A while back, I wrote about the Amazon Vine Program, which exists so that Amazon can get customer reviews for products prior to their release dates. This helps Amazon to sell more products–even before they come out–which is great for Amazon’s bottom line. Plus, Amazon gets paid by manufacturers for this service. So what’s in it for you, as an Amazon Vine member? The one who’s doing all the work, reviewing the products?

1. Get Free Stuff

As an Amazon Vine member, also called a Vine Voice, you get to keep all the stuff you review–without even having to pay for shipping. Vine members may review include books, stationery, treadmills, GPS navigators, PC gaming products, netbooks, tablet PCs, NAS devices/servers, cameras, camcorders, speakers, hard drives, and lots of other products. Just from the examples listed here, I’d say it’s worth the time to put in a well-written and well thought-out review!

2. The Opportunity to Try New Products — Before They’re Available for Sale

As an Amazon Vine member, you choose items to review from a special catalog every four weeks or so. This means you’ll be able to try out a lot of cool stuff before anyone else would be able to order it on Amazon. This sounds like it could be pretty exciting.

3. Drive Traffic to Your Blog or Website

Every reviewer–even those who aren’t Amazon Vine members–can include their blog or website url in their profile. So if your well-written and conscientious review inspires a bunch of Amazon customers to click to your review so they can check you out, you’ll also be getting free promotion of your blog or website. And since reviews written by Amazon Vine members command more attention than reviews written by regular customers, Vine members have the potential of driving even more traffic to their blogs or other websites.

4. Promote a Book You’ve Written

Just as you can list your blog or website in your Amazon Vine member profile, you can also list any books you have written–published or otherwise.  For published books, this can mean increased sales. And for books you’ve written but for which you’re still searching for a publisher, getting extra exposure for the title certainly can’t hurt: you never know what influential publishing industry rep may be viewing your profile, especially when it comes to book reviews you’ve written.

How to Join Amazon Vine

Whether you’re motivated by receiving free products or simply by the opportunity to read new books or try out new products before they’re released, the Amazon Vine program could be an interesting opportunity.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to request to join Amazon Vine–Amazon selects new individuals to invite by reading the product reviews you’re already writing on their site. So if you want to increase your chances at getting invited to join Vine, get yourself over to Amazon–and keep those reviews coming!