I don't know, lazy gurus; have I got it wrong or have most of those marketers who make their money from marketing to internet marketers - as it were - bared their collective souls and suddenly admitted that they're really just a bunch of totally idle, useless, wastes of space? Has internet marketing really reduced itself to asking newcomers to believe that idleness is a virtue and that money grows on trees?

One classic example from my inbox this last week. Amongst the usual mass of "hi firstname", "Oops I got it wrong" and assorted dross another one of those "go, go, go" missives. Clicking through to the sales letter I noticed the often-used picture of a marketer with his smiling wife and child. However, right alongside that was his description of how he was so "shockingly lazy" that he had played a character in a video game for over 104 days in the last few years! Pardon me, was I seeing this right? Lovely wife and child; vast part of life spent playing mindless video game. And this was a sales letter?

What was I being told here? Make enough money and your wife won't mind being ignored? Playing video games for days on end makes you a good marketer? Trust me because I'm an idle geek? I was confused.

Which just about sums up a lot of internet marketing related output nowadays. Slap it up and get it out because the IM junkies will bite. They always do.

In fact, internet marketing junkies must be the easiest market to sell to in the world. Which comes as a real shock to most when they then have to go and sell to real people in real markets, because that's actually hard work, like a j-o-b, and the lazy guru approach just doesn't cut it I'm afraid. I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars on the internet over the years so I think I have some kind of a real take on what's needed and the lazy guru thing is just a load of hogwash, at least if you're trying to build a business that will last.

One classic example of how facts are often twisted to make you buy is the use of that truly disingenuous phrase, "passive income for ever". Purlease. Most subscriptions last four to six months at best, particularly if you're not regularly putting up new stuff. Four to six months is not "for ever", it's for four to six months. That's it.

Then there's Adsense, the lazy gurus' favorite. Well, I have quite a number of Adsense funded sites and the best performer by far is one on mortgages. No surprises why. The rest just don't justify the time I've spent on them. In fact, slapping up Adsense sites only becomes worthwhile when you just, literally, slap them up. With Adsense, ugly is good. Ugly works, because all the visitor wants to do is click away. I'm here to tell you, don't waste time making pretty Adsense sites - life's too short.

Now, affiliate marketing is a whole different ball game. Here it's definitely worth putting in the effort because you can make some serious money from a good presentation. The best affiliate marketing involves you in making the product your own and treating it and writing about it as if you did own it. Decades ago I became the top selling technical rep for a very, very large chemical company because customers always came to ME first when they wanted to order or know something about one of our products. I was always their first port of call; in fact I WAS the company to them, and that should be you with your chosen range of affiliate products.

There's no doubt where the really big money comes from though. To join the big league you need to follow the words of that decidedly unlazy and very intelligent marketer, Marlon Sanders. He's long said that to make the big money you have to have your own product and he's right. I can absolutely back up what he says because over 90% of my online income has come from sales of my own products. And that takes some work I'm afraid. That is, unless you want to put it up on elance but please, don't get me started on that...