Let me tell you a little story.

Way, way, way back in the long-long-ago — perhaps as far back as late March — I decided that I wanted to try to really give affiliate marketing a try. If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing, it works like this: You tell someone about a product that you like, and then, if they buy it through a special link that you send them, the seller gives you a commission as a thank-you. Everyone wins.

I had high expectations, because I wasn’t totally, completely new to affiliate marketing. I was, in fact, already an Amazon.com affiliate. Now, Amazon pays a PHAT FOUR PERCENT, so I was rollin like a gangsta on forty cents from a $10 purchase, flaunting my wealth in front of all of the playas and ho’s in the form of four crisp dimes tucked into my wad. My peeps would be like, “I’d like some penny candy, but I can’t afford it,” and then I’d swoop in and be like, “It’s cool; I got it,” and give them a shiny brown Lincoln. We drank tap water by the quart and ate Ramen noodles every day. Times were good.

But then I figured I’d try to kick it up a notch, and shoot for the Holy Grail of affiliate marketing: Paper money.

The first real affiliate sale I ever made was of a little e-book called SEO School. You may have heard of it. It was written by this lady with a shaved head. SEO School sells for $39 and offers a 50% commission. So one day, I’m sitting in front of my computer and I get this email from e-junkie (IttyBiz’s affiliate manager) that says: Congratulations! You’ve sold a copy of SEO School and earned a commission of $19.50.

I about crapped my pants. Not because it was a lot of money, but because it was so easy.

I mean, from my perspective, this was $20 out of nothing. $20 for telling someone about a book I thought was awesome – a book I would have recommended anyway. Someone I knew was like, Hey, you know about search engines, right? And I was like, Kind of, but this woman Naomi knows more. You should get her book. Here’s an (affiliate) link to it. And boom, $20 for my trouble.

Over the next few weeks, I sold five more copies, and at the end of the month, I was $117 in the black. That’s $117 without sending spam to a mailing list, and without using a website to promote. This was done by sending people a link to something I liked. Anyone could have done it.

Like, you could have done it, even if you’ve never made a cent from affiliate marketing. Which is kind of the reason I’m mentioning any of this.

Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?

I want you to be an affiliate for me.

As you know if you read last week’s post, I just finished a free blog/website setup promo. It was pretty damn successful. I got a shitload of interest, launched a shitload of blogs, made a shitload of people happy, and got a shitload of shining testimonials saying how spectacular I am.

However.

I spammed the hell out of Twitter, Facebook, and my personal circle with the offer, which means that pretty much everyone I’m able to reach knows I was willing to do this for free. Now that the promo has ended, I’m charging for the service. Not a lot ($39) but charging nonetheless.

I have to figure that anyone who was interested would have jumped in by now. It’s hard to imagine anyone saying, “Well, I saw that you were doing this for free last week and I thought that was bullshit. But now that you’re charging $39, I’m in.” (Naomi’s note: This is where Johnny underestimates people’s belief that free shit ain’t worth shit. I have a feeling that long-term, he’ll have a higher conversion on the paid version than the free one. But whatever. Johnny and I will argue about this privately.)

Because of this, I need a way to reach more people. That’s where you come in.

If you become my affiliate and send someone to me who buys a blog/website setup, I’ll split the $39 cost with you. I’ll give you $19.50, just like I got from promoting SEO School. Perhaps you’ll crap your pants like I almost did. So be sure to wear underwear.

It should be easy. Your uncle Jerry who likes to write about cheese? Your neighbor Ned who makes erotic dioramas out of seashells? Those people could use websites. The girl you know who hates her job and has an idea for a sideline business? She needs a site. The frustrated writer who wants an outlet? Website.

These people will have to pay for hosting no matter how they get that blog or site. But for just $39 on top of that, they’ll also get the whole thing set up, ready to use, looking awesome with a fresh Wordpress theme, and without any hassle. And if you visit the sales page, you’ll see that they’ll be getting that site done by a guy who not only has the IttyBiz seal of approval, but who also has a bunch of testimonials from average folks who think he’s pretty cool. (Naomi’s note: I was predisposed to liking Johnny and even I was surprised by the amount of good testimonials he got. Check ‘em out here.)

You can totally do this even if you’re not marketing savvy at all. Maybe you read IttyBiz all the time and dream of doing some of this online stuff, but are intimidated.

Well, this isn’t intimidating. This isn’t scary. Sign up. Get an affiliate link. Give it to Uncle Joe. He buys. Profit.

Do it five times and that’s almost $100 without having to do any of the work yourself. And if you have a big mailing list and want to promote to those people? Well, then, I love you.

So have at it. Sign up, and then start filling the hot tub with champagne and fair-weather friends for when the Benjamins start rolling in.

A bit of perspective

I started this IttyBiz Online Business School experiment just over a month ago, to see if a guy with no online marketing experience could make a buck under Naomi’s tutelage. So from a big-picture perspective, you may be wondering: “How’s it’s going?”

The answer is that it’s going well. Shockingly well, in fact, and I’ll have some numbers to report soon that will hopefully inspire anyone who is on the fence about all of this. And if you’re on that fence? If you have a business idea but haven’t acted on it? Well, stop thinking and start doing. Selling Johnny’s blog launch product would be an easy start.

Remember, Naomi is looking for 1000 success stories this year, and you don’t want to make her angry by being a pussy. Don’t piss her off. She owns a sword. Really.*

P.S: On Friday, I spent some time on the phone with the cool Clay Collins, and Clay invited me to be on the faculty of Project Mojave, which will be launching publicly on May 14. This is very, very cool, and it’s also very, very new to me. For now, I just know that I’m going to be something like, “Director of Making Technology Simple and Keeping Clay from Being All Serious and Shit.” More on this in coming weeks.

P.P.S: Don’t forget to sign up to be my affiliate. You could actually start making money today. Like, literally today. If you send your link to people this morning, you could be getting a commission email from e-junkie before the day is over. Try not to crap your pants. Co-workers don’t like that.

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* Not really.