Dumping Some Programs

Over the past couple of years, I have joined quite a number of affiliate and other types of "money making" programs. I started joining them because I had this dream that I could make money off the web to supplement the income from my day job. I had no idea which program would pay off, so I joined them all.

And believe me, I promoted every program. I submitted them to search engines, made special pages promoting each one, wrote articles, emailed friends and family and did everything else that I could think of while still remaining ethical and moral. I did not spam or cheat any program.

A couple of years ago I was desperate for money. My wife had been in a coma for five days, which ate up some money, and her asthma problem took care of a chunk more. Add on top of that a growing son and I'm sure you can relate.

Anyway, I needed to make money. I signed up for pay-to-surf because it all seemed so ... easy. Just load a pay bar on my system (which didn't seem too inconvenient) and get a check each month. The checks turned out to be small (if I received any at all), so I tried getting referrals. That didn't help much, even though I got over a hundred for some of the programs.

The problem was that the pay-to-surf programs (a) were very inconvenient as they interfered with normal typing, and (b) they didn't pay very much anyway. So most of my downline simply signed up and never used the program. Since I would not cheat, I didn't make any money.

I tried pay-to-read-email, and found that after reading over 100 emails I had made a whole dollar. These programs are incredibly obnoxious, as they require you not only to get these silly advertisements, but you actually have to click on a link to get paid. Ugh.

I also signed up for the other programs: pay-to-listen-to-music and pay-to-shop. These seemed to be good ideas but upon testing turned out to be silly time wasters.

Then there were the affiliate programs. I joined everything. Hundreds of programs. I made two page websites, ten page websites, canned shopping sites and full blown shopping sites. with three exceptions, not a dime from any of them. Not a single dime.

One of the major problems was the minimum payout. This was especially true of one major affiliate system - the minimum applies to each merchant and not the program. Thus, even though I had several hundred dollars owed me from the entire set of affiliates, I never got anything because none of them alone exceeded the minimum. Very frustrating.

All of the wonderfully beautiful canned template storefronts turned out to be exercises in futility. I spent hours in each program setting up carefully selected sets of products, complete with descriptions and references. Nothing. Not a dime.

Epinions made me some money before they changed their program a year ago. It still made a few bucks after that change, but their most recent changes are so ... restrictive ... that I am dropping out of their program. They do not seem to understand the concept of a fair exchange, their newly remodeled site is disappointing and their new terms-and-conditions are obnoxious.

I did find a few things that have made me some money and I am pursuing those rapidly. A couple of affiliate programs are starting to pay off and my writing career is moving very well.

I cannot feel bad about any of these programs, as I learned quite a bit about the internet and making money. I've learned what not to do, and I've got some experience at what works. It would have been nice to make some cash along the way, but as it turned out, it was not all that critical.

So tonight I start a fairly large project which I expect to take me several weeks. I will be removing myself from every program that I've ever joined which is not paying. I will only remain in those programs which are effective or which I have learned to sell and promote effectively. It's a lot of work, but it's necessary to remove the distraction of useless and ineffective programs from my life.

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