BRAND NEW TO AFFILIATES --- OR A RANT?

[rgilbert15]

- have been selling part-time on ebay for a couple of years and am fairly successful and consistent ... but as many of you know, it is a LOT of work. I feel I could likely scale up my ebay business, but not without more staff and time (is there any left?) spent.

- I am closing in on retirement (sooner than later I hope) I'd would like to continue with ebay for the income while developing a consistent stream of income form online selling/marketing.

- have started to research and look around, signing up for some 'free reports', etc. and naturally have been inundated with all sort of stuff. There is some good information out there, but many of the affiliate programs seem (to me anyway) to be a circle of everybody buys everyone else's program/system/book and when it slows down; start pushing the next 'can't fail program/system'. Now perhaps these programs 'can't fail' when you buy it and then send it out to the 1000's on your mailing lists and push through your website with 100,000 clicks a week. A nominal number of purchase would make it a roaring 'can't miss' success.

- are all these sales letters formatted with the same template? I really can't stand seeing another 'GOTTA HAVE THIS ONE' in very large font, so that a two page come-on takes 17 pages. Does this make it more believable? The 200 page e-books are often the same .... often a 50/60 page book is done in font so large it take up 100+ pages. Does this make in worth more money? Maybe many people can only read when letters are an 1" high?, because everyone seem to use almost exactly the same layouts, large fonts and many colors. I find it tedious, but I guess that's just me.

- how can I possibly be part of this high income group, when I cant write sales letters, especially in HUGE FONT?

- I do believe in the affiliate model and want to get involved, but only when there are valid products/information that can last and not just the hot 'flash' of the day/weeek/month.

- have been mainly trying to sort out the 'good guys' and 'bad guys' and certainly think Rosalind seem to be one of the 'good guys'. A lofty goal for me would be to be in her league one day.

- to this point I have picked up a couple of e-books (Silent Sales Machine, Moving Beyond Ebay) and am even trying one Dave's Little Websites. Naturally I am affiliating with those as well as a couple of others, but of course nothing happens if do not promote them (and I still don't have the 1000's on a mailing list or a website with 100,000's of hits.

- I don't expect to make a gazillion overnight (anyone who does in totally unrealistic) .... in a nutshell it seems to me that I'm going to spend a bunch on promotion to get the traffic to a website and my affiliates' promo and then develop (over time) a decent mailing list.

... or does anyone have some shortcuts to speed up the process, without spending ton$ on adverti$ing (which may, or may not work). From what I have seen, developing your mailing list and having lots of traffic to your website in a must; but this does take a lot of time & money (two commodities of which I do not have a lot of). Another valid recommendation is to write/sell your own product, which makes sense, if you can write decently (I cannot and paying someone to do so adds to development cost and cuts into any profits)

Thanks for tolerating my rant ..... Ron

[boysbach]

hi Ron you are not the only one who doesn't like those long sales letters. I tend to skip them to the bottom with the thought OK how much is it going to cost me.

I got some books by a well know guru and there was a before you enter look at this. I loved it didn't buy but it was short and too the point, yes slightly larger than necessary font but still short.

As far as the sales letters go, you can edit them in any html editor (word pad already installed on most computers will do it) which means you can use it as a guide change the font size I am sure that many other people are like us, and get rid of the waffle and see what happens.

I have a book on ebay which I am testing which puts my bonuses on the top rather than the bottom. As you say why be the same as the rest.
For ebay I do the listing ebay turbo listing which is free with them. Set up a template which does take time save it and then move the relevant ones to upload and send.

The two ebooks I have written breaks all the rules because they are not in large font, but has enough pages in them to make it worth the price.

My logic says if I was buying a book in a regular shop I would only buy the large print version if I had an eyesight problem so why change the rules for an ebook.

You might be surprised at how cheap some people are prepared to write for you and also try writing yourself. I have seen some really badly written books which get huge amounts because of the name on them.

Bev

www.robbev.co.uk