Did you know that you can earn extra commission when you sell your books through certain third-party retailers?
It almost seems like breaking the rules to do this with your own books, but it’s not. And you can earn commission on other books and products, too — not just your own. As you build your following, affiliate links can prove to be more and more lucrative.
First, what is affiliate marketing?
In a nutshell, it’s when a blogger, influencer, content creator, etc. enters an agreement with a business to promote certain products or services with a unique link. This link allows the business to track how many people you send to their website. If those visitors complete a particular action such as making a purchase or requesting a quote, the business rewards you with a commission.
That commission varies based on the business and agreement. The most common reward is a percentage of the sale, usually 10% or less. However, some businesses offer a flat rate, especially if the incentive is for a lead-generating quote or signup rather than a purchase.
Affiliate links are generally NOT going to be pay-per-click (PPC) like ads often are. This means that simply sending a visitor to the business’s website isn’t enough to earn a reward; the visitor has to become a customer or lead by following through with an action on the site.
Some businesses, like Amazon, operate their affiliate program in house, while others outsource it through a large global platform such as Awin, CJ, ThriveCart, or Impact. In this article, I’ll discuss the foundation you need to have established before you start applying for affiliate programs, and then I’ll share four author-friendly platforms that will allow you to earn commission when you’re promoting your own books.
After all, since you’re promoting them anyway, why wouldn’t you want to set yourself up to make a little extra money?
This article contains affiliate links. To learn more about how these types of links are used on this website, read the affiliate disclosure.
Before You Apply for an Affiliate Program
It’s tempting to start applying for affiliate programs as soon as your book is published, but the reality is your chances of being accepted are slim to none if you don’t already have a solid foundation in place. You need to:
Build a Professional Website
I started learning about affiliate marketing in 2020 when I joined Wealthy Affiliate. (Side note: I’m no longer a member. Not because the program wasn’t valuable, but because I didn’t have enough time to manage another blog. I also wasn’t earning enough to justify the monthly cost to maintain my website on their platform when I needed every penny to cover the editing/publishing costs of my next novel.)
Prior to 2020, my blog was mostly a personal résumé where I shared my poems, short stories, art, photography, and news about my book series, which I published two years after starting the blog.
While I do still occasionally post that type of content, my blog has evolved into a much more robust online entity exploring deeper topics about writing, publishing, marketing, and sharing business tips for authors, artists, and other creative entrepreneurs. This evolution is much more appealing to brands who are considering whether or not to partner with me and let me represent them on my site.
Drive Steady Traffic to Your Site
One of the first factors a brand will consider is the value of your website and/or social media influence. If you aren’t bringing in regular traffic, there’s not much point in having ads or affiliate links that hardly anyone will even see, let alone click on.
The majority of my blog posts target specific niches with keyword-rich content that populates in search engines. I went from bringing in one or two hundred visitors a month to an average of more than 5k per month.
That may not be a ton of traffic compared to high-performing sites, but it’s a healthy, steady flow that continues to increase as I publish more articles on relevant topics and build my website’s authority. The traffic to my website is strong enough for brands to feel more confident accepting me into their affiliate programs. Focus on building your site traffic before you start applying for affiliate programs.
Define Your Niche
If your goal is to work with affiliate groups, your website needs to have a consistent identity beyond simply promoting your books. Self-promotion is necessary, but it’s not likely to win over many brands if that’s the entirety of your website.
How can you branch out to capture new audiences from search engines? Are you interested in educational content to help coach new writers? Or perhaps you’re an avid reader and want your blog to be filled with book reviews, reading lists, and author interviews. Or maybe you want to discuss the nuances of the world-building process for sci-fi and fantasy authors.
There are many directions you can take (I wrote a post with 60+ topics for fiction writers if you need more inspiration), but before you start publishing, consider your niche and target audience so your website content has a consistent tone, voice, and topics.
Consider Your Marketing Strategy
Most affiliate program applications will ask you how you plan to advertise the brands who accept you. For example:
- Organically incorporate links into your content
- Place ads on your website
- Share discount codes and special promotions
- Promote via email campaigns
- Create product review videos
- Post on social media
You don’t need to provide a detailed step-by-step marketing plan, but you will need to provide a general overview of how you plan to promote your affiliate partners so they can decide if your strategy aligns with their goals and expectations.
(Keep in mind that many businesses forbid affiliates from bidding on keywords related to the brand.)
If you feel like you’re ready to start exploring affiliate options, let’s dive in to four potential starting points that will work with your books!
1. Amazon
Whether you love or hate Amazon, there’s no denying that your books really HAVE to be on this platform if you’re going to be a successful author.
The good news is you can earn extra commission on your own book sales if customers purchase on Amazon with your affiliate link! And, not only does the commission apply to the direct product link, but it also applies to other items a customer adds to their cart after clicking your link, so it’s not just your books or other featured products.
If you’re going to seek out affiliate partnerships, Amazon is ideal to hit the ground running since it’s such a powerhouse where the majority of your online book sales will likely be. You don’t have to publish through KDP to take advantage of the affiliate program.
