Beware the viewBook.at and viewAuthor.at link shorteners! (Video)
There’s an update to the post. Click here.
The viewBook.at link shortener service promises you one link to your Kindle book on the appropriate Amazon site for all regions.
That seems pretty cool until you realize what’s actually going on when you use their shortener.
Not only are you getting a short link, the service provider is adding a referral code to that shortened link, so that they get commissions off sales every time you use their short link.
You may say that’s not really an issue since they’re offering a free service, but my issue is that they’re not transparent about the fact that you’re driving commissions to them. Keep in mind that it’s about more than them just making a commission from the sale of one book. Whatever else the customer purchases while they’re in that Amazon session, viewBook.at will make commissions off those items, too. That means if someone buys an eBook for $2.99 through a viewBook.at short link, viewBook.at makes about six cents. If, in that same session, someone makes a $399 purchase, then viewBook.at is making a commission off the purchase of that item, too, and it’s considerably more than six cents.
This is a big deal if you, like me, have your own Amazon Associates account set up to make commissions off the referral links you create. The commissions I make from using referral links to Amazon help me make extra money to keep this site and several other sites running with a minimum of ads.
It’s also an FTC regulation violation for a company not to reveal that they’re being paid affiliate/referral income from a service/product they provide/promote.
Just to be sure my suspicions were correct, I did a test.
I created a referral link for a free eBook, The Complete Sherlock Holmes:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AHE20W0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AHE20W0&linkCode=as2&tag=twitter-faydeon-20
Notice at the end of this link, there’s tag=twitter-faydeon-20. That’s the part that lets Amazon know that you clicked on that link from one of my sites, and that’s how you found your way to Amazon.
I put that entire referral link into the viewBook.at shortener, and this is the link I got back:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AHE20W0/?tag=viewbookat-20.
Notice anything similar about their link and my link? Yes, it’s that tag=???-20.
This means that they’ve overridden my referral code with their referral code.
Now…
Look at the bottom of this site…
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Did you read that the Index has many referral/affiliate links and what happens when you click through those links?
Right…
Now go to viewBook.at and let me know if you see any information letting you know that they’re doing the same thing. Don’t forget to look in their Terms of Service, too.
See viewBook.at and viewAuthor.at change their Terms of Use for updated information.
But, wait… There’s more…
The folks who bring you viewBook.at also offer viewAuthor.at, which is another service that generates a referral link for your author profile on Amazon. That means if you use their shortener and someone clicks to view your author profile, and that person decides to purchase all the books you’ve written… you get the picture, right?
Anyway, driving commissions to the folks at viewBook.at and/or viewAuthor.at may not be an issue for you, and that’s totally fine. However, I think you should be aware of the fact that that’s why their service is “free.”
If you’re an author or publisher trying to make a little change by referring readers to your links, then viewBook.at and/or viewAuthor.at may not be the services for you.
What tweeters are saying about this article…
@faydra_deon Thanks for the heads up!
— Andrew McAllister (@a_j_mcallister) March 2, 2013
Beware the viewBook.at and viewAuthor.at link shorteners! This is why I don’t RT these links. v1s.it/XKgtUA #iaindex
— eBookBuilders (@eBookBuilders) March 2, 2013
A very interesting topic which I will be following more closely now, thank you.
I have recently used both of the above viewBook and viewAuthor.at and this article will make me look a little more closely now.
Thanks for your comment, John.
Thanks Faydra for alerting us. Obviously they will harvest a lot of affiliate income with their free service. Not being transparent about it is the issue.
Exactly! It’s the lack of transparency I have an issue with, not that they’re trying to generate affiliate income from their services. I mean, many of us realize that affiliate income helps us pay for what we offer free to our visitors, but not telling your users that you’re doing this isn’t just bad form it’s against the law. The FTC has made it clear that you’re supposed to disclose this information very clearly for visitors to know. Not even in their Terms of Use do they mention they’re adding their referral link to the link you use their services to shorten. Not cool.
Thanks for reading the post, and thanks for commenting.
So do all link shorteners do this?
Not that I’m aware of, and I’ve used several. These seem to be made for the express purpose of offering convenience to authors while making affiliate income for themselves.
Hi All
Well, I’m in charge of both viewBook.at and viewAuthor.at and this post was brought to my attention by a very on-the-ball colleague!
You are indeed correct that we add an affiliate tag to the links. This does not in any way diminish the author’s royalties – because any affiliate commissions are paid to us directly by Amazon, from their share of the money.
In fact, many authors using our links have actually reported an increased income, probably because of less drop-out from people landing on the wrong Amazon and giving up.
We do not broadcast the fact we are an Amazon affiliate for two simple reasons that:
1) We like to keep our site simple and clean
2) Author income is not diminished and therefore we wouldn’t want to confuse any potential registrants on that basis.
We have never sought to “hide” the fact that we may make a few pennies from Amazon directly if people buy your books. In fact, I can assure you that we do not rake in any massive fortune from these tools. We have quite exorbitant server costs to cover (and, after paying for them in advance for several years, we are not even turning a profit yet).
