Quote:
Originally Posted by Fbone
Amazon states only affiliates that “are promoting primarily free Kindle eBooks” will be affected if they also fulfill the 20,000/80 rule. So, in your example above you shouldn't loss your payments because you don't promote free ebooks primarily.
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Via email, they have stated that exceeding the limits is HOW they will determine that you promote primarily free books. And that incidental purchase will all count. It won't matter what traffic you send, only what is actually purchased.
At least this isn't an account closing offense (as some are), but it will be a big wakeup call to some. None of us know how many free ebooks are purchased via our links, only the clicks that are registered. Once there, any one of those could buy dozens of free books ... or none.
None of used the free book sales as a model (not the small bloggers anyway; the big freebie sites that are programatically set and sell placement advertising did, obviously) - freebie hunters don't buy much other than the freebies, IME. They do purchase some and no doubt that helps increase reads on sites (so adsense is happier), but they are not a significant source of sales for Amazon or earnings for most affiliates. Amazon is smashing the little guys with a hammer, when the big ones they are likely seeing as the major source of traffic (who probably hit 20K a day) will continue, but find other revenue sources (which won't solve Amazon's problem).
re: author sales. Presumably via one site, as they have been paying for placement at the big ones. $150 in placement = many, many thousands of downloads == higher ranks == avg $600-$700 in actual sales in next few days of same or related titles. I was actually a bit surprised at the numbers, as I had not been following the forum where they were discussing this much lately.
I suspect aggregator sites will have to crack down on those they allow to share their site (viglink, squidoo and others). That or lose what is no doubt tens of thousands in referral fees each month.