Affiliate Classroom Magazine: December 2008

Volume 5 Number 1 December 2008 AffiliateClassroom.com The journal of affiliate marketing and management best practices The “Year of the Swan” Recession Marketing Profit in ‘09 From Lessons Learned in ‘08 A Look Back at 2008 2 Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 Table of Contents Download the black and white version at AffiliateClassroom.com How to Profit in 2009, Using Lessons Learned in 2008 By David Long COVER STORY What can we take from 2008 and apply to 2009 for the best year possible? Some strategies implemented for this year’s economy may not be the best for next year’s. Read an expert’s insight into what lessons we should and shouldn’t take with us in 2009... PAGE 3 8 The Economy and Affiliate Marketing: Should You Worry? With the U.S. economy in a recession, what is the affiliate to do? However, as an affiliate marketer, the world is your marketplace. Discover the positive benefits and “keep it safe” tips every affiliate should know... 13 2008: The Year of the Swan 2008 was a year in which some thought the affiliate world was standing still. Was this really the case? Take a closer look at the end of The Year of the Swan as we look toward the future ... New to Affiliate Classroom? Click here now for a free introduction to affiliate marketing. This magazine is now brandable by our affiliates! To join our affiliate program and earn residual income by sharing this magazine with others, visit the Affiliate Classroom website and look for the link to our affiliate program. About Affiliate Classroom Magazine © Copyright 2008, Affiliate Classroom, Inc.™ and the individual authors. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction of any portion of this publication is forbidden. Contact the Managing Editor to request permission to reprint articles. All contents of this issue, including design, photos, graphics, and text are copyrighted. ll brand names and trademarks are the property of their respective holders. Staff, Helen Montgomery, Managing Editor Affiliate Classroom, Inc.™ 387 Technology Drive, College Park, MD 20742 Affiliate Classroom Magazine is published monthly by Affiliate Classroom, Inc.™ Back issues are available at AffiliateClassroom.com Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 3 FEATURE STORY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 How to Profit in 2009 Using Lessons Learned in 2008 By David Long JDavidLong@gmail.com The end of the year is always a good time to review lessons learned and develop a strategy for the upcoming New Year. This time around, with the economy in a nosedive, that's more true than ever. Despite the tough times — with retail sales down more sharply than anytime in the past 40 years — it's still possible to profit in 2009. Just think about what you did right or wrong in 2008, and zero in on the best strategies. Don't forget a very important and always applicable lesson in PPC affiliate marketing: concentrate your PPC dollars on developing relationships, not sales. PPC Strategies Any affiliate who does PPC will want to take a good, hard look at his or her budget. PPC has traditionally required you to watch every penny, to make sure you're getting your money's worth. Now that is more true than ever. How can you stretch those ad dollars? Simple. Just don't forget a very important and always applicable lesson in this realm of affiliate marketing: concentrate your PPC dollars on developing relationships, not sales. With a PPC geared toward making a sale you've got one shot to make it. Fail, and your money was wasted. Develop a relationship, and you'll have returning customers who give you sales (and more word of mouth) month after month. How do you do that? It's really not so hard. Instead of just offering a product, encourage your visitors to opt in to your email newsletter list. When you succeed, you now have someone who has indicated an openness to hearing from you later. That gives you many more chances to make a sale. But don't just make your newsletter an endless series of sales pitches. That very quickly turns off even those predisposed to read what you have to say. Instead, take it as an opportunity to be the go-to guy or gal for information on everything related to what you pitch. Are you an affiliate for, say, an Internet coffee club? Wonderful. You've got a chance to share your enthusiasm over the latest Peaberry from Kenya. Selling cameras? Excellent. There was never a better time to help your customers decide which is the better buy between the latest Canon 10MP and 12MP models. While you're thinking about PPC, consider some new arenas. Reach beyond Google and Yahoo. Try some Facebook ads. You'll find that, done thoughtfully, you can target a specific niche, and one that is generally expected to have rising income over the next several years. While still dominated by youthful visitors, Facebook is attracting more and more people from all age and income groups. You've got the whole Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 4 COVER STORY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 world to choose from here. Hone Your Marketing Skills With the uncertainty we saw in 2008 that is sure to continue throughout 2009, more people than ever turned to the Internet to make a buck. That's actually a good thing! Sure, competition is always...well, competitive. But