I've long been vocal about my distaste of affiliate programs. For me, it's a matter of "my word" and well, my word is just not for sale. I would have made a bit of money if I had participated, too. In the last few years I've sent out approximately US $30,000 in business to people I believed in, by referring my clients. Who are these honoured people, you ask? Well, layout people who work specifically with books, that's a popular request; editors; printers (who usually end up in an on-going relationship with the clients, even after I'm out of the picture) and illustrators, mostly.
If the associate or vendor (many are actually my competitors) does a good job and maintains some sort of infrequent relationship with me (a "hi, how ya doing," every six months is fine), then I keep referring them or their companies.
With an affiliate program, the referring person gets a fee or percentage of the sale, in other words, he or she is being paid to refer the other company or vendor. I've refused a lot of money over the years and have actually had my company blacklisted because I just don't want to get involved in these sorts of things. One printer offered me $150 for each client I sent to him. I won't do it. I don't like his product and I find the staff are not easy to work with. A publishing company wanted me to send them a fairly high percentage of my fee for every book cover I designed for one of their clients. When I refused, they put me on a list of vendors not to use. The story gets nastier from there, but that is how it began. The funny thing is, I dealt with ten times more clients than the publisher did and could have actually made him a lot of money with my referrals to him — for free!
Recently though, I stumbled on a affiliate program I decided to try. It was arms-length, meaning it was through a respected company, so it was fairly uncomplicated (no one arguing about how the sales arrived and if they earned commissions or not) and they represented companies I really liked and respected, and often referred anyway. Sign me up!
My own web-host, Jumpline.com was there, and I have nothing but good things to say about them, so I chose them to advertise on my site; likewise eFax, who I send everyone to, because it's just great to be able to work without cluttering up my office with a bulky and expensive fax machine (eFax converts incoming faxes to eMail). Moveable Type, the company that owns this blog software is another affiliate I'm proud to represent. Then there was Fonts.com and ITC Fonts, both companies who I do business with, and also PayPal, a company I have used for years to process online payments. Even Adobe was there, and I'm a huge fan of Adobe software...in fact, my entire company runs on Adobe software. So, I guess I'm now an affiliate. Each time someone clicks through the links from my site and purchases their services or products, a small amount of money will go into my account. I seriously doubt I'll make any amount of money, but it is fun imagining "what if."
I'll post my links here. Hey if you're looking for Adobe Acrobat, or eFax or want to join PayPal, click away. I could use the cash! ;)
