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Making Money as a Writer: Affiliate Marketing · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyWriterLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've been working our way through a series on making money as a writer.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: On today's episode, we're talking about one of my favorite ways to create income, which is talking about things you already use and love, otherwise known as affiliate marketing.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: As a writer, you use lots of different products and services.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And many of these products and services have an affiliate program that will pay you a percentage of what they receive from the customer whenever that customer purchases their product or service through your individual affiliate link.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I love affiliate income because it's kind of like getting paid to recommend things that you're already using.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I'm an affiliate for ConvertKit, which is one of the main email marketing services today.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever people use my link to sign up with the service, I get a portion of what they pay to Convert Kit.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The basic idea is that Convert Kit is rewarding me for recommending their service because they may not have had that customer without my recommendation or influence.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Another good example is the course Book Marketing Mastery, which is created and taught by Honore Quarter.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've been promoting Book Marketing Mastery a couple times a week here on the show for I'd say the last four or five weeks, something like that.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I promote this because not only is Honore great, the course is also great.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've been through it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking it myself, and I know it's something that will benefit you.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, it doesn't cost you any more to sign up through my affiliate link because honore then gives me a portion of what you pay her for the course.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that if you'd like to sign up for Book Marketing Mastery, go to dailywriterlife.com slash bookmarketingmastery and use the code daily writer, that's all one word, daily writer, to get 10% off.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that I want to mention is that an affiliate is different than a sponsor.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the difference in those two is is how you get paid.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: With an affiliate partnership, you get a percentage of what the customer pays the affiliate.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But with a sponsorship, the company or the person behind that product or service that you're promoting, they pay you directly to advertise it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: For example, starting next month in January, the Vellum app, which is an incredibly useful and wonderful tool for self-publishers to create print books and ebooks, Vellum will start to be a paid sponsor of this podcast.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that means they are directly paying me to promote their product on my show.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy to do so because I love Vellum and it's a wonderful product.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're wonderful people, and I'm absolutely happy to share that with you.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the main key with affiliate marketing, and I think this is really, really important.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you do affiliate marketing, you have to do it in an ethical and responsible way.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So what that means for me is I never promote things on my show or to my email list or on social media that I don't personally use or recommend, whether it's an affiliate partnership or a sponsor.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're already using and recommending certain products and services, you can do the same thing.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you love something, check and see if they have an affiliate program, then start promoting that product or service in an ethical way.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, only promote things that you really believe in and that you have some experience with.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be an affiliate for something that you have no idea about or don't have a sponsor for your show or for your business or whatever you're doing.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't have a sponsor that really doesn't align with your values and your ethics and what you're trying to accomplish in the world.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's really, really important.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great way, uh, whether it's affiliate marketing or sponsorships for that matter.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: These are great ways to grow your bank account and have a lot of fun in the process.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been podcasting for a long time.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, since 2013, almost 10 years, in fact.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some of a couple of those years were sort of on and off, but for the most part, I've been podcasting really consistently for the past almost 10 years.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to tell you, it's really, really fun to talk to affiliates and to talk to sponsors for your podcast because you're creating something of value for the audience.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And because you have an audience, you can then promote those things to the audience.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody wins.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I win because I get rewarded for that.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: The company or product or service wins because they get more exposure.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you as the listener win because I'm telling you about something that I think is going to benefit you.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really kind of cool.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get into this world a little bit, I know at first it may feel like it's a little bit intimidating and you're really new to it and you're not sure what to do or who to promote or how to do it or those kinds of things.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would just encourage you to take one little step at a time.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have an email list or you have a podcast or something like that where you can promote others, I would strongly encourage you to think about affiliate marketing.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the way that you do that is again, think about things that you already use and see if they have an affiliate program.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's really very, very simple to do this.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever you use, just Google such and such product or service affiliate link or affiliate program or some phrase like that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you might be surprised at the kind of things that you find out there.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sponsors usually are going to require you to have a certain size audience before they're going to pay you to promote their product.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you have an email list of five people, you're not going to have a big company pay you a lot of money to promote two five people.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make sense economically.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: But with affiliates, you don't really have to have a certain size audience.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You just sign up for the program, share the link, and then you're good to go, pretty much.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my question for you today is what products or services are you already using that have an affiliate program?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Again, don't just sit around and kind of wait for this to happen magically.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Go out and be assertive and think about the things you're already using and take action on that.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sign up to be an affiliate for one or two things.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Convert Kit has a nice affiliate program if you use Convert Kit.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you use other paid email marketing services, they probably do as well.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So think through that, take action and start sharing some affiliate links.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: You might actually be surprised how fast you can earn a little bit of income doing this.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it really gives you some great motivation whenever you just start seeing money kind of magically appear in your bank account.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's really pretty cool.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you get paid to do things that you're already using and that you already love.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just really, really uh an awesome thing.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a lot of awesome opportunities as writers today, not just to make money from our writing, but to make money promoting things that we really love and that we really use.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friends, thanks for listening today, and I'll see you tomorrow.