I’m Shawn Collins, author of the book, Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants. I’m going to be doing a thirteen part video series on each of the chapters of the book.
The book is a little outdated at this point. I wrote it at the end of 2000, and it was published in April 2001.
So basically, I wanted to recap Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants and provide some updates. And as an introduction to the video version of the book, I wanted to set some expectations.
I’m going to go through each chapter. The book is setup in three sections: What Affiliate Marketing Can Do for Your Business, Setting Up Your Affiliate Program, and Managing Your Affiliate Program.
Each video will be about 3-4 minutes. They won’t be so in depth, but rather a recap if you’re already familiar with the industry, or else a primer for folks that are new to affiliate marketing.
It’s not going to be a one-stop solution for affiliate managers. I’d still encourage everybody to attend conferences, read blogs, and participate in forums to get a well rounded affiliate manager education.
Anyhow, the foreword of Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants was written by a guy named James Marciano. I met him almost by accident.
I was riding the train into New York City for work and reading the business section of the Newark Star-Ledger. There was a profile on James, because he’d started up the first affiliate directory, Refer-it.com. This was back in late 1998 or early 1999.
At the time, I was running the affiliate program for Medsite.com. I felt sort of isolated, because there weren’t groups or forums of affiliate marketers. I was so excited to see somebody else in the business, and I reached out and asked if he’d like to grab some lunch together.
We chatted, and James ended up being something of a mentor to me in affiliate marketing. I’d say James and Declan Dunn were two of the biggest influences in my affiliate marketing career.
James was a really sharp guy, and he started up the affiliate directory concept with Refer-it.com, and sold it to Internet.com. And so he wrote the foreword to the book.
The dedication I wrote for the book is very timely today. I recorded this video on my eleventh wedding anniversary and the dedication read…
For my wife, Vicky, a masterpiece of nature and the best ROI my heart will ever know.
I managed to sneak in a mixture of geekiness and romance.
So anyway, all of the video chapters of Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants will be available for free on my affiliate marketing blog. Enjoy!
Go back to the Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants Video Book.