Famous? For all the wrong, buggy reasons...

Long story short, a colleague of my husband's is a science writer.  She wrote a good article about ticks in Canada and Lyme disease, and it came out today.  Here's the link:
Ticks creep into Canada...

Famous?  Infamous? The article leads with my name.

The other part of this post is an apology.  Canadians, I am sorry if you tried to follow my Amazon.ca links and they all failed for you.  I know why now.

A while back, I was told by Amazon, hey!  We see you are an 'affiliate' in the USA!  You can do this in Canada, too.  What's that?  Well, it means that when I link to my books on Amazon, it gives me a few cents each time a person clicks through and purchases one.  This was something I was signed up for by my publisher, no kidding, in 2009, when my first book came out.  It earns very little, maybe enough for me to purchase a single paperback book every year or two.  (We're talking less than $10US!)

Some people use these to place ads on their sites and generate income.  I never did that, I have never been into monetizing things, although I did figure that if I was recommending a sale on Amazon?  I might use the link so I could afford to purchase something myself as well. 

When I saw the option to include Canada, I jumped at it.  However, according to the affiliate folks, I had to 'qualify' with a certain number of sales in a certain time frame. I asked my kind professor if he would use the link to purchase stuff, thus making sure it worked.  He did, and I put up the affiliate links online for you, too, on occasion.

I was told that no, those purchases had not counted!  I could not refer relatives or friends through the link, that didn't qualify.  (And yes, all the while, the elementary school was asking us to peddle cheese, coupon books, and other fundraisers TO family and friends...HUH.  Go figure.)

So, Canadians, although I am now a citizen and live here, I apparently do not qualify!  A few days ago, I got a note that said this, in part:

We are writing to notify you that your Associates Program application has been rejected and you will no longer have access to Associates Central.

This action was taken because we have not yet received qualified sales activities from your account.  As a reminder, Accounts that have not referred three qualified sales within in 180-days of sign-up are automatically rejected.

You are free to reapply to the Associates Program at any time, but we recommend only doing so if your website receives consistent traffic.

So you know, I consider blog readers my friends, and I know some of you are my family, so even if I re-applied, they wouldn't count those clicks.  If I link to anything in the future, and it goes dead for you, Oh Canadian compatriots, I am sorry.  I tried--oh, I tried! -But I was rejected.

This seems a little bit like being famous for contracting Lyme disease. :)  I wasn't clever enough to remember my tick bite (I've had a lot of them) or to get a bulls-eye rash, nor was I good enough at soliciting sales from strangers.  (Dear readers, I'm glad you aren't strangers!)

Famous?  So definitely NOT.