Amazon Fees Halve Revenue
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Sam Parr shares a story about how Amazon's recent change to affiliate commission rates drastically affected his blog revenue.
"The other day, someone in our transcript group told me Amazon changed their fees. I have various blogs, including my personal blog, that make small amounts of money - like $3,000 to $5,000 a month off Amazon affiliates. I don't even check it, it just runs because I've written a lot of content over the years.
I was earning 6% to 9% for affiliate revenue, and then they changed it and halved it. The money just halved. It wasn't a big deal for me because it wasn't a major income stream, but if you're Wirecutter or Buzzfeed and you made $100 million from this, it's a huge deal.
My categories were mostly personal care, electronics, and books - they lowered rates across all categories by about half."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.