all those added voices also help raise the general awareness of the buying public to what you have to sell. Hone your marketing skills, and you can carve out a larger share of the market. How? Look around at other websites in your niche, and you'll quickly realize that you can increase your revenue by improving your content. If you don't have the time or skills to do it yourself, one inexpensive way to do that is to subscribe to a PLR service. In the interest of full disclosure: Yes, that's a blatant plug from a freelance writer! Nevertheless, it's still true. Private Label Rights allow you to get content that is professional and easily tailorable to your website (so you avoid duplicate content penalties). This is also an opportunity to create that new version of the graphics and functionality you've been thinking of for some time. When things slow down a little bit, you have a little more time to invest in inexpensive changes that can bring you big profits down the road. Even a good-looking, fine-tuned website can benefit from a makeover. Customers like to see change; it tells them there is a dynamic team behind the site. Incorporate your visitors' suggestions when you make the changes and you will see higher conversion rates. When you think about honing your marketing skills, consider what you did in 2008 and how effective (or not) it was. Did you use all the available information from Statcounter, Analytics, and the rest to find out how people found you? A careful keyword analysis will show you what works and what doesn't. Common sense will carry you far, but it really helps to have hard data, especially if you have A and B versions of the site. I discovered for example, that months after posting a blog post on 1957 Hamilton Ventura watches, I'm still getting visitors looking for that unique timepiece. I expected that content to be attractive to collectors for about a week or two at best around Christmas time. What a surprise! It turns out that there are a lot more people interested in that niche than I could have known. But I wouldn't have known it without using the free tools available. Even a goodlooking, finetuned website can benefit from a makeover. Customers like to see change; it tells them there is a dynamic team behind the site. Be Patient For those of you who just got started in affiliate marketing in 2008, it's especially important to remember that it was an unusual year in many ways. Seldom have we seen such large-scale, roller-coaster changes and uncertainty, thanks to the economy and the election campaigns. If things are taking a little longer to work out for you than you anticipated, don't be discouraged. It can only get better from here. Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 5 COVER STORY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 Affiliate marketing takes a long time in the best of times. Building a website, achieving a good ranking, and learning the ropes all require a long-term commitment. Not years, certainly, but don't expect huge sales in just a few weeks. In the October Affiliate Classroom issue, you might have read the story of Super Affiliate Amit Mehta. (If you haven't, you should do it soon!) His experiences show how you can really make a lot of missteps but, with grit and by being adaptable, you can get on track to big riches. One way to profit from an ebook is to use it as an advertising vehicle for your affiliate websites. Even if you don't see much income from ebook sales, you've created a very low-cost advertising vehicle. Try Something New This Year Write an ebook. In good times or bad, but especially in bad, you want to look for ways to increase revenue that require little investment of capital. One way to do that (a way affiliate marketers are real experts at) is to substitute your labor for spending hard cash. How? Consider writing an ebook. Another shameless plug for my ghostwriting services! Seriously, though, it's a great way to make money six ways from Sunday. One way to profit from an ebook is to use it as an advertising vehicle for your affiliate websites. ClickBank makes that a breeze. That way, even if you don't see much income from ebook sales (which is sure to be the case if you give it away), you've created a very low-cost advertising vehicle. You can also use an ebook to polish your credentials as the expert on a subject. Look how much good publicity Rosalind Gardner received from The Super Affiliate Handbook. Of course, there's nothing wrong with actually making big bucks out an ebook, and it happens from time to time. The chance to grab the brass ring motivates writers of paper books to keep slogging away, even though only a small percentage get the gold one. The same can happen with ebooks. There are several differences, though, where ebooks are concerned. With a paper book, the publisher and distributor get about 90% of the sale price; you get about 10% at best. With an ebook, you get all the money. (That's one big reason ebooks can sell for so much less.) Ebooks also have a much longer shelf life. Most paper books go out of print once they're pulled from the bookstore shelves. Ebooks are forever. That means ebook income is, potentially, forever. Ebooks are also cheaper and take less time to produce. A paper book takes about a year or more to write and another two years to hit the shelves. You can write and market even