When you first start internet marketing, one of the first things that everyone tells you is to start out by doing affiliate marketing, using Clickbank products. This is, in fact, very good advice, and advice that I also give to newbies. After all, you don’t need your own product, you don’t have to worry about collecting payments, you don’t have to worry about customer queries, complaints, etc, because all that is taken care of for you. All you have to do is to join Clickbank, then get your affiliate link for the product that you want to sell. After that all you need to do is to send traffic to your affiliate link and collect your commission checks every fortnight. Sounds like the perfect solution for someone just starting your internet marketing career, doesn’t it?

Well here is the downside to Clickbank that no-one else seems to mention, and it is vital that newbies starting their internet marketing careers using Clickbank need to know! So you have made your first sale, but you haven’t been paid yet, and you probably won’t get paid. This is because there are three stumbling blocks that you need to clear before Clickbank will pay you your first check. Most people aren’t aware of these, so they never get paid, and they quit altogether, thinking that the whole thing is a scam.

The first stumbling block is the payment threshold. By default, this is set at $US100, so if your sale is less than this amount then your payment is held over until the next payment period. This is easily fixed. You can go into your account and lower this yourself, but you need to be aware that you pay a fee of $US2.50 for every check you receive so don’t set the threshold too low.

The second stumbling block is the one that kills most newbies. In the Accounting Policy there is a section called the Customer Distribution Requirement. Everyone should read this in its entirety, but here is the bad news in a nutshell.

“Clickbank will hold payment of any account balance until the following criteria is met:

* Sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers and

* Sales made with two different payment methods (VISA, Mastercard, or Paypal).”

So before you can get your first check, you will need to make an absolute minimum of six sales. One through Paypal, and five through different credit cards, using both VISA and Mastercard. And Paypal purchases do not count towards the credit card purchases, even if they are processed through a credit card. So if your first five or six sales were all made through Paypal, you still need to get those five credit card sales.

And the third stumbling block is the final nail for most newbies. That is the dormant account ‘gotcha’. Even if you have a positive balance, if you haven’t received a payment check for some time, your account is considered dormant, and you start to get charged a fee of $US1.00 per payment period after 90 days, $US5.00 per pay period after 180 days, and $US15.00 per pay period after 365 days of inactivity. So even the commissions that you have earned are not safe, you can lose them as well!

Before you start your career as a ‘Clickbank Newbie’, you need to consider all three of these stumbling blocks, and form plans to deal with them. One of the ways that I have recommended in the past was to get some of your friends to buy products through your affiliate link, making sure that they meet the criteria above. How you did that was up to you, and if Clickbank found out then they could close your account down, but the risk was minimal.

Now, however, there is a completely legal and whitehat way of getting around these stumbling blocks, making your first affiliate commissions and getting paid! Harvey Segal, one of the best Clickbank marketers on the planet, has published a completely free (not even an opt-in required) report on how to get around these stumbling blocks and start receiving your first affiliate checks. It is a short read, only 15 pages, but full of vital info, so make sure you get a copy, read it, and take action! You can download the report  “Clickbank For Newbies” here. Incidentally, don’t be put off by the title, there is some good stuff in there for old hands like me too, including a diabolically clever viral twist in the tail, so make sure you read every word!

If you follow Harvey’s advice, you will clear all three of the stumbling blocks with no problems, and then you are on your way. Once you have received your mandatory three paper checks from Clickbank, you can request to have your commissions paid via direct transfer each pay period, so there is no chance of those paper checks going missing in the mail, and the downsides of Clickbank will just be a distant memory to you, just like me. BTW, if you are an affiliate marketer I would urge you to pass this info on to all of your friends, they will thank you for it if they are newbies too. You are also welcome to retweet it.

You know…  there are a lot of people that talk about how cool Internet Marketing is and how much money you can make.

But there is one thing that they never ever talk about. And that is how people can totally rip off your pdf products and share them amongst other thieves.

Click here to read more about the solution…

No matter how long you have been selling online… it will happen to you. If it hasn’t already… it’s only a matter of time. In fact, there are hundreds of websites out there that are totally dedicated to stealing and sharing eBooks. Your eBooks!

