Blogger's Most Useful Gadgets

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Blogger has steadily developed several featured gadgets, fun gadgets,  gadgets to increase page views  and gadgets that monetize your blog. Hundreds of gadgets are available merely by clicking on buttons from your blog's design page. Some are quite random and others downright impractical, but  I've found the following the most useful of all.

To access any of the gadgets, just go to your dashboard, click on design, then add a gadget. After you've added them, just drag and drop them where you'd like them to be. Remember to save the new changes when finished or they won't show up when you click on 'view blog'.

Amazon Payments

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Blogger has made it pretty easy for every blogger to become an Amazon affiliate. From your dashboard, just click on Monetize, Amazon Associates, copy the code onto your blog's template and away you go!

But this is the easy part. Most of my friends, and indeed Bloggers I visit regularly are now proudly advertising all sorts of Amazon products on their blogs. It's so easy, right? This means that Amazon has got millions of us advertising for them, free of charge. We pay nothing to join - and this is the way it should be. However, do we ever get paid? Ever?

I've got an immensely popular article (Top Pop Songs To Sing With Your Kids) which comes at the top of Google's searches in the UK. There are 23,900,000  results for this particular search, so you can see the relative popularity of this post. (This piece also comes up in the first page of searches on Yahoo, Bing and Ask).
Now, my Google Analytics tells me that half of the people who land on this page leave via the Amazon links with which I've monetized the article. You see, when I realised how popular this piece had become, I went back to it and embedded links (with my unique code) to the appropriate Amazon pages. I linked to each song on the list with the phrase, 'download this in MP3'. There is no ambiguity. Visitors are told that the link goes to a page from which the track(s) can be downloaded.

Reason tells me that if viewers are voluntarily leaving to go to the Amazon pages, they're doing so to buy copies of the song(s). This particular articular was posted in April. So far, there are no sales recorded in my Amazon reports. Go figure!

I've been thinking about removing Amazon ads from my blogs. Of course, I'll still be keeping an eye out for great book sales etc. My readers won't be very happy if I didn't. Besides, A Blogger's Books is known for finding fantastic deals where books, writings and jobs are concerned. What I'm saying is that Amazon ads take up quite a lot of space on my sites. I could be using this space for programmes that actually properly monetize my blog. I have one such programme in mind. I want to gauge what you all think about Amazon Associates while I make up my mind.

• Are you an Amazon Associate?
• Have you ever been paid?
• Do you think you may have unrecorded clicks/purchases on your Amazon reports?

Please leave your answers below. Thank you. I will update this post in the near future and tell you about another programme which may be worth your while. 

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Barnes and Noble Halloween Book Sale!

This article has been edited to give you the most current book deals. Please see the end of this post

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Barnes and Noble have always been one of the best places to shop when it comes to getting great deals on books.  They're  running a splendid 50% Halloween discount off kids costumes and books at the moment. If Halloween is a holiday you celebrate, this is a deal you won't be able to miss. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. This 50% discount doesn't end at just books.

My Follow Friday - Success Demands Action

A Blogger's Books runs a very popular Follow Friday - blog style. Generally, writing and publishing blogs are featured in this section because this is - after all - a writing and books blog. Now and then, however, Follow Fridays picks out blogs from other genres that stand out from the crowd.

Success Demands Action - Your Self Improvement Blog is one such site. In their own words they're a 'Self Improvement blog, [supplying] unique tools, informative articles, inspirational quotes, [and] motivational videos. [They also store a wealth of insight] from some of the greatest motivators of all time!'
My initial attraction to this site was quite casual. I also run a self-improvement blog and I suppose, inevitably, our paths were meant to cross at some point. I quickly became engrossed with the material and fantastic advice offered on the blog. Posts are well-written and original. Tips and advice are all given with authority and a generous measure of professionalism.


I was very impressed by the number of articles on the site. Many blogs in this niche are very limited in the quantity (and quality) of posts they produce. This one is lacking in neither. I recommend a visit to Success Demands Action. I'm sure you too will find something to suit your needs!

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