Exjackly

I have been online in one form or another since 1993. During that time, I have witnessed a lot of money pumped into the internet and seen a lot of stories about the millions (and billions) of dollars individuals were making. Unfortunately, I am not among that group.

One of the ways that is touted as allowing for significant 'passive' income is the use of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is where companies pay you for sending customers to their website. For each subscriber, sale, or visitor you send to them, you get paid. The schemes for payment are myriad and often have some complexity to them.

The frequent question is are they legitimate? Or are they just a scam similar to a pyramid scheme? How do you tell the difference?

I am just beginning to look into these programs. I will be building a set of different web pages/sites separate from the blog to test the ones out that look promising. Over time, as I find out more, I will provide reviews and actual numbers from these programs, including what steps I have taken to try to promote them and gain traffic and sales. While there will be posts about these programs, I promise that except for factual information about my experience, I will not be promoting through this blog.

The posts about affiliate marketers will be limited to the following:

• Announcing that I've added a new affiliate. I will explain who and why I chose them. That post will have a link to the affiliate page I create for them.
• Review. After I have some experience with a particular affiliate, I will provide a review. The review will recap why I chose the affiliate. It will lay out what success I have had - including any revenue numbers - and what steps I took to get that revenue. I will not hold back anything. I will link to the affiliate page I create from this article.
• Fraud notification. If I ever get scammed or suckered into a program that is not what it says it is, or which costs me money to participate rather than making me money, I will let you know.

Outside these guidelines, I will not link to affiliate pages and programs. I like having readers too much. My goal is to make Exjackly.com a useful resource and not a billboard. My goal with the affiliates is to find out if they work and if so, share with you, my readers, another way to help you reach your financial goals.

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I have been an amateur photographer for many years. For most of that time, my skill and training have combined to produce snapshot photos. This is a category of photo that I still happily stay in most of the time, as it is a good way to document my various trips and the activities I participate in. My education lets me make some better than average decisions, and I get a reasonable number of good images.

Still, I am working to do better. Part of my efforts to do so has been by becoming a semi-pro photographer. I knew from reading and looking at other people's photographic work that I have reached a point where I am good enough to start making money off my photography. It does not mean I've maxed out my skills, just that they have improved significantly. To challenge my skills, I've started shooting for micro-stock sales and have become a part of iStockphoto.

Now, if you look at my portfolio there, you can see some of my efforts that have been accepted there. You will also notice that the portfolio is not a large one. That is not because I am having trouble meeting the standards. It is because most of my work is not stock usable, so I do not even submit it. That is part of what is keeping me semi-pro rather than going full-time. That is a topic for another post however.

Still, it does work, and when I take time and focus on shooting something specifically for submission, I can meet the higher standards and add to my portfolio there. The extra attention is helping me continue to improve. Once I get enough photos in a series I am currently working on that is not stock, you may see another post listing another expansion of my photographic career.

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