Earlier today, I was browsing the sites of a couple authors I enjoy, and I noticed they had links for visitors to buy their books, but they weren’t affiliate links. The internet marketer in me nearly had heart failure.
If you’ve published a book and you’re promoting it on your website (you are promoting your book, right?), then you should be signed up with a bookseller that offers an affiliate program. Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble offer affiliate programs, and I’m sure other bookstores do too.
Once you sign up, you can make links that allow your site visitors to click through and buy the book from the merchant. You’ll get at least 6% of the purchase price (Amazon has a sliding scale where you get a higher % if you sell more items), and you’ll make even more if folks buy other items from the store while they’re browsing.
Considering typical paperback royalty rates aren’t much higher than this (disgusting, hunh?), you’ve got a chance to nearly double what you make per book if you promote your work–with an affiliate link–on your site.
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Last Thursday, I planted ten fruit trees and six blueberry bushes in my yard. It took hours, it made my back sore, and three days later I’m still trying to pry dirt out from underneath my fingernails.
I might whine at the work I made for myself by ordering all my trees at once, but I felt pretty accomplished at the end.
Of course, I never would have finished before dark if I’d spent the day like so many of us spend our work days.
What if I’d stopped to read email a few times? Responded to a few Twitter conversations? Checked my feed reader for new blog posts? Answered instant messages? Googled questions that popped into my head? Checked Craigslist for *insert-random-thing-I’m-looking-for-this-week*?
Heck, I’d still be planting those trees right now.
The Dangers of Multitasking
I used to be proud of my ability to multitask. I felt very productive because I’d be typing 80 wpm and alt-tabbing from window to window, managing to keep a dozen balls in the air at a time.
And yet at the end of the day, I’d look back, and I wouldn’t be quite sure what I’d accomplished. I’d been busy, certainly, and I’d done a lot of work, but what sort of finished product did I have to show for it?
In our modern world, multitasking is the norm. Being busy is the norm. But as I’ve written before, there’s a big difference between being busy and being productive.
Busyness creates stress while productivity creates a feeling of accomplishment. Busyness makes you feel like a hamster on a wheel that never stops spinning while productivity makes you feel like a marathon runner with the finish line in sight. Busyness makes time fly in a holy-smokes-I-was-supposed-to-finish-that-today-and-it’s-already-11:30-at-night way while being productive means looking at the clock and being pleasantly surprised at how much you got done.
Okay, enough of that busyness. Let’s get productive.
Four Tips for Becoming More Productive (and less busy)
I realized the error of my multitasking ways more by accident than by insight. When I started having trouble with repetitive stress injuries and it hurt even to type, I had to figure out a way to make a living without sitting at the keyboard for 8 or 12 hours a day. Because I could only spend about an hour at the computer, I was forced to make the most out of that hour.
How?
Let’s start with the obvious…
1. Stop chatting all day
Like I said, it’s obvious. But because we like to justify it as “networking,” especially now with the social media marketing craze, chatting remains a huge time sink for many of us.
It’s hard to focus on anything when new messages are constantly inundating you. Also, the pressure to reply to everyone and give everyone on your ever-expanding “friends list” a piece of your time is a big stress creator. Want to fail as a blogger, writer, internet marketer, etc.? Get burned out, so you decide to stop altogether.
I’m not going to tell you to stop Twittering, Stumbling, Digging, IMing, etc., but if you often find yourself wondering where your days went, it’s worth doing the math and seeing how much you’re really getting out of your networking efforts. Consider analyzing your traffic logs to see which social efforts are giving you returns and which aren’t worth the time.
Again, I’m not going to say you should stop all forms of online communication, but as far as networking goes, you’ll probably get more out of a local mastermind group that meets once a month than hundreds of hours spent on Twitter. If you do want to continue networking (or just chatting) online, then consider doing it at the end of the day, or after you’ve accomplished something concrete. Make it the dessert after a healthy meal.
And for those who may be wondering… yes, it’s entirely possible to make a living online without talking to anyone. SEO + Adsense got me there. Maybe I’d be richer if I’d networked along the way, but I make enough, and I have a lot of free time. It’s hard to beat that. 
2. Brainstorm ahead of time
By necessity, I started figuring out what to write about before I sat down at the computer. Personally I find that walking the dog, swimming laps, or running can make for fabulous brainstorming sessions. Maybe it’s that sense of forward momentum you get when your body is in motion: your mind naturally wants to go forward too.
If you already know what you’re going to write about when you sit down, the words flow easily. You don’t waste time scanning your feed reader or clicking from search result to search result looking for inspiration.
3. Focus on one task at a time
Perhaps the biggest “oh, duh” moment I had was when I realized multitasking wasn’t as efficient as focusing on one task until it was finished.
You may have laughed when I told you I didn’t send answer any emails while I was digging holes for my trees, since that would have been pretty hard unless I had my laptop out in the yard with me. But that’s kind of the point. If you remove yourself from temptation (in my case, the Internet), you’ll find it’s a lot easier to stay focused on one task.
While some of your work may require being online for research, there comes a point where you need to just sit down and create output. The fewer distractions around, the easier it is to stay on task.
If you’re writing, try taking your laptop to a coffee shop that (brace yourself) doesn’t have wifi. If you don’t have a laptop, grab a notepad and go to the library or the park or wherever you can be by yourself without distraction for a time.
It’s amazing how much you can get done in an hour if there’s nothing else to do.