Up until now you could not do anything about it, just learn to live with it. However, I’ve just discovered a simple and inexpensive solution to combat the bottom-feeding scumsuckers of the internet and safely protect my eBooks, and I want to share it with you.

Basically, all you have to do is upload a simple script to your website (piss-easy to do), configure how you want it set up, and all it does is put an individual watermark on each and every copy of the ebook as it is downloaded. That watermark contains the name, Paypal address and IP of the person downloading that copy. Simple, but brilliant!

Now, as soon as one of these lowlifes uploads your pdf to a file sharing website, you can identify them and send them a nice letter letting them know you know what they did. If you wanted to get nasty, you could also get their Paypal account closed down, their webhosting closed down, etc, and even threaten them with legal action.

But the easiest way to stop these thieves is to put a notice on your download page telling them that you are using the watermarking method to track them… that should stop them cold, because this type of scum likes to hide in the shadows, if you threaten to shine a spotlight on them they will scurry away like the cockroaches they are!

Given the amount of money this can save you, the price is an absolute steal at the moment, so go take a look for yourself and see if it will help you in your business, too.

Check it out here… it’s amazing!

Product Review of Alvin Phang’s Atomic Blogging 2.0

The first thing that needs to be said about Alvin’s Atomic Blogging 2.0 is that it is not just another 30 page ebook regurgitating all the usual crap like most of the over-priced blogging ebooks you see advertised all the time. This ebook is h-u-g-e, it is over 130 pages and close to 5mb in size! Also unlike most other blogging ebooks out there, Atomic Blogging 2.0 does not contain any junk or filler, it is all meat. Nearly every page contains screenshots, not only showing you what you should be seeing, but most of the screenshots have been edited with instructions written in red so that you can’t miss them — Step 1 fill in this box, Step 2 click this button, etc.

As I mentioned, the book is 131 pages long, and covers everything in simple enough detail so that even a complete newbie can follow along and get their first blog up and running, and making money, just by following the numbers and duplicating the screenshots. The complete chapter list is as follows:

Chapter 1 - 8 Powerful Tips On Dos & Donts On Blogging

Chapter 2 - Getting Started With Blogging

Chapter 3 - Building Your Business With Market & Keyword Research

Chapter 4 - Setting Up a Profitable Blog to Generate Cash Online

Chapter 5 - Optimizing Your Blog to Perform

Chapter 6 - Powerful Tips on Blogging

Chapter 7 - Monetizing Your Blog

Chapter 8 - Getting Traffic and Really Lots of It!

Chapter 9 - Leveraging on Web 2.0 & Social Networks

Chapter 10 - Advanced Traffic Tips & Bonus Chapters

Chapter 10 in particular blew me away, I thought that I had read everything there was to know about blogs (except for where to get the time to update them! :-)  ), but some of the little tricks that Alvin mentions in this chapter are so powerful, but so simple, that I felt like slapping myself on the back of the head for not thinking of them myself! Brilliant stuff, Alvin!

The ebook itself, and the included plugins and themes, are constantly being updated, so this is not just some blogging ebook that has been written, sold, then forgotten about like most. As Alvin comes up with new ideas, and improves his products, he is more than happy to share the new findings with his customers, so the whole product package is constantly improving.

All in all, if you are looking for the best ebook on blogging, whether you are a complete newbie or a seasoned pro looking for an edge, this is it. I have read just about every blogging book written in the last few years, some were over-priced junk ghost-written for the big dogs, some were written by newbies who were simply copying the over-priced junk, and a relative few were written by people who had actually been there, done that, and had the scars to prove it. Alvin Phang’s Atomic Blogging 2.0 definitely falls into the last group, and in my opinion is the best of the best.

Last time I checked, it was still selling for $US47, and it still included all the Fast Start bonuses that I received, so if you are in the market for an ebook on blogging then get your backsides over to http://tinyurl.com/AtomBlog2 and check it out, you won’t regret it! The bonuses are just that, bonuses, but they are the icing on the cake and make this the best value package that I have seen for a long while.

ps I heard from Alvin this week and he is already working on Atomic Blogging 3.0, which should be released some time in 2009 — I can hardly wait to see what he has in store for that! But don’t wait for it, get in now and get 2.0.