| I had a five year period where I wrote book reviews for fun - and to get more book reviews posted to Slashdot, so I could post Amazon affiliate links there. It was an interesting combination of events. It got kicked off because I read a book review on Slashdot and the reviewer mentioned getting a book in the mail. I asked ( not expecting any response ) how people just got books in the mail for free. Later that day I got an email from a publicist at O'Reilly. That kicked things off. When I was in the thick of it a few years in I got to exchange brief emails with Jon Scalzi, Tim O'Reilly and Lev Grossman. I think Grossman was my favorite because I've read his reviews, respect his ability and he complimented my review of The Magicians. The other part of it was that I had a Slashdot subscription and that meant I saw things that were greenlit by the editors early. All book reviews would have a link to Barnes & Noble. I would see the reviews early and often get a first post and I'd put a link to the book on Amazon at a lower price. That would be an affiliate link and anyone who clicked on it - I'd get a cut of anything they bought on Amazon for the next 24 hours. So the publicists liked me getting reviews in front of a large tech audience ( Slashdot still was at the time ) and I took my affiliate payments as Amazon gift cards - so I got free stuff. Something else I found funny was my reviews were all tech books, Sci-fi or fantasy. Whenever possible I'd get an ebook. Somehow I got on a list with Penguin where they were just mailing all kinds of physical books that were fiction but not anything I'd read. I couldn't get them to stop. They kept sending them for years after I moved away from where I lived at the time. (Friends would occasionally let me know books were still showing up.) |