a large ebook within a few months or less. Enter a New Niche. People who take risks get the rewards. People who keep doing the same thing over and over again usually do not. You may not be realizing your full income potential because you're in a niche that isn't right, or just isn't right for you. Things change. Some niches get hot, then fade. Who knows why? You may have arrived at the party late, or you may just not have a flair for a particular niche. Try a new one! Maybe you started selling doll collectibles because it's a personal Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 6 COVER STORY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 passion. That's a great way to get motivated. But you probably have more than one major interest; most people do. Look at some of the others and see how you can monetize them. With people spending more time at home the coming year, there are lots of new possibilities. More time spent at home means games will likely get bigger this year, both the online and real versions. Entertainment always does well in a recession. (Remember the movies from the 1930s? Ticket sales went through the roof.) That means DVD sales will probably go up. (Streaming films and downloads aren't quite here yet.) Home improvement products will improve. As the sale prices of homes decrease, people will be spending more to dress them up, whether to sell them or just to live in them more comfortably. Those are only three possibilities for new affiliate marketing niches. Give it some thought, and you can undoubtedly come up with many more. Some niches get hot, then fade. Who knows why? You may have arrived at the party late, or you may just not have a flair for a particular niche. Try a new one! The Future The future is always unpredictable. But as you are an entrepreneur, which is central to what being an affiliate marketer is all about, I expect you get jazzed from that. It means taking a risk, but it also means pursuing your dreams. Move your dreams closer to reality by learning from your experiences in 2008. That will make 2009 your best year ever. Have a great future! About the Author David Long is a freelance writer and editor with over 20 years of experience. His PLR articles and eBooks have appeared on hundreds of websites. They cover topics that include Wine & Beer, Travel, Gardening, Health & Fitness, Pets, Stocks & Bonds, and dozens more subjects. He can be contacted for hire at JDavidLong@gmail.com Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 fxtáÉÇá ZÜxxà|Çzá yÜÉÅ Tyy|Ä|tàx VÄtááÜÉÉÅ j|á{|Çz tÄÄ ÉâÜ áàâwxÇàá? tyy|Ä|tàxá? ÑtÜàÇxÜá? ÅxÜv{tÇàá? ytvâÄàç? äÉÄâÇàxxÜá? áàtyy? tÇw twäxÜà|áxÜá tÇw çxtÜ y|ÄÄxw ã|à{ ÑÜÉáÑxÜ|àç? yÜ|xÇwá{|Ñ? {xtÄà{? tÇw tÄÄ zÉÉw à{|ÇzáA V{xxÜá4 TÇ|~ f|ÇztÄ? YÉâÇwxÜ tÇw VXb? Tyy|Ä|tàx VÄtááÜÉÉÅ? \ÇvA 8 FEATURE STORY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 The Economy and Affiliate Marketing: Should You Worry? By Kathy Jackson jacksokathy@gmail.com The U.S. government has finally confirmed what we already knew: the U.S. economy is in a recession. The world economy is in a recession. Homes are being repossessed at an alarming rate. Banks are failing — BIG ones! The Big Three U.S. automakers are in deep financial doo-doo. Is the sky falling on affiliate marketing, too? How does this brick-and-mortar recession affect business in cyberspace, particularly in the world of affiliate marketing? Well, the world economy is, of course, going to have an adverse effect on the Internet retail market. If people have less money to spend on nonessential retail merchandise in the "real" world, they have less money to spend on nonessential retail merchandise being sold on the Internet as well. Affiliate marketers who make their living selling luxury retail merchandise are only going to suffer. There's no doubt about it. But the news isn't all bad. The sky isn't falling. First it's important to get a handle on the REAL facts. With good information, you CAN recession-proof your affiliate marketing business. The news screams that unemployment could reach 10 percent, and that's bad; but that also means that 90 percent of the workforce still has a job. A single-digit portion of homes are being foreclosed upon; but most homeowners are making their mortgage payments. Some banks are in trouble; hardly all banks are in trouble — just the really, really greedy ones — but credit can be difficult to obtain anyway. Isn't it fortunate that affiliate marketers don't rely heavily on credit? It's always been true that when a recession occurs, some types of businesses and some people suffer greatly, while others not only survive, but thrive. It's always been true that when a recession occurs, some types of businesses and some people suffer greatly, while others not only survive, but thrive. Affiliate Marketing Is, by Nature, Somewhat Recession Proof! Here are some facts: Those who work for manufacturers and merchants out in the brick- Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 9 ECONOMY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 and-mortar world can be "laid off." But you are your own employer. You aren't going to get laid off; you have a job! Those who own small brick-and-mortar business must depend on walk-in traffic. But as an affiliate marketer, the entire world is your marketplace. Your customer base is much, much larger than that of the