Marketing Misconceptions: Let's Talk About Affiliates, and Audience Reaction

Regular readers know that among the various hats I wear I'm an author, RPG designer, and occasional audio drama creator. However, what I feel like a lot of folks either don't know (or forget) is that probably a third of my income every month comes from affiliate marketing. I've talked about what that is and how it works on this blog before in posts like If You're An Author, You Really Need An Affiliate Marketing Account, but the short version is that when you're an affiliate marketer you make special links to products that you then share on your social media, in your content, and so on. Whenever someone clicks your link and buys a product, the company gives you a cut of their proceeds as a commission for being instrumental in making that sale.

And there seems to be a lot of misconceptions about this process, who it does and doesn't hurt, and how it actually works. So I wanted to take a moment to talk about a recent experience I had, because it illustrates a lot of things folks out there might now know.

Landlords don't take wooden nickels, friends. We do what we have to do.

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Mercenary Work For A Good Cause

For folks who don't know, Owen K.C. Stephens has had a recent run of really bad medical stuff come his way. An RPG designer and big name in the community, he put together two really big bundles of gaming content to try to help him pay his bills. Owen's Medical Bills Bundle #1 and Owen's Medical Bills #2, in case you haven't checked them out yet, and you're a fan of TTRPGs.

When I saw the news about what was happening, and I saw the bundles go live, I wanted to help. After all, if I were in his position, I'd want people to do the same for me. However, before I made a single post, I reached out to Owen and asked him if he was cool with me attaching my affiliate ID to the links I shared. He knows the struggle of being a game designer as well, and he enthusiastically supported my doing that. Because both of us knew that the 5% commission I would receive for the sales I helped make wouldn't come out of his earnings... they would come out of what Drive Thru RPG, and its parent company One Bookshelf, would have made.

So with the blessing of the person I was trying to help, I set about sharing the link and boosting the signal. By the end of the day I'd been permanently banned from two forums, temporarily banned from one more, and had at least two more posts removed. In every, single case the reason was because I had used an affiliate link instead of a "clean" link. Several individuals left comments claiming I was "just trying to make money" off of someone who'd received a cancer diagnosis, and others argued that since I didn't have any products in the bundle then I had no right to make this kind of link. Other colorful things were also said, but those were the two most common accusations.

Most important to note here, though, was that no one said these bundles didn't belong in the groups I was sharing them in. No one argued that they were not a good deal, or that they shouldn't be present. Only that the way I'd chosen to boost the signal (namely taking my commission from DTRPG) was somehow so bad that it tainted the entire process. Fruit from the poisoned tree, and the like.

There were some very strange flexes, is what I'm saying.

First things first, I want to make something clear. The commission you receive as your affiliate payment is your motivation for helping do the marketing for someone else's products. Even if I like someone, even if I enjoy their work, or even if I want to help, I do not have an hour or more a day where I can just share a link around on social media. Especially when you consider a lot of groups limit how often you can post things, meaning that I would have to choose between paying my own bills by sharing something I made, or helping someone else by sharing something they made. Being able to still get paid for helping boost other creators' signals is the reason I can actually afford to help get eyes on other peoples' work.

Secondly, let's say that sharing these bundles was a purely numbers-driven decision on my part. Let's say I didn't know Owen, and I didn't care about his condition, but I felt that these bundles would make sales, so I decided to do my part to share them around. What does that change? I am still boosting the signal on his bundles, I'm still getting more eyes on his product, and I'm still helping make sales through those efforts. Not only that, none of the money going into my pockets is coming from him as the creator, or from any other creators I've helped over the years.

Again, One Bookshelf is giving me a cut of their profits. The company's profits. The same way that if I use an Amazon affiliate link, I'm getting a part of what Amazon would make, not part of what the seller is getting paid. End of the day, whether it was an affiliate link or not, the person who made the thing is making the same amount of earnings.

Don't Defend Corporate Earnings

I get it, none of us like advertising. None of us want to be exposed to constant posts about buying stuff. However, I feel that it's important that we understand the mechanism for how these aspects of our online experience work, and about how they affect the creators we see in our spaces.

Because if the argument had been that someone didn't want to see advertising, that's a fair enough statement. If the objection had been that nothing for sale should be posted in these groups, then that would make sense. But the argument was that I was trying to take advantage of someone who I was specifically trying to help earn more money, and that I should have just shared the link to the bundle without attaching any of my affiliate information to it.

And I genuinely believe that people making this argument have no idea how the process works. Because that statement basically boils down to two things:

- You shouldn't be paid for any of the work you're doing on behalf of another person.

- The corporation shouldn't have to share their earnings with you, despite you being responsible for helping them make money with your labor.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be mad about the constant monetization of everything in our world, or that there shouldn't be limits on where people can promote their work, and how often they can do that. However, if you are specifically mad about affiliate marketers getting paid for doing a job on behalf of themselves and fellow creators, take a moment and ask yourself why. Why are you siding with corporate profits over people doing a job getting a small piece of the pie for their efforts?

Because if someone out there wanted to do essentially free marketing to try to help me move copies of my books, I sure as hell would want them to get a commission from the corporation who owns the platform my work is on so that both of us can pay our bills at the end of the day.

Speaking of Good Causes...

If you got to the end of all of that, and you're wondering how you can help Owen out, give my blog entry Help Owen K.C. Stephens Roll His Save Against Cancer (And The Healthcare System) a read.

And if you'd like to help yours truly, my first Kickstarter just went live yesterday, at time of writing. So if you're in the market for an unusual TTRPG experience, check out Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic, and help me reach my goals on it today!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

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