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Monetizing the Nimble Books website via Amazon Associates

I thought I would share with you the results of an analysis I did of my (historically low) efficiency at monetizing my web site via Amazon Associates.

  • Google Analytics page views 1/1/2008 – date: 26032
  • Associates clicks 1303
  • Associates unit sales 14
  • conversion rate 0.0107
  • Associates referral revenue $10.04
  • revenue/month $2.26
  • NB after royalties revenue for referred titles 40
  • Total imputed revenue (referrals + publisher comp)= 50.04
  • Imputed revenue/month $11.29
  • imputed $/page view $0.0019
  • imputed $/1000 page views $1.9222
  • imputed $/click $0.0384
  • imputed $/conversion $3.5743
  • bandwidth used (GB) 56.259
  • GB/month 12.69
  • max GB/month 200
  • days covered 133
  • months 4.433
  • Imputed revenue/GB $0.89
  • overage charge per GB $1.99
  • Cost of High Volume Plans per GB $0.19
  • possible ^ in usage w/o incurring additional bandwidth charge 15.76044129
  • possible ^ imputed revenue by ^ usage x15 w/o additional BW charge =15 x imputed rev /month = $177.89 /month
  • possible ^ imputed revenue by ^ conversion rate x 5 = $889.46

what all this tells me:

* I could increase the usage of my website by a factor of 15.7 before I hit the bandwidth threshold for my account at Pair
* assuming that revenue increased in linear proportion, and that I could improve the conversion rate, I could increase my Associates & Associates-driven revenue into the several hundreds of dollars per month
* increasing usage by x 15 would be hard work, there are other things I could do that would increase revenue more (i.e. publish more or better books)

My website has always been a bit of a mess because I use it as a combined blog and bookstore. It would be better to have a single purpose store. Right now the website is under construction as I experiment with new Amazon Associates widgets.

May 14th, 2008 | Tags: , , , , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Pay-per-conversion Marketing Partnership Program

Dear webmasters,

The following memorandum describes the Nimble Books Pay-Per-Conversion Marketing program. I think it’s a win-win for everyone. If you are interested in participating, write me!

Sincerely,

Fred Zimmerman

Publisher

1. {Website} will set up a new Amazon.com Associate account and tracking id to track sales in this joint venture. {Website} will be payee and account owner and wfz@nimblebooks.com will be added to the account with view privileges.

2. {Website} will be entitled to all Amazon.com referral and other fees generated using this tracking id.

3. Nimble Books LLC will pay {Website} an additional fee (defined below) corresponding to each conversion credited to the “Earnings” report for this tracking id for {Specified Nimble Books Titles and ISBNs}. The purpose of this fee is to give {Website} a strong incentive to make its users aware of the book by making the conversions even more valuable than the default Amazon Associates rate.

4. The total monthly fee will be calculated at the end of each month. Any returned copies of the books mentioned above will be deducted from the fee. Only sales converted using the tracked id and visible to Nimble Books in the shared account will be considered.

5. Nimble Books LLC will not be responsible for any fees for any other Amazon.com books or products purchased by {Website} customers using this Amazon.com tracking id.

6. Nimble Books receives monthly payments for book sales from its distributor, Lightning Source Inc., by the 5th of the month 120 days after the books were shipped to Amazon to fulfill customer order.

7. Accordingly, Nimble Books will be responsible for paying {Website} its additional fee by the 15th of the month 120 days after the monthly fee is calculated. E.g., since Nimble Books will receive its payment for January sales from LSI by May 5, 2005, it will pay {Website} by May 15, 2005 for conversions carried out during the month of January 2005.

8. In the unlikely event that LSI (a large, reputable company owned by Ingram, the market leader in book distribution) is late on its payments, Nimble Books will not be responsible to pay until LSI pays. Nimble Books will provide {Website} with appropriate documentation of the late payments.

