This was originally written as a guest post on a Blog about ways to make money from home. Unfortunately the partnership did not workout, but I did not see a reason to waste a perfectly good article.  

This post contains affiliate links, which mean if you use these links to purchase an item or service I receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Visit my Affiliate Disclaimer page here.

My goal is to get rich while sharing my writing with the world. My new goal is to list all of the problems with that last goal. My name isn’t Steven King or J.K. Rowling, so selling my novels for untold riches is unlikely. Impossible is nearer to the truth. And well, I haven’t actually finished any novels, but that’s a minor hurdle compared to selling them when they are finished. You could also point out that my Blog has fewer views than the picture of my dog… on my cellphone. So, in order to be more realistic I have implemented another plan.

This is how almost all bloggers make money. It’s how the blog you are reading this article on was monetized. It’s how I make my supplemental income. It’s called Affiliate Marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is when you put a link to my product into your article or blog, and for every one that sells you get a percentage. Well, that is the simple definition anyway. If you can write you can become an Affiliate Marketer.

There are many ways to sell products this way, but we are going to talk about building a website or blog specifically for this purpose. The idea is, you pick a niche you want to write in, for the purpose of this article we are going to go with extreme sports. So we do a little research and write about “The Dangers of Mountain Biking.” You talk about major wipeouts, and resulting concussions. Then you go on to talk about the best new thing in helmets, and every time you mention this new awesome helmet, you insert a link to buy the helmet. If you wrote with passion and intelligence, you will sell the helmet. Passion is kind of important, so it’s best to choose a niche you actually enjoy.

Selling this way is getting easier every day. It used to be that you had to find an item you wanted to sell, petition the company that owns the item to allow you to sell it, and if they deemed your site and writing good enough, they would sign you up for their program. Now you can just sign up for Affiliate programs with Amazon, and eBay and between the two link practically anything you can think of. I was part of Amazons Affiliate program before my site had any content.

Now, you have to understand. This is not a get rich quick scheme. You will not get rich, and you will get not rich very slowly. This technique works for many people, however, it requires work and dedication. You have to build an audience, and you have to keep them entertained. If your writing is not interesting, they will not stick around long enough to click the link. As a matter of fact, here is an example of Affiliate Marketing now. Affiliate Marketing: Launch a Six Figure Business with Clickbank Products, Affiliate Links, Amazon Affiliate Program, and Internet Marketing (Online Business) by Noah Gray and Michael Fox and This book will teach you how to write better by Neville Medhora will help you start out if this is something you want to get into.