Most of these products are informational, either an ecourse, software, or ebook. Quite a few of the affiliate products pay more than a 50% commission. The smart product owners offer banners, buttons, sales copy, and even articles that you can use to promote with.

One of the first tasks you'll need to complete is setting up your "store front" to sell the commissioned products. This can be your own website or a blog. If the products vary quite a bit it would probably make sense to set up each product with its own website or blog. There are free blog hosts available. Find them by plugging in +free +blog +host into any search engine.

Web hosts vary quite a bit in price and the services they offer. If you're not very technically savvy consider paying a bit more for a host that offers lots of support.

Now to find a program which pays commissions.

Clickbank is one of the most established programs. Commission Junction is another source. Both of these make the payments to the affiliates so you don't have to worry whether the product owner will pay. PayDotCom is a program which uses PayPal as the payment method. The product owner makes the decision to pay the affiliates and has to authorize PayDotCom to do so.

Many products offer their own affiliate program independently. Look for one with a solid history of payment.

You can also become an affiliate of amazon.com to sell books and consumer products such as jewelry, televisions, or other consumer products. The percentage commission is much lower, but sometimes the retail price is high enough to make up for it. Amazon.com offers primarily consumer products so the holidays are a good time to promote them. Don't limit yourself just to Christmas, include Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation, and Valentine's Day.

Besides your own website and blog, consider setting up squidoo.com lenses for your different products as well. As an added bonus you'll receive a share of the advertising revenue your squidoo lens generates.

The fastest way to make money selling affiliate products is to think about the forums, lists and discussion groups you already belong to. What are the questions being asked? Is there a problem that people need a solution for? What are the hot topics?

Set up an affiliate account at clickbank. Go to their marketplace and search for products that will solve the problems, or are the answer to the questions being discussed.

Post a informative response and include a link to your blog/website where you offer the affiliate product. A softer sell is to post a review of the product on your blog and then post a response to the list/discussion forum stating that you've reviewed the product and they can find out more on your blog. Refer people to your squidoo page.

Affiliate sales can be way to make money from home.