Any of this sound familiar? Maybe I exaggerated a little, but you've heard the song, right? There are a lot of possible (stress on "possible") ways to make money online. Because it can be a very low cost way to get started, learning how to affiliate market is often touted as a great game for newbies. To a shark marketer, newbie is another word for "fool". Every single person getting into internet marketing goes through the newbie stage. Quite a few never make it out of the newbie stage no matter how much experience they gain and how knowledgeable they become.

Let's define something here - in this context I'm using fool in the sense of "a fool and his money are soon parted." The burning desire to escape from a dull, boring job that sucks up your lifespan but keeps you in misery can make us all foolish. We want to get rich and get free. Now. That "now" is also part of the definition of "fool."

You can not get rich overnight (except, maybe, through inheriting, gambling or theft). Repeat after me: There is no such thing as a free lunch. There is no certain, easy, fool-proof way to get rich fast for the average person.

Most internet "marketers" don't make any significant amount of money. And by most I don't mean 50.1%. I mean something like 95 to 98%. This is just reality. This is why all those websites with examples of earnings are required to have disclaimers - you know, the stuff in light grey that goes - "these results are exceptional and are not meant to indicate the results the average buyer can expect..." - or whichever set of weasel words are used.

Now, if affiliate marketing were all that easy, those numbers would be a lot different wouldn't they?. So why is affiliate marketing pushed on newbies? It is a nice low cost entry point. Kind of like a free sample from a drug dealer. When it turns out to be just a bit harder than anticipated, why then there are courses, ebooks, tools, other forms of marketing - backends galore. For the sharks to sell to the increasingly desperate.

Also, beginners do send traffic and enough beginners sending a little traffic, even if it's not well targeted will cause some sales. This is good for the marketers if not for the affiliates. Even a few hundred affiliates who make one or two sales a month does nice things to the marketer's bottom line even if it won't be making the affiliate rich and free overnight.

Maybe that's overly cynical - probably very few marketers are doing this consciously. They may recognize, understand and profit from the reality, but for them, the better an affiliate does, the more money they make. But maybe not so much better that the affiliate no longer needs courses, ebooks, etc, promising ever better, easier, faster money? Are you getting the idea that maybe most of those ebooks and courses aren't telling you everything you need to know?

Let's say you are a relatively regular type person without a huge amount of experience or a lot of money to invest. Can you actually make money doing affiliate marketing? Or is it really a foolish thing to try? First, go back up there and reread that fourth paragraph (no free lunch, remember?) a few times. If we've put that easy, instant overnight riches things out of our heads, then if you are willing to learn a few things, not rocket science either, and if you are willing to work, then even if you have no significant money to invest, the answer is yes. You can actually make money. It is not instant, but it can be faster than you might expect. It is not easy, though again, it doesn't require genius, actual regular people can do it.

I don't have the space to spell it all out here. But, as an example, you can do affiliate marketing with articles and free ads and if you put in the time and effort, the money will come. It costs nothing to submit articles. There are good places such as USFreeAds where you can submit free ads. Yes, you need to learn some things but it's largely a question of following a steady, repetitive pattern. Doing it over and over and remembering that there isn't a destination, an end point really. You're involved in process when you do affiliate marketing. Keep at it.

I can hear it now - "I can't write an article", "I can't write an ad". Oh yes you can. Read ads, read articles, read sales copy, read your emails from the gurus. Don't copy them word for word (I know email marketers often send out affiliate mailing without changing a word, but that isn't smart). Rewrite them in your words. Imagine you're talking to a friend. Whatever works. And gets you going. You will learn, you will get better. But you have to start - AND you have to continue. No more starting something and dropping it for the latest big thing.

Hopping from one thing to another program to another course to a new tool and going around and around looking for the magic all-in-one super-duper easy riches answer, is one reason the success numbers are so pathetic. So sorry, but making money on the internet, through affiliate programs or anything else requires, work, consistent effort and stretching yourself.

You can do it, but you have to want it more than you want to watch TV, surf the net mindlessly or daydream about getting rich. If you're ready to put in the time and the effort then learning how to affiliate market could be the fool's game for you to play and - this time - end up a laughing winner.

Copyright 2006 Richard Keir