Merchant ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare and Amy Ely joined Kim Salvino of buy.at and to discuss affiliate tools and sub networks.

Topics Include:

A Tools Overview – understanding the different types of affiliate “tools” and where to find them

Pros & Cons – discussing how these tools can be helpful and also a look at the risks

Spotlight On Skimlinks & VigLink – how these companies work and what program managers need to know

Industry View – recent developments, new technology and international policies

Ultimately, the discussion highlights the importance of transparency, solid relationships, good communication and making the right decisions for your program.

Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Amy Ely
Kim Salvino
Merchant ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

BookGoodies host Deborah Carney interviews author Stacy Juba about publishing as a teen by a big publishing house, and later with a smaller publishing label and eventually independently publishing. We also discussed collaborative book promoting and KDP Select vs expanding to other ebook platforms. There is also a discussion about whether we want children reading ebooks or staying with print books. Would enjoy your comments on that issue as well!

Here is a short bio from her site, you can read the longer version here:
Although Stacy Juba specializes in writing adult novels, she has also authored books for children and young adults – she pursues whatever story ideas won’t leave her alone. Stacy’s titles include the mystery novels Twenty-Five Years Ago Today and Sink or Swim, the mystery short story Laundry Day, the children’s picture books The Flag Keeper, Victoria Rose and the Big Bad Noise, and the Teddy Bear Town Children’s E-Book Bundle (Three Complete Picture Books), and the young adult novels Face-Off and Dark Before Dawn. She is a former journalist with more than a dozen writing awards to her credit and is currently working on a contemporary fiction/romantic comedy novel, as well as a new mystery novel. Many of her titles have appeared as #1 on various Amazon Kindle Top 100 lists.

Why should affiliates care about book authors? Marketing. They are learning to market themselves just as affiliates market others. Plus many affiliates should be considering publishing books, and the collaborative promotions that authors are doing something affiliates might want to consider. Form collaborative groups that can promote without competing. And of course, if you are an Amazon affiliate, our podcasts can lead you to new authors that you can promote and be a part of their success by creating a best seller

Stacy’s Website
Stacy’s Twitter

April 19th 2012 – Give Your Child A Free Kindle Book Day

BookGoodies Twitter

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts.

BookGoodies is pleased to publish our interview with mystery writer Mike Bove, who you can find more out about at MikeBove.net Mike is involved in a really cool free book promotion day – Friday the 13th! 13 mystery and suspense authors are going to be offering a scary book for your Kindle or Kindle apps to enjoy on Friday April 13th.

Deborah Carney interviewed Mike after he contacted BookGoodies about the Friday the 13th book promotion. Join us to hear his story about publishing independently and how he got involved with the group that is sponsoring the spooky giveaway. The event is being sponsored by Stacey Juba and their press release will be posted below. In the meantime, have a listen to Mike as we explore the town and characters of Willowtree and his journey to get there.

Show Links:
Mike Bove’s Website
Stacy Juba’s Website
BookGoodies Page About the Friday the 13th (April 2012) Book Giveaway

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, please visit them for more podcasts and screencasts about all things geeky.

BookGoodies hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare talk to successful author Jim Kukral about the way book publishing is changing. There is a major shift from publishers and agents as gatekeepers of published books to authors being able to publish whatever they want. Is this good or bad? Listen to us to find out!

More links to Jim:
Business Around a Lifestyle
Author Marketing Club
Digital Book Launch
JimKukral.com

About BookGoodies:
BookGoodies.com
BookGoodies Facebook
Contact us to be our guest or suggest topics to cover.

All of us on Twitter:
JimKukral
BookGoodies
Deborah Carney
Vinny O’Hare

Many thanks to GeekCast.fm for hosting our podcasts. Visit them for more podcasts and screencasts about marketing and much more.

BookGoodies hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare talk to Recipe Book Author Kent Lorentzen about his book, his photography and why he self published.

Find Kent Lorentzen on the web:
http://kent-lorentzen.artistwebsites.com/
http://www.pixbykent.com/
http://twitter.com/NiftyGaloot
http://www.amazon.com/author/kentlorentzen

Merchant ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare and Amy Ely joined Kim Salvino of buy.at and Liz Fogg of Team Loxly to answer a fundamental question for affiliate managers: What key steps should I take when launching (or relaunching) an affiliate program?