I always laugh at the folks who suggest ancient monolithic structures were built by aliens. They were just built by people who didn’t have tv, internet, books, or any other modern distractions inundating them day in and day out! (Okay, being royalty and having tons of slaves probably helped.)
4. Give yourself one project a day
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you have to do this and get that done and get this posted and don’t forget about that. You end up with a huge to-do list, and it takes you as long to create the list as it does to actually do something. And half the time, there’s no way in a reality-based world you’d get all these things done in a day anyway.
What if you just gave yourself one key thing to get done for the day and decided to be happy with that?
That’s what I started doing, and lo and behold… it works.
Try it. Give yourself one main thing to do, and when it’s done, you know that you’ve accomplished something. Then you can go onto other smaller tasks if you want (no pressure to finish them since you got The One Thing done) or take the rest of the day off.
You might just be surprised at how much you can get done over the weeks and months with the One-Task-a-Day approach.
Today’s task was this blog post. And now that I’m done… time to go write for fun.
What about you? Do you have any suggestions for folks who are struggling to be less busy and more productive?
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What’s your blog about? Writing? Gardening? Internet marketing? Dog training? Underwater basket weaving?
Chances are that if you’re blogging on a niche (and let’s hope you are if you want to make money), there are products related to your niche that you could write about (yes, even basket-weaving).
You’ve probably already tried some of those products yourself. After all, you wouldn’t start a blog on the joys of home brewing unless you’d actually brewed something, right? At the very least, you’ve surely read some books related to your niche (and, yes, it’s okay to make money reviewing books you didn’t actually buy–libraries are our friends, especially when we’re still in the willing-but-not-yet-wealthy blogger category).
These products you’ve tried, have you reviewed them yet for your readers? And have you inserted affiliate links so you can make money?
If you answered, “no,” “uhm,” or “I meant to…” to those questions, then there’s money missing from your bank account, even as we speak. It’s time to take action to increase your earnings. It’s time to get reviewing.
How to make money reviewing products on your blog
Why reviews?
Before I go into the nuts and bolts of how to make money with reviews, let’s talk briefly about why reviews work so well.
In short, reviews sell products.
Reviews attract the right kind of visitors from the search engines (people who are already thinking of buying a product and are looking for more information on it), and they also offer social proof. People see that someone else has tried out this product, and they assume it must be better than this product over here that nobody has written a review about. (That may or may not be true, but that’s how we gregarious human creatures tend to think.)
Writing reviews for products with affiliate programs
Okay, reviews sell, but how do you make money writing them?
This is where affiliate programs come in. Here’s what you do:
- Find an affiliate program in your niche — Products in just about every niche are for sale somewhere online. Look around and you’re bound to find a merchant who offers an affiliate deal.
- Sign up — Once you sign up for the program, you’ll be able to create links with your personal tracking ID embedded in them.
- Write the review — Write a blog post reviewing the product. You don’t have to hype up the product. People are more likely to buy something after reading an honest review that points out the pros and cons (we’re suspicious of products that sound too good be true).
- Insert the affiliate link in the review — Text links usually convert best, so insert a text affiliate link right into the content of the review. Feel free to use it a couple of times over the course of the review. You don’t want someone to forget to click after all.
- Get a link or two to your review post — If your blog is already popular, you’ll probably make money just from posting the review, but for newer blogs (or if you just want to help things along), it’s useful to get a few outside links to the specific review page.
- Sit back and wait to get paid — No explanation needed!
Finding affiliate programs
Okay, you’ve got those golden steps printed out and stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. But how do you find the right kind of affiliate programs?
The most obvious way is to go to merchants you already know and like and check their site for links that say “affiliates” or “affiliate program” or the like. They’re usually down at the bottom. A lot of bigger companies offer affiliate programs, and even mom and pop stores often do.
If you’re reviewing books, you can sign up for the Amazon affiliate program (other booksellers have affiliate programs too so choose your favorite). Amazon is nice because they have a lot of non-book products as well. But if you’re blogging about products in a certain niche, you may get a better deal (higher commission) signing up for a niche-specific affiliate program.
For example, on my home & garden blog, I occasionally promote lawn and garden products from the Gardeners’ Supply Store. They have an affiliate program you can sign up for through LinkShare. I actually just ordered some raised garden bed kits from them, and you better believe I will review those products when I get them.
When products pay for themselves
The best deal is when you review something you would have bought anyway and your commissions end up paying for the product. It may take me a while to pay for those raised garden bed kits since the Gardeners’ store doesn’t offer terribly high commissions (with shops that sell physical products, it’s rare to get paid more than 10%), but I’m sure that if I work at getting a couple links to that review, the beds will be paid for within a couple years.
If you happen to find online courses or digitally delivered information products in your niche, commissions can be much higher.
When I reviewed Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind program for this site, someone asked why I–someone who already makes a nice living from her blogs and websites–would bother taking a $500 blogging-for-beginners course.
For one thing, I was familiar with Yaro’s blog and knew he had a lot more business acumen than I do (I am much more of a writer than an entrepreneur), so I was sure I’d learn something from the course. But the real kicker was that Yaro offers a 50% affiliate commission for his program. If two people purchase the course after reading my review (and clicking the links), then I’ve made my money back. Anything after that is gravy.
It definitely pays to do reviews for products in your niche, especially for products you would have bought anyway. It’s always great getting something for free, and if you can make some extra money, it’s even better!
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