually costs money to maintain the newsletter).

I have a website for my main pen name but it doesn't do anything, it mostly serves as a way to contact me and sign up for the newsletter.

Slightly unrelated to the overall thread, but I’ve enjoyed your Website post @MTF

“Why You Need Slack in Your Life”​

Curious, could you see your think80/20 as a potential fastlane similar to fs ? Shane built it into a real business, with employees and all. I’m sure he’s fastlane now with helping buy companies etc.

As mentioned above, it's my hobby project. I rarely post there these days. I guess I could start posting more often but I'm not sure if I want to head this way. It would most likely require me to get so involved into it I wouldn't be able to write fiction. It also borders on self-help which is a controversial topic I'm not sure I want to write about for a living.

 

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[MTF]

I was wondering about one thing...

In interviews, bestselling fiction writers usually say that they had to write their books because they needed to tell the story that was in their head.

I'm not wired like that. I write primarily to make money. If somebody told me I wouldn't be able to make money off writing, I wouldn't write anymore.

Do you think you need to share the "I need to tell the story" mindset to succeed on a big level? Or are they outliers among millions of writers who also had to "tell their stories" but never managed to make anything off them? Or are they saying it because it sounds nice but in reality their priority was also money, not art?

 

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[BizyDad]

Do you think you need to share the "I need to tell the story" mindset to succeed on a big level? Or are they outliers among millions of writers who also had to "tell their stories" but never managed to make anything off them? Or are they saying it because it sounds nice but in reality their priority was also money, not art?

No I don't think you need that mindset.

But I also don't think their priority is money. I think most writers don't go into it thinking they're going to get a lot of money. Sure, there are likely exceptions, I can't name any because I doubt anyone would publicly admit it.

I do think you need the mindset that you're working on your craft. Whether you consider it art, or just telling a story, I think you need to be great at your craft. I think a reader can tell when you're mailing it in just to get a check.

 

[MTF]

This is a business for you. It likely was a business for some world class writers too.

Good point. Maybe few of them would admit it but that's right.

I do think you need the mindset that you're working on your craft. Whether you consider it art, or just telling a story, I think you need to be great at your craft. I think a reader can tell when you're mailing it in just to get a check.

That makes sense. I treat this very seriously, possibly too much as I often question if it's any good (even though I saw way worse fiction doing well).

 

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[Andy Black]

Maybe I'm too frustrated today but I'm starting to think that writing is such a commodity skill today that it isn't worth much anymore.

There's way too much content and people no longer value it. There's also much less interest in thoughtful content and way more in bullshit clickbait/outrage/entertainment stuff. Just look at the rise of platforms like TikTok and YouTube shorts getting millions of views.

What's the point of trying to deliver excellent content if a stupid 10-second video gets all the attention?

Why can’t excellent content be consumed in 10 seconds? I personally love one liners that stop me in my tracks. I don’t come across them often.

Why wouldn’t good content stand out even more when the world is wash with garbage clickbait content?

Writing could be a commodity, but would writing that gets results be a commodity?

Could you condense your content so it’s thoughtful and also catches people’s eye?

It’s a tough one MTF. I know how you feel, yet also think you could see more opportunity in all the problems you cite.

 

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[Andy Black]

I understand that. From the perspective of an entrepreneur, though, is it worth it to spend so much time writing such long articles for so few people?

Don’t write such long articles for so few people then? Write shorter articles (even tweets) until you find things that resonate, and then expand on that? When you I find it resonates it might be because you’ve found a “channel” and trickle of visitors interested in said content. Aka you’ve build a funnel of people interested in reading more.

 

[Andy Black]

What about like, 4-5 minute articles in reading time? Or even just 2-3 minute ones.

Or using Instagram and other social media to put out lenghty articles in short form and linkin to the long article?

I see Mark Manson doing this. He has some really long articles on his site, and his monthly newsletter is lengthy as well. But on his Instagram he puts the key takeaways in a few simple images with text on them, while linking to the whole article in his bio.

The School of Life publishes a lot of around 5 minutes videos on their YouTube, but they also have long articles on their membership site and books about these topics.

I believe that, while a lot of people enjoy the short TikTok and Instagram Reels type of content, as soon as they dive into a topic they want more of it than just a few seconds.

^^^ This.

You can get snippets from content you’ve already written, and post to different channels.

And you can post snippets to channels and find out what resonates so you can create longer form content knowing it resonates (and that you can potentially get visitors to it).

 

[MTF]

I did a deal for $2k in tweets last month for around 30 total. Didn't know how to price it because I don't use Twitter. On the call, I told the client I don't use Twitter and don't know how to create engaging Tweets. He still wanted me to do it, so that's the price I gave and he accepted and paid.

