I'll answer your questions in a moment. First, two notes for G.
- Dr Who fans are NOT crazy, they are the enlightened ones. People who don't watch Dr Who are the crazy ones.
- If you are going to invite Nathan Fillion to join the board to keep Erotica Jane happy, then could you also ask Tamala Jones (Lanie) to join, for my benefit!
Now back to the matter in hand:
Rather than go through solicitor to run your affiliate program, I would suggest you use a third party processor to do all the work. This will cost you nothing to set up, although (obviously) they will take a percentage of each sale. I use two companies, both allow you to set your own percentage of the sale price. However be careful, they state it as a percentage of what you get after their cut. When you advertise, you really have to state it as a percentage of the sale price, rather than quote what they say, otherwise you will look dishonest.
There are five reasons I use a third party processor. They are:
- You don't need a solicitor, which will cost you thousands before you even start.
- A lot less work that trying to run it yourself. I tried that when I started, spent more time running the damn affiliate program than I did writing.
- You don't need to employ an accountant, which you will need if you run it yourself.
- Although the processors charge a percentage, I still think it works out cheaper than employing an accountant and solicitor. And if you work out the time you yourself spend on running the affiliate program, and imagine you pay yourself minimum wage, you will find you owe yourself more money than the third party would have taken
- (This is the best bit) If someone screws up, and something illegal gets through, in most cases (NB "most", not "all") it is the third party processor that is breaking the law, not you - they get to go to jail, and you just get a major fright!
Now there are two companies that allow erotica, and allow you to set your payment percentage. Here are links to their sites:
A1 Adult eBooks (aka Fiction 4 All)
SmashWords
There are several differences:
A1 are a British company, located in England (so they are UK law compliant). Pretty much a one man band, and the guy who runs is is quick and very helpful. They specialise in adult fiction, and even without your pushing it send details out of your new releases to all their clients. You can expect them to sell between a dozen and a hundred of each book to start with, which may not be many, but it is a good start.
One disadvantage of A1 as that they specialise in bondage, and although they sell other types of book,they do not sell as well to their members (this can be seen by the fact that "sales to their members" of bondage books that I manage for JW Throat, Slavegirl Annie, and "The League Of Sadistic Bastards" tend to be in the 50 to 100 range, my own books that are non bondage, only sell about 12-25 copies to their members) however if your main push is going to be via your affiliate program, this may not matter.
A more serious problem is that Stuart kept changing his mind about the affiliate program. Sometimes he offered a third of sale price, sometimes ten percent, now it is set by the author. He also changed the link codes twice, forcing affiliates to change all their links. So a lot of affiliates decided "fuck this for a game of toy soldiers" and stopped using them.
The advantages of Smashwords are that they are a more professional looking site, they have a large team and (and this could be a deal maker) they also act as agents, and pass your books on to other publishers.
The disadvantages are:
- Their site only looks professional on modern browsers using Windows 7 or above, it does not work properly on older browsers (no idea how it copes with non-Windows OS).
- They block access to erotica by default. The surfer has to sign up and change their settings to see erotica. If someone comes from an affiliate link, they will probably not bother signing up to see your book's ad page.
- Their software only works with Microsoft Office. If you created your book on any other word processor (even if you saved it in MS Doc format) their software will mangle it and sell a corrupt version of your book.
- Since you are not American, you will have to first prove this to the US IRS, otherwise you will be paying income tax on your books both in America and England! This is a long, multi stage process involving a lot of form filling in, correspondence with both Smashwords and the US government, sending of "proof of UK citizenship" etc. In other words - it is a pain in the arse, and by the end of it you will be writing to your MP demanding that we point all our nuclear weapons at Washington, then press fire!
- Although they sell to their existing members, you won't sell as many as you will with A1. Between none and ten (in my experience, more often none than ten).
Of course, there is nothing to stop you selling your books through both companies. Initially I sold my Adult books through A1, and my non-adult books through Smashwords. I am currently in the process of adding the adult fiction to Smashwords too, so both will carry my erotica.
Do be aware that neither company really push their affiliate scheme. And with the exception of one widget, they don't supply tools for the affiliate. You will have to do this yourself. You can look at my two affiliate programs, as examples, via the links below:
Planet Dominatrix (my book)
Eric Shaun Publications (some are mine, but most are other people's books that I publish)
Hope this helps. If you need any other information, let me know.
