Swap affiliate link for link?

[wheel]

I've just built some reasonably cool new functionality for a fairly popular CMS. I'm going to release it publicly, for free. (there's other places with this functionality, but they're all paid).

Part of the functionality uses a paid bit of software. That software has tons of affiliates, I'm going to approach the affiliates with 'you should do a post/link to my directions, it's motivation for people to buy that software that you're an affiliate for'.

Now here's the question. There's one affiliate that's a pr 7 - and in this case the pr7 means something. Rather than just asking for a post, I was thinking about suggesting the following:

- you give me a permanent link from your homepage. In return I'll link to the software module from my document....using your affiliate code.

What's going to have better results? Soft sell just asking for a blog post using the idea they're going to make money? Or get right upfront and offer the affiliate link in exchange for the permanent link? I'm concerned about turning them off by being too bold.

[martinibuster]

There's also a third way, which is to approach them without an offer, but simply lay out what you have, letting them know you want to explore ways to cooperate, and see if they make an offer. Less jarring to ease into a discussion of ways to cooperate rather than emailing out of the blue with a proposition.