Damn people are burning through so much money. At least you got paid because I seriously doubt they made even $1k back on these 30 tweets (unless they're selling something expensive).

 

[Andy Black]

Then the big challenge is figuring out how to offer enough value that $99 per month for an individual customer is a steal. For most people $99/month is a LOT.

Check out Laurel Portie. She has a $7/mth membership showing how to do organic and paid video marketing. I think I'm in it but haven't logged in in months. She's got over 1,300 in the Facebook group. Not a bad lower tier that feeds into her higher tiers.

Nothing wrong with the $5/mth pricepoint for newsletters imo. I prefer that to having a free newsletter. I'll put my free stuff out in the open and folks can pay a nominal amount for emails.


Here's a video I've book marked to watch later. I like Laurel's style too. You can tell she knows her stuff and is a great communicator. What I particularly like is that she also doesn't gaf about fancy lighting, sound, etc.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7__iIZ28fYQ

 

[MTF]

Bumping this thread.

Despite my complicated relationship with writing, I can't leave it behind.

I've been exploring some different business models recently and I always come back to the same conclusion: despite its drawbacks, writing is the best business model for me through which I can provide most value.

I can't help but write, even if I don't get paid for this. I believe that @Andy Black has a quote on this, perhaps from Dan Sullivan.

I'm trying to see the world of writing from a fresh perspective. It would be cool to hear about any new thoughts, developments, examples, etc.

I'm now exploring the world of business acquisitions and seeing if there's a way for me to acquire a revenue-generating asset that I can improve with my writing skills.

Some Thoughts on Newsletters

I've been exploring newsletters for a few months. I have a small newsletter myself but it makes pretty much zero money (I made like $5 through Amazon Associates).

My conclusion so far is that you need to be very clear about what you want to do:

1. A free newsletter that relies on sponsorships needs to be about a big niche. Otherwise you won't make much money. The rates, depending on the newsletter, are somewhere between $100-$500 for 10,000 views for a single short text ad.

So if you have a newsletter with 20,000 subscribers and 50% open rates, you're only going to make $100-500 per newsletter. If you send it weekly, that's at most $2,000 a month for a quite sizable newsletter. You can have more sponsors but then you need to charge lower rates so either way that's not much money.

That's why being in a large niche is so important. You'll have a very hard time finding 500,000 people to subscribe to a newsletter about permaculture compared to finding 500,000 people interested in tech startups. You'll also struggle to find a sponsor for the former (while it'll be quite easy for the latter).

2. A free newsletter that relies on affiliate marketing and/or selling your own products requires you to be very good at selling and copywriting. The business model then becomes more about Internet marketing than actually writing the newsletter. You'll have to balance very well regular content with commercial stuff or people will unsubscribe.

3. A paid newsletter seems like the most stable and reliable business model. The only caveat is that there's churn and that you won't be able to make it work for many niches. Paid newsletters mostly work for topics that may possibly generate financial returns for the subscriber (stuff like investing, business, etc.).

 

[Andy Black]

I write a lot in this forum.

• 360+ threads
• 3,000+ PMs
• 14,400+ posts.

I've been trying to figure out how publish a lot of that content outside the forum.

As mentioned above, I've had a play on Twitter and more recently on LinkedIn, but the content disappears really fast on those platforms and it felt like being on a content treadmill.

I suppose I could get books written out of a lot of my content, but that seems like hard work and it's not on my bucket list.

What fascinates me is YouTube and video. I keep coming back to it even when I try not to.

What I've been wondering recently is... how can I take written content and create videos from it?

(It's 1:25am here. I'll come back to this.)

 

[KushShah9492]

Twitter generally requires tweeting multiple times a day. You can post 30 tweets in a few days. Most of your followers will never see them. So I doubt that 30 tweets can change a lot. 300, maybe. That assumes that you don't have a huge following yet.

You need to engage with other accounts(with more followers than yours) before you start publishing 3 tweets a day.

Especially if you're under 500 followers. That's the only way initially to make your content seen. You can also be a part of some networking groups that boost your content.

If you're posting something really good on there, you will grow an audience there.

It's a slow process, but it's fun once you get the hang of it.

 

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[MTF]

You need to engage with other accounts(with more followers than yours) before you start publishing 3 tweets a day.

Especially if you're under 500 followers. That's the only way initially to make your content seen. You can also be a part of some networking groups that boost your content.

If you're posting something really good on there, you will grow an audience there.

It's a slow process, but it's fun once you get the hang of it.

Glad to hear it's working for you and that you consider it fun.

To me Twitter is a cesspool I'm not willing to touch again.

 

[KushShah9492]

Glad to hear it's working for you and that you consider it fun.