Amazon associates typically earn between 1% and 10% commission, although some categories can go as high as 20%. It’s not a lot, but it does add up to give you a little boost of passive income deposited directly into your bank account. Amazon also offers special bounties and promotional rates. You can sign up for Amazon’s affiliate program here.
Amazon’s affiliate platform is pretty straightforward. Their policy states, “We look for associates who are a value-add for Amazon customers – if you’re a passionate reviewer, stylist, content creator or curator who would like to refer your audience to products on Amazon, you may be the right fit.”
Keep in mind that even if Amazon accepts your initial application, you then have to make it through a trial period by generating at least three qualified sales within the first 180 days (personal sales don’t count).
Amazon notes, “In our review, we check all of the Sites you’ve provided (websites, mobile apps, social network pages, and Alexa skills) to ensure that they meet our customer experience bar. All Sites must have robust original content (even when advertising is removed) – a good rule of thumb is at least 10 posts. They must be publicly available (for example, they should not be a closed group, or behind a paywall). Unsuitable Sites cannot participate under any circumstance. This is what we’re looking for in for each of these categories. Please review these carefully before your submission and during your review period, as we will reject applications if they do not meet these standards. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to reassess an application once it’s been rejected.”
Generating an affiliate link on Amazon is easy once you’ve been accepted. All you have to do is navigate to the product page. At the top, you’ll see a button in the right corner that says “Get Link.” Simply click on it, copy the link, and paste it into your content.
In the top left, you can also see the commission percentage based on the product category. In the screenshot below showing my first book, you can see that the Books & Textbooks category earns 4.00% commission. However, if a customer adds my book to their cart and continues shopping, then I’ll earn commission on the other products they purchase as well.
Full disclosure: the majority of my Amazon commissions don’t actually come from my books. My top performing post for Amazon product clicks is actually an article I wrote about how to attach glass cabochons into bezel settings. This wasn’t a topic I wrote for the sake of peddling products; it was a genuine problem that I faced as an artist and solved after extensive trial and error, and I wanted to help other artists who were struggling with the same issue. The affiliate links were organically incorporated into the content.
Amazon did, at one time, allow affiliates to generate links with product images so customers could see the product, price, rating, etc. Unfortunately, that’s not a feature they have anymore.
2. Bookshop.org
If you aren’t already familiar with Bookshop.org, allow me to introduce this gem of a website!
Bookshop.org directly supports more than 2,000 independent bookstores by donating the profits from their online sales to either a customer’s selected local bookstore or to a profit pool that is divided among all of the participating stores.
Below, I’ve shared some screenshots I took from the About page to show you their process and how the funds are distributed.
As an affiliate, you’ll have the opportunity to build your own page with a profile picture, banner, biography, and curated lists of books. Not only can you share your own published books, but you can also build other lists, too! For example, your favorite reads, writing resources, inspiration, etc.
Here’s a look at my Bookshop.org profile:
At the top of the page, you’ll notice the “Choose a Bookstore” option. This is where you can select your preferred bookstore that will receive the profits.
Directing your fans to Bookshop.org instead of big retail corporations (looking at you, Amazon) is a fantastic way to earn a little extra commission yourself while also supporting independent bookstores, so it’s all for a good cause.
3. Libro.fm (Awin)
If you have an audiobook and opted for a wide distribution strategy, chances are your audiobook is available on Libro.fm.
Customers have the option to sign up for a monthly membership or buy audiobooks à la carte. This platform, much like Bookshop.org, allows users to select a local bookstore to support, so whenever they purchase an audiobook, that bookstore receives a share of the profits.
As an affiliate, you receive commission if a customer uses your link to complete a signup or purchase. The Libro.fm affiliate program offers a 10% commission on each audiobook and audiobook gift membership, and a 30% commission on each new monthly membership with a 30-day cookie window.
Libro.fm’s parent affiliate network is Awin, which is based in the UK with headquarters in Germany. Before you can submit an application to Libro.fm, you must first apply to Awin and be accepted into their affiliate program.
Awin is a reputable platform that’s been around since 2000. In 2017, it absorbed ShareASale. Between Awin and ShareASale, they’ve racked up over 30k advertisers (brands) and more than a million publishers (aka affiliate participants).
On a personal note, their application was the most frustrating out of the half dozen or so that I’ve done. In order to authenticate applicants, Awin requires a valid credit card so they can charge $1 (which is refunded to you with your first payment) and verify that the account is legit. However, thanks to 3D security on most cards, my payment failed because it was flagged as fraud. There is no backup payment option, and Awin’s support team told me that I needed to contact my financial institution.
I spent twenty-five minutes on the phone with my bank trying to authorize the payment. Even after we’d navigated around the 3D secure feature that was initially blocking the transaction, the payment still failed because the charge was coming from the UK. My bank had to put a temporary travel notice on the card to finally allow the foreign charge of a single dollar to go through.
