Happy Valentine’s Day!! What can I say about this year’s Valentine? Goats love paper. Or as my Uncle put it, “Eat your heart out.”

http://www.lulu.com – about $24 for a 5×8 hardcover (40 pages)

http://createspace.com – about $3 for a 40 page 5 x 8 softcover with perfect binding – pretty designer friendly interface, not quite as easy to use as Blurb.

http://www.blurb.com – 40 page, 5 x 8 softcover $6.95, hardcover with dust jacket $21.95, hardcover with wrap print $22.95 – a VERY designer friendly interface.

http://www.gorhamprinting.com/2prices/hardcover.htm – minimum quantity 25

http://print.bookbaby.com/quoter/packagecomparison.aspx – minimum quantity 50

For a traditional, HTML site – I’ve had great luck with the Coppermine eCard System. Coppermine is free, open-source software that you can probably find in your hosting company’s automatic App installer (where you might find WordPress, Drupal, etc.).

Once installed, it’s easy to get set-up (just follow the Coppermine instructions) – it has a built in eCard system. And you can add CAPTCHA to the eCard form for unregistered guests by following the instructions in this post Coppermine eCard CAPTCHA.

For my purposes, I embedded a picture of the eCard in my main site, then linked directly to the Coppermine eCard form. The eCard appears embedded in the email that gets sent – which is an improvement over services where you have to copy and enter a code to “collect” your card.

For WordPress, I’ve had good luck with http://codecanyon.net/item/wordpress-ecards/1051966 – it’s a pay plugin and it’s not the most polished thing, but I think it works great for how fast and easy it is to set up.

And lastly, I’d like to warn against using Bravenet / Braveapps. My review is that their customer service / communication is TERRIBLE, plus their eCard software is lame, so it’s not worth the hassle. I tried to work with them recently and they wasted hours and hours of my time, and at one point completely deleted my client’s account with no warning or explanation at all.

http://codecanyon.net/item/wordpress-ecards/1051966

A few more notes:

You can add a query to the URL in WordPress, and then just link to that query, see – http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_query_arg

WordPress Plugins to help advertise for affiliates:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/123linkit-affiliate-marketing-tool/faq/ – seems to be a membership thing – they take 15%

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-auto-affiliate-links/ – free, automatically links  to the appropriate affiliate.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/skimlinks/ – similar to above

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-affiliate-network/ – free, displays Google affiliate ads

Article:

Plugin Round-Up from 2010 – http://www.amnavigator.com/blog/2010/05/24/top-20-affiliate-plugins-for-wordpress/

Coupons

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/coupon-code-plugin – free version works well so far, but I’m not sure where to put the <img> for impressions. – $27 for pro with $10 coupon once lite is installed. Doesn’t have a spot for the Affiliate IMG for tracking impressions.

http://www.wpcoupon.com/purchase/ – pay plugin $199 (but I’ve heard bad things about it)

http://www.couponreveal.com/ – broken?
http://wpcouponsoft.com/ – maybe would work, but they don’t have screenshots of the WordPress interface. – $27

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/drp-coupon – free, helps create coupons. On my site, it didn’t work, the coupon wouldn’t go anywhere – tried in both firefox and safari.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/coupon-grab/ – grabs coupons from around the internet and displays them

CJ (Commission Junction)

http://www.wizardplugins.com/ – looks good for CJ and Linkshare (get 25% off http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-forum-classified-ads/274394-premium-wordpress-commission-junction-linkshare-avantlink-overstock-plugins.html ) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5hv3E5sJKY) – but doesn’t set up coupons? $39.95

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/moneypress-commission-junction-le/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cj-datafeed/

Ads Manager

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-ads-manager/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adwit-banner-manager/

Linkshare

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/linksharerss-ads/

Amazon Affiliates:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/amazon-reloaded-for-wordpress/ – free
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/amazon-affiliate-link-localizer/ brings people to their local Amazon store- free
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/amazon-smartlinks/ – free

Escalate Network

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/escalate-network-affiliate-plugin/

This month the Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill that could end the internet as we know it. If the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA), currently making its way through the House, or the “Protect Intellectual Property Act” (PIPA), awaiting a vote in the Senate, become law, corporations will have the ability to “disappear” your website without any due process. Internet innovators like Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, Al Gore and YouTube have come out against the bill because it will be disastrous to free speech, business and yes, to nonprofits.

Web innovators are taking the threat of SOPA and PIPA very seriously. One of the most popular sites on the internet, Reddit, is going to go dark for 12 hours on January 18th to protest against the bill. That will be a small sample of what the world would be like if these bills became law. No more satirical content that uses pop-culture to make a point. No more Fair Use. Nonprofits could be held accountable for what their members post. And nonprofits won’t have the financial ability to protect themselves.

read more – http://www.advomatic.com/blogs/elana-levin/we-left-godaddy-so-should-you-or-why-every-nonprofit-should-care-about-sopa