I haven’t a clue how amazon’s system works in detail, possibly if you’re already a client they don’t count referrals anymore, though that would preclude practically anyone from being counted. I do know they’ve dropped a few confirmed sales (4non’s futurama buy) and frankly sales are in the toilet since January, so I would be interested to know. I’m fairly sure opening a fresh session from a newly started browser and clicking through and buying in the same session ought to ensure the referral, but you never know. There are also parasites, spyware that puts it’s own referral codes into people’s browsers so that they end up benefiting the spyware author and not the person that sent the sale in the first place.

Most affiliate programs try to stop that but again I dunno if amazon cares.

Also, I thought that maybe, perhaps, possibly the affiliate info wasn’t stored in my cookies, but on Amazon’s servers. As in, customer RGE arrived last time from affiliate KK, which was X days ago. How do they know it’s me? A cookie, obviously, but I sure hope that cookie doesn’t contain all the info they have about me and the credit card I use. Anyhow, I also thought that the affiliate thing lasted for a day or two, or a week or two, so if I often visit Amazon through various links, it’s a toss-up who gets credit for my purchases.

What? Am I thinking too hard about this? Should I stop trying to abuse the system? ;-)

I asked Robert Deas that question, and he said that he had discussed it with his editor and reached the conclusion that it’s a matter of pacing and text/images ratio. Or something like that.

Neat attempts to make me click your Amazon links! Oh… wait… this is the one page where it’s ok to click those links! I forgot. I’ve been trying to purge my Amazon history by not visiting for a month (started as two weeks though), hoping that when I actually do visit they’ll be so grateful for one of your links sending me there that they’ll not attribute my purchases to one of their own email links, or a link I followed a week ago from some other site. Unfortunately I don’t think that I currently have enough to buy quite yet. Maybe when I’ve finished my current Malazon book?