Once you jump through all of the hoops to complete your application, Awin is relatively easy to navigate. I preferred ShareASale’s interface, but that’s being phased out by the end of 2025.
4. Barnes & Noble (CJ Affiliate)
Barnes & Noble also has its own affiliate program, which is operated through CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction). You guessed it — before you can sign up for the B&N affiliate program, you first need to join CJ Affiliate.
CJ is one of the largest global affiliate platforms with big-name brands on their resume, including NordVPN, Intuit TurboTax, Bed Bath & Beyond, J. Crew, Blue Apron, Priceline, and Office Depot. However, in my opinion, it has the least user-friendly interface among all of the affiliate programs I’ve tried. Because of this, I admittedly haven’t explored the platform much outside of applying to Barnes & Noble’s affiliate program.
Still, B&N is a major book retailer that still has some clout, so if you’re building up your list of affiliate options when promoting your book titles, it’s worth considering.
5. Other Affiliate Opportunities
The four I posted above are excellent starting points for authors to earn commission while marketing their books. If you joined a global affiliate platform like Awin or CJ and you’re interested in expanding your affiliate partners, check out some of the other brands that are on those platforms. You’ve already taken the first step of setting up a profile on there anyway!
But also, be on the lookout for additional opportunities as you grow your affiliate networks. Two of my most lucrative affiliate programs fell into my lap out of the blue thanks to blog posts that I’d written with zero expectations of getting any financial benefits from them.
The first came from a post I wrote about joining a NetGalley co-op. At the time, the business hosting the co-op didn’t have an affiliate program. I just wanted to share my experience for other authors who might be considering using NetGalley to market their books.
Years later, the business owner reached out to let me know that she’d started an affiliate program and I was invited to apply. Now, every time someone finds my article, clicks my affiliate link, and joins the co-op, I earn a flat commission. It’s a relatively small amount, but it averages to about 3x the ad revenue I make from my website.
The second situation was similar. I wrote a blog post comparing two liability insurance companies that I’d used as an entrepreneur setting up my booth at festivals, conventions, Renaissance faires, and markets. Again, not exactly a popular post for my fans and followers, but one that could be important for creative entrepreneurs who were in the same boat I’d been in. When the post was published, I wasn’t earning anything from it.
Later, I discovered that the insurance company I use (and recommended in the article) had a referral program, so I updated the post to include my referral link. To my surprise, I started getting steady rewards! Every time someone completed a quote, I earned a flat commission in the form of an Amazon gift card.
Unfortunately, the referrals maxed out with a yearly cap, which I reached in just a couple of months… but imagine my surprise when a representative from the company contacted me directly to invite me into their affiliate program instead, which has no cap on earnings and pays with direct deposits instead of gift cards! Even better, she kindly offered to send me a bonus for the rewards that I’d missed in between the switch!!
These two programs bring in steadier commission payments than the other programs that pay a small percentage of a sale. But I never would have found them if I hadn’t been publishing articles about my experiences as an author and exploring affiliate marketing. That’s why I recommend staying alert and checking into new programs if you’re regularly blogging. You never know when another door is going to open…
If this article was valuable, you might like some of my other posts:
Author’s 20 Tips for a Successful Book Signing
5 Tips to Help Authors Sell More Books in Person
Indie Authors: If You Can Invest in Only ONE Thing for Your Book…
Author Tip: How Amazon Book Reviews Unlock Marketing Benefits
Author Tip: Finding Your Unique Display Aesthetic
Should Fiction Authors Have a Blog? 5 Benefits of Blogging
6 Ways to Leverage Your Newsletter (Beyond Signups & Sales)
Author Q&A: Should You Make Your Books Returnable?
Tips for New Authors: How to Overcome 5 Common Fears
Author’s Perspective: Why I Rarely Do Bookstore Signings
3 Ways Indie Authors Can Make Extra Money with Their Website
How to Make Money: 7 Extra Revenue Streams for Indie Authors
I'm an award-winning fantasy author, artist, and photographer from La Porte, Indiana. My poetry, short fiction, and memoir works have been featured in various anthologies and journals since 2005, and several of my poems are available in the Indiana Poetry Archives. The first three novels in my Chronicles of Avilésor: War of the Realms series have received awards from Literary Titan.
After some time working as a freelance writer, I was shocked by how many website articles are actually written by paid "ghost writers" but published under the byline of a different author. It was a jolt seeing my articles presented as if they were written by a high-profile CEO or an industry expert with decades of experience. I'll be honest; it felt slimy and dishonest. I had none of the credentials readers assumed the author of the article actually had. Ghost writing is a perfectly legal, astonishingly common practice, and now, AI has entered the playing field to further muddy the waters. It's hard to trust who (or what) actually wrote the content you'll read online these days.
That's not the case here at On The Cobblestone Road. I do not and never will pay a ghost writer, then slap my name on their work as if I'd written it. This website is 100% authentic. No outsourcing. No ghost writing. No AI-generated content. It's just me... as it should be.
If you would like to support my work, check out the Support The Creator page for more information. Thank you for finding my website! 🖤