Wouldn’t it be nice to receive a little something back when you recommend a book, like Solar on my Roof to someone? Just a little commission for pointing someone to your favourite site or author? Sure it would, and you can by joining an affiliate program.

The way these work is that when you refer someone to a website, you usually provide them with a link. That link can be encoded to show where that link originated. The merchant can then allocate a portion of the income from these sales to the affiliate that brought the customer to the site.

Smashwords has provided just such an affiliate program. As with all things online make sure you understand the Terms and Conditions. The rules are surprisingly simple:
Do not be a menace and spam folk, do not be underhanded and present your links as something they are not and you will be good.

This will allow you to make a bit of money on the sale of ebooks by people that your links have taken to the Smashwords website. The affiliate income is usually around 10%. This affiliate income for from all books purchased as a result of your traffic to Smashwords, not only for my book.

The way to capitalise on an affiliate program is to place the affiliate links into your normal blog content when you update the company website or in your regular newsletter that you send out to your customers. Adding a link to your email signature also means that the link gets out and somewhere down the line one of your contacts will click on the link. As long as the link points to something that is relevant to your contact, you could find affiliate income a welcome addition passive income.

Go and take a look at the Smashwords Affiliate program here.