Testing Amazon.com Affiliate Program: Linking A Product Within A Blog Post

Making money blogging via affiliate programs is what I am testing out today. The Amazon.com Affiliate Program is an obvious place to start, so I will attempt to add a link to a product, a book, on this blog post. Sounds easy, however, I found getting an answer to my question circuitous:

How does a Blogger embed an Amazon.com affiliate link to a book, for example,within a blog post? I am going to try it now. I just got approved as an Amazon Affiliate today. The current Blogger "Monetize" tab no longer includes the Amazon Affiliate Program, just the AdSense program. Thus, we Amazon Affiliates who wish to embed product links within a post, must jump through the Amazon hoops and manually embed a link. Here it goes:

I'll pick a book I recently reviewed by Barbara Sher, Refuse to Choose. The plan is to allow a reader to click on the title and buy the book through Amazon.com. Supposedly I make a commission, if I embed the link through Amazon Associates Central.

I'm going to Amazon Associate Central now to figure it out. See you soon.

First attempt, I tried to add an Amazon Quick Link widget to both a new web page on this blog and this blog post. It did not work. The code appeared, then disappeared when I clicked back and forth between the "Edit HTML" and the "Compose" tabs, in order to get the code to show as a widget, or something other than a long code, on this blog post. The code also appeared on the new web page I created, however, when I posted the new page, only the title, "Amazon Quick Link Widget" remained, and no widget. (I deleted the page.)

Second attempt, I copied the direct link to the book itself, from the Amazon Associates Central Menu, "Links and Banners," direction number 3) "Get HTML Code For This Product Link," and then pasted it (via typing [Ctrl][v]) onto this blog post.  It first appears as code. I clicked the "Edit HTML" tab while creating this post, and then clicked the "Compose" tab. The book title appeared in blue, at first, but now it's reddish.
Refuse to Choose  Looks good. Now I will publish this post and test out the link. I'll let you know...

Back from testing, and the link worked. Clicking on the title led to Amazon.com and the book for sale. Seems like a cumbersome way, however, to add links from a blog post, if you must go back and forth from blog post to Amazon Associates Central each time you mention a book (or product.) Let's see if I can copy and paste the "hot" title within this post:
Refuse to Choose  I'll test to see if this copy remained "hot," i.e. the link stays intact. I'll publish now and test.

Test complete. The copied and pasted link to the title remained hot, and linked to Amazon.com. Good. Adding a link within a Blogger blog post just needs more editing and busy-work. Some bloggers say it's worth it. Other blogging platforms may have better ways of adding affiliate links within blog posts too.

Now I'll try to copy (via typing [Ctrl][c]) and paste(via typing [Ctrl][v]) the above hot link to the Refuse to Choose book review blog post.

It worked! I highlighted the title in the post and pasted right on top of the highlighted text. The hot link replaced the old text. Cool.

I'm on my way to making money blogging! (Just as soon as I figure out how to get anyone but my relations to read this blog!)