I'm not sure I see what's wrong with this. The author obviously invested work in this and provided a resource others may find useful. You're free not to buy books through their affiliate links.

Did I say with one word that I find OP's work wrong? Where did you read this? Why are you so negative?

It's great what the OP did and I am really interested in his sales (and he already gave some insights, he's a great guy)

When you say something like "nice affiliate hack" it comes with an implication that it's wrong, because a lot of people on the Internet try to trick others into clicking their affiliate links.

Its OK to use the word "hack" on "hackernews"... negative connotation is not automatic here !

The English language does not change because this is HN and everything thinks their IQ is 3 standard deviations above the mean.

"Nice _______ hack" has an obvious and blatant negative connotation, particularly when it's on its own like that. The implication is that this is just a way to make a few bucks. That's not what the commenter meant, thankfully, but that's only known after further explanation.

Your entire comment came off as negative, the use of 'hack' is only part of it.

I think you're reading too much into it. Taking the word choice at face value it's a pretty neutral, if not positive, statement.

What about this is useful? There is no breakdown of whether the mentions were upvoted or downvoted, no mention of whether they solved the problem (or were even relevant to the question), no review of the books so that readers can make an informed decision, etc. This list is not much different than making a list of the top selling programming books on amazon.

I like lists like this for discovering books I haven't heard of. I don't make an immediate buy decision based on appearance in a list, and will do more research. But it's a nice way to run into something you didn't run into before for some reason.

To each their own; shaming the OP on HN for adding affiliate links on their own website, on the product of their own effort, is what I'm trying to point out.

> What about this is useful?

> This list is not much different than making a list of the top selling programming books on amazon.

Something which Amazon does, because likewise 'others may find [it] useful'.

>You're free not to buy books through their affiliate links.

You're only free to do this if you know that it's an issue. Unless you know about the affiliate program, you may be supporting this person against your own will. Even if you do know about the affiliate program, you may not know that after you click an affiliate link, the owner of the code gets a chunk of ANY Amazon purchase you make in the next 24 hours, whether or not it is related to the original link.

I find this mindset baffling. I mean that earnestly. Can you try to explain why other people making money bothers you?

It seems pretty clear that amazon thinks affiliates provide a useful service. And if you go to amazon because someone shared something that interested you enough to buy it, they've provided you with a service. What exactly is the problem?

Because it is a undisclosed conflict of interest.Imagine you go with a friend to a bookstore , and he recommends to you several books. Since you seem to trust your friend and you have the money, you buy the books. Unbenknownst to you, your friend receives a 5% commission, and he never disclosed it to you. Same principle. It is a whole different game if he mentions this to you in advance, since now you consider your friend a as an interested part and you will consider his recommendations more carefully.

I would see a conflict if it was selective as to which book. But this gives no preference to one book over another.

So I'm still not getting it. I see no conflict.

So? He can overhype all the books without giving preference to one. He can pontificate about how important is to read books, how all the geniuses at HN read these very important books and so on.He only needs to maximize the money spent on the books, not the selling of a particular one. He is advertising beers (and get money from all of them) not just Budweiser.

Except this page discloses it...

Except it didnt when the post was submitted, it was fixed later by author and good for him since he was in violation of Amazon TOS

Agreed, disclosure seems called for.

The UK regulator and the US regulator are pretty clear that affiliate links need to be clearly marked as such.

I posted yesterday on reddit, 5 books sold

Thanks for the info, highly appreciated!

Do you think it will get decent traffic through SEO in future?

As to be honest, I have no clue about SEO at all :) I'm happy some other developers checked it out...Didn't even think to support this project, data is quite static. But according to some feedback, some things to be changed for better filtering. Will get on it at night :) Not really interested in sales, will be happy if amazon would send me a pack of beer :)

Now I just need to write a book called 'closed as duplicate' and I'll be set for life!

Will be happy to see your book in the top :)

In 2011 I launched a side-project called hackerbooks.com (wayback machine link https://web.archive.org/web/20110305143421/http://www.hacker...).

It got a fair bit of traction.

Out of my memory, Amazon affiliate links only earned me something like $30, total (I had other sources of revenue via targeted ads, which earned a bit more, but not much).