proprietor of a small real-world business. Out in the "real" world, rents can increase to the point that a business can no longer afford space to conduct business. But the price of maintaining your affiliate marketing business address isn't going to increase at all. Fuel prices could rise high enough to make it impossible for people to drive to and from a job. But affiliate marketing is done at home. All of the equipment needed to conduct an affiliate marketing business is a computer, an Internet connection, a telephone line, and electrical service. That's it. With just those four things and the information that you have in your own mind, you have the ability to earn a living. For affiliate marketers, the sky is NOT falling. However, you must… When consumers "cut back" because of a recession, they cut back on luxury items — not necessities. Diversify! Diversify! Diversify! Relying entirely upon retail sales commissions could leave you in an affiliate marketing bind, because retail sales are very likely going to decrease. But as retail sales decrease, other sales are going to increase. People will still spend money online. One thing that people will buy is information. What kinds of information, you ask? • • • • • • Information about money management Information about making money online Information about debt consolidation Information about lowering insurance costs Information about saving fuel Information about starting their own affiliate marketing business • Information about online education opportunities Also, businesses that have an Internet presence are still going to be paying for leads. You don't have to make a sale to get paid for a lead. All your website visitor must do is complete an action (fill out a Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 10 ECONOMY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 form or an application) on the vendor's website for you to make a commission. • • Financial institutions pay for leads. Insurance companies pay for leads. And hundreds of other types of businesses pay for leads. Remember this fact: When consumers "cut back" because of a recession, they cut back on luxury items — not necessities. If your affiliate marketing business sells ONLY such items as Playstation 3, you need to branch out and include items that people MUST have. Think food, clothing, health care, etc. When consumers tighten the financial purse strings, it doesn't mean that they aren't going to purchase anything at all. It means that the selling points that will convince them to buy have changed. Advertise with Recession in Mind If your advertising is focused on promoting ease of use or convenience of a product, change the focus of the advertising and promote such advantages as: • • • • • • • • The payment plan offered The ironclad guarantee The long life expectancy of the product The way the product can SAVE money for the customer. Quality, quality, quality! Quality coupled with a low price Free shipping Overall value of the product When consumers tighten the financial purse strings, it doesn't mean that they aren't going to purchase anything at all. It means that the selling points that will convince them to buy have changed. The fact is that most people today check online before they make a purchase at a brick-and-mortar store. So, as an affiliate marketer, you get first crack at the customer. Take full advantage of that first opportunity. Hit the selling points that the customer is looking for now BECAUSE of the recession. Continue to Advertise The "advertising pays" admonishment of old is still viable today, even in the slowing economy…actually, ESPECIALLY in the slowing economy! There's not much doubt that you are going to be tempted to cut your advertising budget to the bone. That's a mistake that many businesses, both online and off, make when the economy takes a downturn. Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 11 ECONOMY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 The marketing budget is usually one of the first things to be reduced when businesses begin searching for ways to cut expenses. But according to research, a marketing budget is directly proportional to a business's gross revenue. Basically, what all of the research tells us is that if you cut your advertising budget, you are automatically reducing your gross sales figures. Therefore, advertising is the wrong place to cut your expenses. Find another way to cut corners. If customers can't find you, they can't buy from you. Stretch Your Advertising Dollars You shouldn't spend less on your advertising through this recession, but you should spend your advertising dollars more wisely. You need to get the most bang for your buck! Take a long, hard look at your ROI and determine what parts of your advertising are the most effective. Find out what advertising most often converts. When you determine what advertising strategies are working and which are not, shift your advertising dollars to the most advantageous advertising venues. You need to go against your first instinct. Rather than cutting your advertising budget, you need to increase it, if you can. Look at your advertising budget not as an overhead expense, but rather as an investment in your success. Concentrate effort on boosting the effectiveness of your advertising by doing the following: Look at your advertising budget not as an