Key Steps Include:

• Review the affiliate list – check your program’s placement on the site, understand how they’re promoting your program (and make sure they’re compliant with your PPC policy), ask industry contacts about their reputation, consult your network or OPM, review forums and search online for any positive or negative feedback about the affiliate

• Evaluate the program terms – make sure you have program-specific terms in addition to network terms, ensure they’re clear and consistent, outline search policies on using brand name in the display URL, misspellings, brand + term bidding, and consider including terms for coupon affiliates to set expectations

• Assess the creative – include a wide variety of fresh text link and banner creative in IAB standard sizes, create deep text links (deep linking should be a requirement!!), offer a well categorized, regularly updated data feed and provide content for affiliates to use on their site

• Understand the competitive landscape – is your commission structure, cookie length, conversion rate and creative suite competitive?

• Develop a communication plan – send out an introductory newsletter to affiliates and an announcement post in forums and social media, consider including a survey to ask what they need, determine when you’ll send newsletters and if you’ll echo communications through social media, provide your full contact details and be approachable, genuine, and responsive to affiliates

• Walk through the affiliate’s shoes – sign up to the program an affiliate, identify how long it takes for network approval, understand the process for pulling creative, viewing reports, and more so you can identify pain points that may deter affiliates and consumers

• Test, test, test – test your shopping cart in all major browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome), complete a test purchase to ensure tracking and reporting are working as expected, confirm that affiliate transactions across different networks track properly

There is plenty of additional information in this information-packed podcast. Enjoy!

Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
TeamLoxlyLiz
Amy Ely
Kim Salvino
Merchant ABCs
Geekcast.fm

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

Merchant ABCs hosts Deborah Carney, Vinny O’Hare and Amy Ely discussed the benefits of working with an Outsourced Program Manager (OPM) and how to find the right one for your business.

Key Takeaways:
· OPMs bring experience, relationships, and expertise that can help grow your business
· Understand the OPM’s philosophy and approach – what networks and types of affiliates do they work with?
· Determine the levels of service offered and the right fit for your business – is it best to start off as a consulting relationship? Do you need full service? Will you co-manage or leave all the work to the OPM?
· Research the OPM’s involvement in the industry and their reputation – are they active in the community? Do they provide helpful and expert information over blogs, forums, podcasts, or through speaking at conferences?
· Make sure you agree with the OPM’s approach to recruiting affiliates – will they recruit via email, phone, social media, conferences, etc?

Find us on Twitter:
Vinny O’Hare
Deborah Carney (a.k.a. Loxly)
Amy Ely
MerchantABCs
Geekcast.fm

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts, check them out for lots of other great podcasts about affiliate marketing and marketing in general.

We are pleased to announce our new BookGoodies podcast which will feature tips about self publishing (indie book publishing) in both eBook and print format. Our inaugural podcast features host Deborah Carney and “sometimes” host Vinny O’Hare, who are both delving into the world of self publishing. Both are photographers and authors that want to help other people get their content published. Book publishing is experiencing a revolution, and we want to help people publish good, well formated material.

While not necessarily affiliate marketing focused, there are a number of affiliate marketers and merchants that should be creating books to help increase their site’s reach and authority.

Our goal for our podcast is to teach, inform and to interview authors that are self publishing.

Contact us to be our guest or suggest topics to cover.

Thanks to GeekCast.fm for hosting our podcast.

In this episode Debbie and Vinny talked about the Books4boobies.org fundraiser where all the money from over 20 authors will go towards the Avon walk. We also discussed the local Affiliate Summit meetup in NYC and what was discusssed.

We also delved into Google Hangouts and how Vinny is using them with affiliates.

Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare discuss Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas, and how this was different from past Affiliate Summit events for both of them.

Traditionally we attend Affiliate Summit representing our merchants that we manage, and spend our time discussing our programs with affiliates, talking about industry issues with our peers and meeting new people. Sometimes we have a Meet Market table, and Deborah has spoken on many panels, This time Deborah had a Meet Market table for the Affiliate Summit Networking forum to bring attention to the fact that people can network there between affiliate summit events, and Vinny was a speaker with a solo presentation. We also had more merchants actually in attendance than we have had at one time in the past.

Some links from the podcast:
Vinny’s Slide Deck from his presentation – 25 Ways To Improve Your Website
Affiliate Summit Networking Forum
Eric Thomas Keynote
Vinny O’Hare Website
Vinny on Twitter
Deborah on Twitter
Links to our Merchants

Thanks to Geekcast.fm for hosting our podcasts!