The myths of affiliate marketing

by Sapphire (July 31, 2006)

I just re-read this post, and I saw it could be read in an angry tone. I assure you I’m not angry… just sort of musing aloud and wondering why I don’t want to use tactics I know work.

How many people are making money by talking about The Rich Jerk? I don’t mean by selling his stuff, or using his techniques: I mean, by writing e-books about him or his techniques, or blogging about him, or starting debates everywhere they go? You just hear about something hot, and then you yap yap yap about it somewhere and in rolls the money, right?

How many of the big, important, successful affiliate marketing blogs spend 90% of their time reporting what each other said about something, rather than actually writing anything new?

How many ebooks are there that teach you how to follow a few simple steps to becoming a millionaire?

I probably don’t read as many blogs or ebooks as I should, but this is why. You have to chop your way through an absolute jungle of repetition and/or complete baloney out there to find the rare helpful tip. It’s so tempting to just follow a few blogs and write daily responses to whatever they talk about, post it and watch this site grow as I fill it up with posts of marginal value. It’s tempting to write a book about how to use some common tool to do some common thing, and then see if I can find suckers to buy it. But in the end I don’t, and it’s not because of some great moral. It’s because I can’t be bothered to do something that bores me in order to make money. It’s one thing to do annoying site maintenance because it must be done: it’s another to do half-ass work when I could be doing… well, whole-ass.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing
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