The Amazon Link and The Machine of Death

One of the ways in which you readers help keep Schlock Mercenary afloat in orbit (space metaphor FTW!) is through shopping at Amazon.com via a link on this site. We moved some things around when we rebuilt the site, and I recently got a new Amazon widget installed in the lower left of the page.

Here's how it works: Follow any link from that box over to Amazon.com, and the items you decide to pick up, whether or not they were items advertised in that box, will be credited to my associates' account. You don't pay any more for the item. Amazon just makes a little less, and Sandra and I get a percentage, typically somewhere between 5% and 8%. 

If you don't want to shop at Amazon, please don't go out of your way to change your behavior for our sake. If you're already shopping at Amazon via a different Amazon associate who needs your support, keep up the good work. But if you've been shopping via a private bookmark, you're leaving money on Jeff Bezos' table -- money that he's happy to spread around a bit. Think of it as economic stimulus. You shop at Amazon via a Schlock link (any link on this site will work), and next month Sandra and I spend a portion of that money on groceries. The grocer then sends a portion that money to his son in college, which his son then squanders on Schlock Mercenary books, which he may even choose to pick up at Amazon so he can save money on shipping. We all win (some of us win twice.)

While you're at Amazon, I suggest you check out Machine of Death, a collection of short stories about people who, with the help of this eponymous machine, know how (but not when) they are going to die. It was created by some names you webtooning aficionados may have heard before -- Ryan North and David Malki. I don't have my copy yet, but I am certainly looking forward to reading it.