overhead expense, but rather as an investment in your success. • • • Networking Offering customer incentive programs Offering customer loyalty programs Should Affiliate Marketers Worry about a Worldwide Recession? Well, I'm really good at worrying, so I hate to pass up such a good opportunity. However, I honestly do not think that as affiliate marketers we have a lot to worry about — as long as we make a plan and follow through. But we DO need a plan. • We must diversify. We need to represent and promote a variety of products that people NEED, rather than luxury items that they simply want Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 12 • • • ECONOMY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 We must change our advertising focus to necessity. We must keep on advertising We must make our advertising dollars stretch as far as they will go. The Outlook for 2009 and Beyond A few affiliate marketing storm clouds will gather from time to time — remember the CAN-SPAM Act and how everybody was certain it was the end of affiliate marketing as we knew it? That turned out okay. CAN-SPAM actually helped affiliate marketers. I have no doubt that affiliate marketers will face all sorts of "booger bears" in the coming years, but I don't think that this recession is one of them. In short, the sky is not falling! In fact, I believe that this world wide recession can actually become a real BOON to affiliate marketers in 2009 — and maybe even far into the distant future. A few affiliate marketing storm clouds will gather from time to time, but the sky is not falling. About the Author Kathy Jackson is a Texas rancher and a contributing author for several farm and ranch publications. She is also an experienced freelance writer of email newsletters, review copy, educational materials, and blog posts on a wide variety of topics, including many aspects of online business and affiliate marketing. Internet marketing is one of Kathy’s burning interests. You can read some of Kathy's articles on the Affiliate Classroom Blog at http://blog.affiliateclassroom.com. She can be contacted via email at jacksokathy@gmail.com. Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 13 FEATURE STORY Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 2008: The Year of the Swan By Mark Thompson http://www.income-academy.com Well, what a momentous year that was. What, you didn’t notice? Okay, I agree that on the surface, it seemed to be a year in which affiliate marketing stood still. Marketers refined their products and started to release second or third versions of their major projects. There seemed to be very few innovations, and developers seemed to want to consolidate their existing products rather than develop new ones. Overall, 2008 was a year that was rather like a swan swimming across a pond. It looked calm and serene on the surface, but there was turmoil below. However, in the background, things were changing, and 2008 was becoming a momentous year. Affiliate networks were reorganizing, and new ones were being created. Large companies were taking affiliate programs in house, and major forces in the affiliate marketing world were being forced to consider their futures. So overall, 2008 was a year that was rather like a swan swimming across a pond. It looked calm and serene on the surface, but there was turmoil below. Google The first thing I really should mention is Google’s entry into the world of affiliate marketing as a network owner. In March 2008 Google acquired the operations of DoubleClick Performics, a 10-year-old, wellestablished affiliate network that DoubleClick had purchased in 2004. Google then set about rebranding the business as Google Affiliate Network, and this was completed by July. After the rebranding, things have sort of gone quiet. I would have expected a lot more news and comments in blogs, but it seems that many people are not really interested. I had a quick, completely unscientific poll, among a number of Internet marketers, and none of them have bothered to join Google’s new network. Only time will tell whether this is going to be another case of Google buying a company and not really having a plan for it. How many of you remember Jaiku? Jaiku was a rival to Twitter that Google bought so that it could compete with Twitter, but it seems to have not been developed. This is not atypical; Google Answers came about as a rival to Yahoo Answers, yet once again, Google didn’t seem to develop it any further, and Google Answers eventually was retired. It will be interesting to see in which direction Google takes the Google Affiliate Network, and if it can avoid any conflicts of interest that may arise. Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 14 YEAR OF THE SWAN Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 Pepperjam On a more upbeat note, the Pepperjam network was launched at the beginning of the year and almost immediately went head to head with the big guys like Commission Junction and LinkShare. When you compare what Pepperjam has achieved in a year starting from scratch with what Google achieved by buying an existing network, you have to give them some credit; Pepperjam has done a great job in grabbing market share. One of their biggest coups has had the conspiracy theorists salivating: the signing up of eBay. Here is a quick recap for those of you who missed it. eBay had an affiliate program managed through Commission Junction. It seemed to be a match made in heaven; as eBay was one of the biggest affiliate programs, and CJ was the biggest network, everyone was happy. In the early part of 2008, to everyone’s surprise, eBay announced that they were taking their affiliate program in house, and the eBay Partner Network (EPN) was born. It can’t be said that it was an easy birth; many affiliates were convinced that the tracking system didn’t work properly, and many people found that their incomes dropped. There were then mass account expirations, and eBay affiliate land was not a happy place to be. Then a knight in shining armor came along in the form of Pepperjam and eBay allowed affiliate to have their publisher accounts either through EPN or Pepperjam. You can see why all the conspiracy theorists were having a field day! Personally, I could never see the point of moving from EPN to Pepperjam; after all, having an affiliate account directly with the merchant is as good as it gets in affiliate marketing. On top of that, Pepperjam is still using EPN’s program, so it’s just another layer on top. The tracking issues are getting better all the time, although I still have the occasional blip on my account; four consecutive days at over $150 a day followed by the massive income of 74 cents the next day was a recent one. Despite this, I still think that eBay is something everyone should have in their portfolio. When you compare what Pepperjam has achieved in a year starting from scratch with what Google achieved by buying an existing network, you have to give them some credit; Pepperjam has done a great job in grabbing market share. ClickBank One further thing to mention is that 2008 was the year in which ClickBank woke up. Up until that point, ClickBank seemed happy to plod along with a successful formula and not really innovate. This year, that changed. The first major change was the ability to get paid directly into your bank account. This had been a major problem for nonU.S. affiliate marketers, who had to wait two weeks to receive a check, then wait another four weeks for the check to clear. Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 15 YEAR OF THE SWAN Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008 On top of that, there were charges to pay, which often meant it wasn't worthwhile to receive a payment of under $500. This was not a problem if you are an established marketer, but it was a barrier in the way of many would-be affiliate marketers. However, this year ClickBank introduced direct deposit to banks in many countries, and then later it switched to an optional weekly pay cycle instead of the traditional biweekly payments. The result is that I now receive a payment directly into my bank every week rather than having to wait for a check to clear. That alone would be enough to make 2008 a great year for affiliate marketing. Hopefully some of the affiliate networks will follow suit next year. Just a quick look at ClickBank’s blog will show you how far they have come. They are now creating regular help videos and have a Facebook site; such things would have been unheard of a year ago. ClickBank is also opening up to new languages, following the success of the Spanish-language experiment, and they have introduced local currency pricing. For 2008, ClickBank's income is expected to have double-digit growth — not bad in an era when most businesses are contracting. The future for ClickBank looks bright. Peering into the Crystal Ball This brings us nicely onto some affiliate marketing predictions for 2009. I’ve managed to get this far without mentioning the dramatic rise in prices for some products this past year, and I fear it will only continue into next year. I see a parting of the ways when it comes to product pricing. There will be far fewer mid-priced products, and you’ll find that prices will be either much lower with a continuity-based model, or much higher. Expect to see several $10,000 products in the coming year. (I can remember when $397 was considered high!) I would also expect many more physical products to be released, as these are proving to be very popular. I think we will lose some networks this year, I earned over $30,000 from one network up to March 2007; since then, it’s been $25. This is solely through companies opting to leave that network and use some of the newer networks. On a brighter note, I see affiliate marketing being a major force in the year ahead. Traditional brick-andmortar business is still worth $4 trillion a year. I see more of that flowing into the pockets of online marketers over the next year. I hope you had a good 2008, and may 2009 be extremely profitable for you. About the Author Mark Thompson spent many years working in an IT consultancy in London. Following a re-evaluation of his goals and lifestyle in 2004, he sold everything he couldn't fit into the family car and moved to rural Spain, where he now pursues a variety of online ventures. Visit his website http://www.incomeacademy.com to learn more about the benefits of his low-cost online business coaching. Thanks for reading! We’ll begin 2009 with an issue devoted to the topic of “Starting An Affiliate Business”. AC Magazine is always free . Visit us and download your copy at the Affiliate Classroom website: AffiliateClassroom.com Affiliate Classroom Magazine, December 2008