As I mentioned before I use the Now Reading plugin for WordPress here. However, it has a small anoyance. It linked to the “You may also be interested in these items…” page, rather than the item’s detail page. If the user didn’t click “add to cart” and looked at the “also interested in these items” stuff, it would cut your earnings from 15% to only 5%. Then again an article titled Amazon Associates Beware states:

The “ref=nosim” links apparently work correctly, although they are undocumented on the Associates site. However, it’s unclear as to whether you make more money from using them. You’re more likely to make that 15%, but you might make more in the aggregate from the recommended items you get using the first method. That is, the number of people looking to buy that item right away (say, 2 people counted at 15% apiece for a $15 item for a total of $4.50) might be offset by the number of people looking to browse and then buy (10 people counted at 5% apiece for a $15 item for a total of $7.50). The reports for my site at Amazon show that people who click through seem to browse and then buy rather than buy directly…I just need to get them into the store and Amazon will take care of the rest.

So perhaps it is best to leave it as is, especially on a site like this where book sales are not a real focus.
Anyhow, I applied the “ref=nosim” bit to the Now Reading plugin. I applied it to template-functions.php file. I added it to the function book_link funtion after it puts in the books ASIN number. Here is the fixed section of code:

[php]function book_link() {
global $book;
$options = get_option(‘nowReadingOptions’);
echo apply_filters(‘book_link’, “http://www.amazon{$options[‘domain’]}/exec/obidos/ASIN/{$book->asin}/ref=nosim/{$options[‘associate’]}?tag={$options[‘associate’]}”);
}[/php]

This may or may not be helpful, but I prefer to go to the books detail page myself… at least for now. 🙂
EDIT: Of course it would perhaps be best to make it an option in the options panel, but that is too much work for me at the moment. Also, I might try to fix the links some of the other stuff makes to be cleaner like that.

Over to your right, you will see a randomly selected item from either Sara’s Amazon Wishlist, or mine. While I got the initial script from Two Ells, I modified it to randomly select Sara’s wishlist or mine, as it initally did just one wishlist.
Basically I modified the original code:
[php]
$aw_wishlist_id=’ ‘; //The id of the wish list you wish to search. Hint: Search for (don’t simply go to) your wish list and copy the id from the end of the URL.
[/php]
with the following:
[php]
$list_to_use=rand(1,2); // change second number to number of lists to search.
if ($list_to_use == 1) {
$aw_wishlist_id=’ ‘; //The id of the first wish list you wish to search. Hint: Search for (don’t simply go to) your wish list and copy the id from the end of the URL.
}
else {
$aw_wishlist_id=’ ‘; //The id of the second wish list you wish to search. Hint: Search for (don’t simply go to) your wish list and copy the id from the end of the URL.
// replace above with
// else if ($list_to_use == next number) if using more then two wishlists & modify from there.
}
[/php]
I then had to replace:
[php]
$aw_header = ‘Amazon Wish List’; //Used to label the box.
[/php]
with:
[php]
if ($list_to_use == 1) {
$aw_header = ‘1st names Amazon Wish List’; //Used to label the box.
}
else {
$aw_header = ‘2nd names Amazon Wish List’; //Used to label the box.
}
[/php]
As the original is under GNU licence obviously the above modifications are as well, feel free to add them to your Amazon Wishlist plugin if you wish (in the unlikely even that anyone visiting is actually using WordPress and the Amazon Wishlist plugin). 😉

Update: I am using the PHPizer plugin now as well from the same site to add color to the code. Also, it seems somebody did come here to get information on it.

Update 2: It seems WordPress changes the apostrophe (‘) to a single quote mark in the above code listings. If you are going to use the code, you will need to replace the single quote marks with apostrophes.