I don’t think there is anything wrong in us making some money from Amazon too. After all, we build and maintain very useful tools, keep them running at full speed, market/promote them and everything else. Much the same as an author shouldn’t be resented for earning royalties on the back of a book they wrote.
So, I’m sorry to see that we have been given a rather negative press here, but I am perfectly satisfied that we operate very honourably and I would most certainly use the service myself if I were an author!
Best of luck in promoting your respective books – even if you’re not using our links
Aaron
To address a couple of the other points raised, I should probably add that:
1) We are indeed only an Amazon affiliate in the US & UK – at the moment.
2) I will take onboard your point about the Terms of Service. I will make sure that a line gets added to it today which explains the issue of Affiliate commissions clearly – and dispels any misguided concerns an author might have regarding their royalties.
Many thanks
Viewbook.at has been a great help to me. Maybe the transparency issue was something that needed airing. But now I see they have added Terms of Service to the website in which they are fully transparent.
Thanks for being on the ball, Faydra. As a result of your vigilance the folks at viewbook.at are now in a better position, as are we who use their service.
All’s well.
Thanks for your comment about your positive experiences with viewBook.at. It really is a cool service.
My only issue with it was that they weren’t transparent about their use of affiliate links.
I still think it would be more transparent to have the information about the affiliate links on the page where you get back your short link, but at least they’ve put it in their terms of use. If nothing else, they’re now in compliance with FTC regulations.
I’m glad the viewBook.at links are working out for you.
I agree with you, Faydra.
Indie Author Index is a superb resource for writers.
Thank you.
Vic
Viewbook added a full transparency clause on their website weeks ago. Many book promotion sites use affiliate links. The money they make for advertising your book comes out of Amazon’s pocket, not the author’s. It’s a great tool and I do recommend it. I’m an author–and I have no affiliation with Viewbook or the people that run it, other than I tested their program early and suggested the transparency clause.
I actually wrote a second article about the fact that they added a line to their terms of use about the affiliate links. It was further down in the article on which you commented.
However, I still wouldn’t call their disclosure full transparency when you think about the many people who don’t read privacy and/or terms of use policies.
As I said to the creator/owner of the site, it would be full and total transparency to add that information on the page where the link is created, since there’s absolutely nothing on that page to let an author know that once the link is clicked an affiliate tag will be added to it when the link opens on Amazon’s site.
I actually stumbled upon a WordPress plugin that localizes Amazon links, by the bye. This means that authors can do the same thing themselves with the Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer and keep their affiliate money for themselves to offset the fees they pay to Amazon to sell on Amazon’s sites.
The most interesting part of your comment is that as an early user of the veiwBook.at service you suggested they include a transparency clause about the affiliate linking. Since I didn’t learn about the service until several weeks after it had launched, and there was no clause about using affiliate links then, it leads me to believe your suggestion was overlooked, lost in their emails or simply ignored.
Thanks so much for shedding a little more light on this subject for me, and enjoy the service viewBook.at offers. I’ve never said it is a bad service. I just caution authors to be aware (beware) what’s really going on when they use the service.
Hi Faydra
I took a look at that WordPress plugin page, but I’m not sure how I would go about using it. If you get a minute sometime would you post a quick step-by-step guide on how to use it. viewbook.at is simple – you just put your link in. Not sure how I would it myself though.
Cheers.
Vic
Hello, Vic:
Yes, it’s simpler to use a site like viewBook.at to do this, because you’ll first have to set up Amazon Associate accounts with all the Amazon sites in different countries, set up a self-hosted WordPress blog, activate the Amazon Affiliate Link Locator plugin, , create a post on your WordPress site and then use another plugin like Page Links To that forwards to your Amazon base link which activates the Amazon Affiliate Link Locator script to take the visitor to their local Amazon site.
Exhale
I didn’t say it was quick. I just said it could be done.
Forget I mentioned it
Thanks, Faydra ;0)
I set up WordPress sites almost daily; for myself and for others.
If you wanted to give it a go, I would be more than willing to help you.
Like you said, though, using a site like viewBook.at would be far easier if you don’t have the know-how to do it yourself.
I’m grateful I do, because I’ll be launching seebook.at as soon as I have some time to get another site up and going, and it will definitely not add affiliate/referral tags to the links that are created.
Now you’re talking, Faydra – seebook.at – me want – Go girl!
Vic
Ready and willing, ma’am
Good to know – thanks! If I get to the point where I want to use affiliate links on my author website, I’ll be sure to use straight Amazon links.
And… you’re now aware of the fact that those services are adding their own affiliate/referral tags to the short links they create, so you have a choice.
The original purpose of the article was to point out that when the services started they weren’t telling authors about the affiliate/referral tag being added.
I’m not a big fan of taking away people’s choices.
Thanks for you comment, Andrew.
Just got a DM from an @[twitter handle withheld for privacy] pitching the viewBook and viewAuthor link shorteners that smelled like an old fishing boat! The results of your due diligence, and the fact that you cared enough to share it, spared me from having to do the same. Kudos to you!