You know what really cracks me up in the whole make money online industry? The sheer amount of sleazy marketeers trying to sell their crap to other sleazy marketeers. Silly ebooks and membership sites filled with not-so-secret SEO methods and (you-won’t)-get-rich-quick formulas.
Ever got sucked in to leaving your email address somewhere because of the promise of a free product? I bet you’re regretting it more and more with every sleazy sales-copy-spam-email you get.
“Buy this wonderfull product now for $99 $69 just $39!” “Only available until midnight tonight!” “Don’t miss out, only the first 10 buyers get a 50% discount!”
B a h !
Someone should put a stop to the shit affiliate products. I look back at my time as the Cow blogger sometimes and think to myself; “Was it really worth it?”. Sure, I made a nice bit of cash, sold the blog when my offline life needed more attention, which came around the same time that I got seriously bored with it. But every now and then I have a sour taste in my mouth, thinking of the useless garbage I was ‘up-selling’ to my readers.
The thing with MMO is that you get absorbed in the whole scene. All you really care about is making money for yourself. Doesn’t matter how. Some bloggers say they blog about MMO to teach us, because they care. Bullshit! All they care about is cashing in at the end of the day, or do some serious networking to increase their future income.
Currently I run other sites, which also endorse certain affiliate products. Sure, call me a hypocrite, but the big difference for me is that I do not actively try to up-sell to my visitors. They come looking for my sites and find related affiliate products. I don’t have to write post after post about how great product xyz is. I don’t have to carefully pick my words, making sure that I don’t tick off the advertisers too much, I can just speak my mind. I can just enjoy what I’m doing, and make a nice chunk of change while doing it.
To all you newbie MMO marketers out there -don’t start yet another MMO/affiliate blog, please! There are enough resources as it is. Subscribe to the big boys, like Chow, Shoe and Darren. Learn from them and pick a niche you actually know something about. They’ve been there and done that. Making money off the newbies by sharing their knowledge works for them. If you’re a newbie with no knowledge, what do you expect to sell? Stick to what you know.
I for one like to talk shit, and that’s exactly what I have been doing since I got out of the MMO niche.