Teen Reading Site....Amazon affiliate

[Jennifer Hadorn]

I'm contemplating starting a reading site for teens and young adults with (affiliate) book links to Amazon.com, but the site will enable readers to submit their own reviews AND I want to offer a writing forum. The plans include a writing contest with the winners "published" on the main site. Each book will have it's own page with reviews and the site will be broken into genres and subjects.

I just wonder if using ONLY Amazon.com will be profitable, or if I should take another approach? What other book/reading related sites offer affiliate programs that I could implement into the site without looking too "sales-y" or like I'm trying to push sales. Maybe comics and books on eBay? I'm just not sure about that...

I used to work for Amazon.com customer service and I helped many a customer find something on the site because they were overwhelmed. Mind you that was 4 years ago and the site has grown tremendously in that time. I personally don't think it's that hard to find things on the site, but I'm really familiar with it.

It's still just a concept right now, but I do have a test site up under one of my other domains to test the layout and color scheme. If I do decide to proceed it will just be a quick upload of files from my computer to the new site. Right now I'm showing an image and small link with some information on the book, and a form to submit reviews. The forum will have to come later, but that's easy.

Advice and direction are appreciated on this one.

[netadventures]

Hi, Jennifer,

The thing I would be uncertain about is targeting teens for affiliate sales. A lot of teenagers don't have credit cards, and with Amazon's 24-hour cookie, you may end up losing a lot of referrals if the teen and the parent use the same computer. And if the teen has her own computer, then you're very likely to lose your referral fee, since she's likely just to tell her parent the name of the book.

Just a thought ...

- BJ

[Jennifer Hadorn]

Those are the concerns I have about it as well. Are there any other book sites that offer a better conversion than Amazon? Additionally, what would be add-ons to the books? Since I am targeting teens, I have to figure out a way to get the parent (ie the spender) involved.

Things to think about before diving in.....


Thanks.

[onlineleben]

[netadventures]