Kick Debt's Butt

Step 8 in my 10 part series, "How to Make Extra Money Blogging" - Remember the mighty Amazon, Amazon.com that is:

We are almost done with the "Money Making" part of our journey to date. There are future money making avenues I hope to explore, such as writing reviews for money, selling content to publishers, syndication of writing, etc.

But most of my research thus far suggests that my blog will need to be up and running for at least six months - and most likely a full year - before product managers or publishers will even give me a glance. I will let you know as soon as I get some more intelligence on that revenue stream...and in fact, if anyone out there has had success, I'd love to hear your story!

So speaking of streams, I wanted to talk to you about one of the mightiest of streams in the internet jungle, Amazon.com! In Step 7, I talked about placing ads as an affiliate marketer with vendors; now I want you add one more item to your growing "to do" list, and that is sign up as an Amazon.com affiliate.

I separated this step from the previous because of one reason - the Amazon store. As an Amazon.com affiliate, you'll not only have access to link buttons, but you'll also be able to create your own storefront to sell products related to your content! Pretty cool huh?

For example, on my post about my beloved Rice Cooker and my beloved Slow Cooker, I was able to find both at Amazon.com. So, IF someone loved my right ups so much that they felt compelled to buy their own, THEN they could simply click the links I provided, purchase the items from Amazon, and then Amazon would send me a commission check! Sounds so easy doesn't it...well, so far I've not sent a single customer to Amazon, so while on paper the idea is great, the reality remains elusive, at least for me.

In addition to linking, you can build your own Amazon.com store. With your Amazon store, you can add only the products you want to sell, or you can add products by category. For example, I love soccer, so I created the Amazon.com Soccer Store where I sell soccer books, videos, gear, and subscriptions to soccer magazines.

Either way, you should certainly consider giving your readers the option to browse your own Amazon store. Again, it's a commission model which means you don't have to do anything but send people that way, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.