Affiliate Programs are a venerable aspect of online money making, none more so than Amazon.com’s own program. Recently, John Chow reported on why he wasn’t an Amazon.com affiliate (most likely, because he runs his own affiliate program, called TTZMedia) saying that he thought the products were non-exclusive, low rates of commission, etc..

It reminded me that I had joined Amazon.com affiliate’s program yonks ago. I think I got $22 or so. Not bad, but I didn’t take a check for the amount. Instead, I used it for books and videos. I took a look at the recent stats, I had earned a grand total of $1.36 since January. I hadn’t done anything to earn that money, except place the code on a few sites, about a century ago.

So I’m now trying to add the code to this website, to see what happens. Since I added the old code, there are a few more options, such as Omakase. Affiliates writes:

Omakase – leave it up to us! Omakase links will show an Associate’s visitors what they’re most likely to buy based on Amazon’s unique understanding of the site, the user, and the page itself. To create Omakase links, simply modify the template and appearance elements below and copy the resulting code on to your page. Then leave the rest to Omakase!

This will create dynamic links for your product ads, though you can choose general categories as well. I selected out Personal, Sports, etc., though I included books, video, and so on. This image shows the general options, including banner size, but there’s an advanced options feature that allows selection of categories.

Despite John’s criticisms, I still think Amazon can be helpful for blogs that don’t have other Affiliate programs going, or if you want to include book products. It’ll give you a chance to get a feel for affiliate programs, but soon you’ll be wanting to earn more!