Back when people bought CDs, I'd make several grand in the course of a week each time Nine Inch Nails album preorders went live on Amazon & I posted links on my

Back when people bought CDs, I'd make several grand in the course of a week each time Nine Inch Nails album preorders went live on Amazon & I posted links on my (well-known among fans) website. Heck, I made $500 off MP3 downloads of the Ghosts album when that came out. This allowed me to get better hosting, and to send money to other people who've helped me with the site, as well as fund contests for readers. The Amazon cookie persists for 24 hours, so if you click on that Kindle link today, but then tonight, go home and buy a defibrillator or 10 camcorders, the guy who slipped his affiliate link onto HN gets the commission on that. I use those as examples because they're things people have bought after clicking through NIN mp3/pre-order links. It's also worth noting that Amazon does a flat 10% rate on Kindle sales for affiliates... all other consumer electronics are a flat 4%. Amazon Associates is like free money if you run a blog, and so long as you're up front about that, I think that's fine. Lots of people are going to Amazon anyway. Posting your own affiliate link to a site like this and not disclosing affiliation is a little skeezy.