To me Twitter is a cesspool I'm not willing to touch again.

I understand it can be toxic.

It took me some time to get rid of that feeling as well. It all boils down to who you follow and how intentional you are with the content consumption there.

But again, it might not work for everyone.

 

[StrikingViper69]

Yes, I actually bought an SEO course some time ago. But then I realized it wasn't really aimed at people who want to build a long-lasting business. Most SEO tactics are just that—tactics that eventually stop working. The Facebook group for the course shows this pretty well with people often posting about how their traffic dropped overnight to like 10-20% of what it was.

I assume in your case you simply write about long tail keywords and don't do any crappy backlinking and stuff like that?

Semi long tail keywords... my more popular articles aren't that long tail and rank for quite common terms.

I had SEO explained to me in the following way:

1. If it's something instructional, target beginners
2. Break your article up with <H1>, <H2> etc tags for your sub headings. 200-400 words per sub heading.
3. Use your meta data, alt, description and image file name on images. SEO meta.
4. Choose the right keywords, ideally ones that convert. Some of @Andy Black's Google Ad threads are probably relevant to this.
5. Have a fast loading site

Backlinks do make a big difference, I have two important links. I wrote an article that praised some software I use, then asked that company to repost it with a backlink. They did and my traffic jumped nearly overnight. If I could be bothered I could probably get more doing this, but as the traffic isn't buying I'm not too interested in investing into the blog at the moment.

I had a call with one of the support team at Ubersuggest (Neil Patel's SEO company) a while ago, and put it into a post here: The 4 Pillars of SEO + 5 Step Guide to Improving Your SEO

 

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[Andy Black]

They're too different. Forums and, to a smaller extent, Facebook groups are about exchanging longer responses and generally sharing more thoughts in a more focused way. Social media is mostly about interruption, catchy content, and—what makes it so inefficient for writers—recency (only new content gets exposure).

Thanks for this! I couldn't put my finger on it.

I bought quite a few inexpensive courses and just didn't want to write the way they recommended. My writing in the forum is much more natural, even when I create a thread from scratch.

And the worst thing is that many writers today accept this as the current state of things. There's very little focus on writing timeless pieces because the most popular places where people now post content don't reward you for it. The platforms prefer a new repetitive piece of content every day than an occasional thought-out piece that would still provide value a few years from now.

Last year I was super active on Twitter for a bit. I went to a family event and didn't log in for a week. When I did I had ZERO notifications. All my daily content had sunk beneath the waves and was getting no visibility.

Simultaneously. I had an email from a US university asking if they could link their students to a video on my YouTube channel. That video is a few years old and I hadn't posted to YouTube for months.

I dropped Twitter immediately. I should have focused on YouTube but I was trying to avoid it ... because I find YouTube too fascinating and video editing too much fun. It was something I had to force myself NOT to do. Duh.

Sounds like an awesome business opportunity for a productized service.

Funny you say that. The two most recent marketplace ads are for monthly video editing services. I even replied to one saying I'd be interested in the service except I want to figure it out and then train my kids up on it.

You should have a look at the tools that are available to help now @MTF.

There's AI tools that can:

• Help you write a draft video script.
• Narrate the video script.
• Narrate in YOUR voice after you've trained them!
• Create unique royalty free music in a style you specify for the length of your video.
• Create unique royalty free artwork in a style you specify.
• Choose b-roll video or images to match the content of each scene in your written script (this seems the most flaky out of the above).

I'd like to get more into YouTube Ads but clients rarely have any video assets. If I can get the assets created for organic marketing I can also do so for YouTube Ads. And YouTube Ads are part of Google Ads as well!

Seriously... wtf was i thinking avoiding YouTube this year?!?

 

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[Cameraman]

My conclusion so far is that you need to be very clear about what you want to do:

1. A free newsletter that relies on sponsorships needs to be about a big niche. Otherwise you won't make much money. The rates, depending on the newsletter, are somewhere between $100-$500 for 10,000 views for a single short text ad.

So if you have a newsletter with 20,000 subscribers and 50% open rates, you're only going to make $100-500 per newsletter. If you send it weekly, that's at most $2,000 a month for a quite sizable newsletter. You can have more sponsors but then you need to charge lower rates so either way that's not much money.

That's why being in a large niche is so important. You'll have a very hard time finding 500,000 people to subscribe to a newsletter about permaculture compared to finding 500,000 people interested in tech startups. You'll also struggle to find a sponsor for the former (while it'll be quite easy for the latter).

2. A free newsletter that relies on affiliate marketing and/or selling your own products requires you to be very good at selling and copywriting. The business model then becomes more about Internet marketing than actually writing the newsletter. You'll have to balance very well regular content with commercial stuff or people will unsubscribe.

3. A paid newsletter seems like the most stable and reliable business model. The only caveat is that there's churn and that you won't be able to make it work for many niches. Paid newsletters mostly work for topics that may possibly generate financial returns for the subscriber (stuff like investing, business, etc.).

I read this yesterday and the subsequent thoughts/ideas this morning. There's some great material.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "be very clear about what you want to do". I publish a monthly newsletter in the photography and photo editing niche that's free. My list is small (around 12,000 subscribers) and growth is slow (+150 per month after cleaning). I do make some money from affiliate products but that's not why I do it. As I think someone already quoted, I do it because I can't not do it.

But there is a great benefit from the newsletter that I haven't seen mentioned here - it builds trust and loyalty. When I release a new book or course, those subscribers I've been helping buy my offering. Launching a new book or product becomes easy and I often end up on the Amazon best seller list purely because of my subscribers. Having 1,000 buy your book on the first day is great for your Amazon ranking

To my mind, a well-written newsletter builds a stronger bond with your audience than you will achieve with Social Media. You then have to work out how to make that relationship pay for your effort in a way you feel comfortable with.

 

[MTF]

Thank you, that sounds way more sensible than all the crap with buying backlinks, creating Tier 1 and Tier 2 PBNs with crappy content, etc.

Adding to the topic of natural, safe SEO, here's an awesome no-hype video that pretty much covers all the fundamentals of SEO that generate results:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGtcEFjD81I


I'm now actually tempted to start a blog and just write dozens of articles targeting long tail keywords and answering people's questions that nobody else answers.

 

[Andy Black]

I don't really like video. I watch YouTube but most of the time I prefer reading. And as for production, I find video-making extremely hard and time-consuming compared to writing. Not my skill set at all. And I had a period of time (a couple of months) when I was into filmmaking and edited some travel videos.

Your skillset and superpower seems to be research and writing. I'd say that's the most important part of creating good videos for subjects people want to watch. You do your part and create the great blog posts, then use tools and/or other people to create audio and video from your source?

For a long time I thought the process was video first, then extract the audio then the written word. I feel that's backwards (and lazy) now. Create the written content first, then create the audio and video from it.

I think you've the skillset to catch the wave @MTF. What if your mindset, business skills, and marketing skills were as good as your research and writing skills?

 

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[Andy Black]

I'm now actually tempted to start a blog and just write dozens of articles targeting long tail keywords and answering people's questions that nobody else answers.

Or answering questions that people do answer, but badly or differently?

If you've not listened to "Who have you helped?" then the gist of it was that Tony had built a blog to no avail. I asked him who he'd helped and he realised he hadn't helped anyone. He then went to Quorra and started answering questions and the rest was history. He could then take his answers and put them on a blog, knowing they're battle-tested and help people.

 

[Cameraman]

For a long time I thought the process was video first, then extract the audio then the written word. I feel that's backwards (and lazy) now. Create the written content first, then create the audio and video from it.

Absolutely script first.

Work out your idea and how you will present it.
Develop a title with a good hook along with a thumbnail.
Script and record the video. I use Dragon naturally speaking to dictate my script and then read through it aloud a couple of times to get it tight.
I can then rework the script into an article which I publish on my website.

Repurpose as much content as you can.

 

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[Cameraman]

Adding to the topic of natural, safe SEO, here's an awesome no-hype video that pretty much covers all the fundamentals of SEO that generate results:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGtcEFjD81I


I'm now actually tempted to start a blog and just write dozens of articles targeting long tail keywords and answering people's questions that nobody else answers.

Thanks for sharing the video. I've watched a few on this channel now. Whilst they are selling their services there is also so good, valuable content on there. If nothing, it's helping me become more organised.

I also wanted to mention Genius Link in case you don't know about it. It may be useful in your newsletter if you want to pull in some affiliate income and also when you promote a new book launch.

The service allows you to localise Amazon books and products with a single link. You create a link to your book or product and when someone clicks it, they go to Amazon US, UK or whichever is the right Amazon store for their country. Providing you are signed up to that country's affiliate program you get the commission and because people end up on the correct Amazon site they are more likely to buy.

The service supports a list of other affiliate offers as well as Amazon. You can even create smart links that present the viewer with options of where to purchase e.g. Amazon, Apple or B&N. I've been using them for several years and found them reliable, cheap ($5 pm) and it's always paid for itself.

They do have a free version just for books called Booklinker but it's not that good and the full Genius Link product seems much better.

 

[Andy Black]

People are saying that pretty much all of the content from their paid Project 24 program is available as free YouTube videos (it's just not organized well).

That's a good way of creating a paid product btw. Some people will pay for a shorter path through all your content.