9. In the unlikely event that LSI defaults on its payments, Nimble Books will not be responsible to pay its additional fees. Nimble Books will provide {Website} with appropriate documentation of the default.

10. This document creates no other rights or responsibilities on the part of {Website} or Nimble Books.

Website:

Nimble Books LLC:

Per-book additional fee: $1.00
Term of this agreement: expires three months after publication of {book}
Effective date: on signature.
Signatures:

W. F. Zimmerman, Publisher, Nimble Books LLC

Webmaster

May 2nd, 2006 | Tags: , | Category: Uncategorized | One comment

Nimble Books Strategy Refresh

After losing my job ats a product consultant at LexisNexis in December 2002, I switched gears to writing and publishing books. Nimble Books LLC has been in operation since June 2004. It’s been a great experience and I’ve learned a lot about being a publisher. But enough time has gone by for certain trends to become apparent, and it is now time for a strategy refresh.

  • A strategy is a coherent series of choices that leads to victory.
  • Victory, in this case, is financial independence. I’m lucky enough to have a real job that I thoroughly enjoy, but the weight of my financial responsibilities to my family is something that never leaves my shoulders. I want to have “no worries.”

Here are the macro facts of the Nimble Books situation.

  • As currently configured, Nimble Books is approximately a $15K/year business.
  • About 75% of the revenue comes from our series of Harry Potter books.
  • The lifecyle of the Harry Potter books is finite, but we can probably maintain revenue at more or less the same level by doing incremental products and addressing less lucrative enthusiast markets.
  • The Nimble Books website covers its hosting costs via Google AdSense, Google Book Search, and Amazon Associates, but doesn’t do much more. After 20 months of detailed daily monitoring, there is no reason to believe that these revenue streams will ever do anything more than show linear growth.
  • $15K/year is enough to help pay off debts and to help with Kelsey’s college, but it’s nowhere near enough to live on.

The Nimble Books strategy going forward:

  • Maintain the franchise by keeping products up to date.
  • Devote no resources to product development on the website; its primary function is personal expression.
  • Focus energies on developing a portfolio of new products; specifically, novels. Follow the Charlie Stross strategy of starting several series in different genres so that once one sells, they all sell.
  • Realistically, I can hope to write about one novel every six months.

Schedule:

  • Finish up current obligations (AFFC book, website) by June 30.
  • 4Q2006: complete PROLIFERATED.
  • 2Q2007: complete NOVEL IN FLAMES.
  • 4Q2007: complete comic mystery.

Stretch goal: complete and sell ten novels by the time I am 50 (five years from March 18, 2006). (I would be perfectly happy with one!)

February 24th, 2006 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

November 2005 report from Nimble Books

November 2005 was a busy month. Net book revenue was down due to product life-cycle issues, but ancillary revenue from Google Book Search and Google AdSense increased appreciably.

THE SOLOMON KEY AND BEYOND and UNAUTHORIZED HARRY POTTER BOOK 7 NEWS were the two leading topical revenue earners across all media (books, e-books, AdSense, Book Search, and Amazon Associates).


After quite a bit of waiting I got Google Analytics working on my website, together with the terrific asclick utility. Now I can see exactly which pages generate the most AdSense clicks (which turns out to be less thrilling than it sounds, because my consumer-oriented content only averages about 16 cents a click).

December 6th, 2005 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Amazon Associates Preview Links

You know, I spend a lot of time writing about Google and Amazon in this space. But there’s a reason for that. They continue to drive a feverish pitch of innovation in bookselling and publishing. Today, for example, I received a message inviting me to participate in a beta test by setting up a new type of preview link. Hover over this link or the following link to my forthcoming UNAUTHORIZED A FEAST FOR CROWS ANALYSIS (Dec. 15).

(Note: The link works 50% of the time so Amazon can measure its effectiveness. If you don’t see it the first time you come here, clear out your amazon_vf cookie and refresh.)

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November 18th, 2005 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment