First Sale! Woo Hoo!!!

Another quickie tonight. This is the beginning of my 4th month here at WA. In many ways it seems like I just started and in others, I feel like I've been doing this forever. The day I despaired of ever seeing has come to pass finally. My first sale has been registered and commission entered into my Commission Junction account! Woo Hoo!!! It came from a friend and may be the first of a few from that friend. That is the way a lot of us start, with friends I mean, and that somehow seems rig

Too Good To Pass Up

Just a quickie here today. First, I'm back at it after Thanksgiving. Had a great time with family at the Outer Banks of NC, leaving no time at all for work. That's done and I'm now back to work. In celebration of being back and being presented with an offer that I couldn't refuse, I have gone yearly! So I'm committed for the next year and you will all have to put up with me! I would not have done this were it not for the exceptional folks I've met here as well as the incredible training and

Acceptance feels so nice!

It's what we all want, isn't it? Most of us went to great lengths for it when we were in school. A lot of us still crave it above a lot of things. When we are accepted we are no longer alone in the world. It feels good to know there are others that like us and what we do. Conversely, rejection hurts. when you've been rejected, you stand alone against the world. It's scary and depressing. When you've been rejected, you just want another chance. Anyone who has followed my posts knows that

Email Setup

Recently I and several others have had a great deal of trouble using Gmail, Outlook and some other clients to send and receive email from our WA Atmail accounts. I went round and round with support about this. Their best recommendation was not to use an external client at all, or, if I HAD to use an external client, to use Thunderbird by Mozilla. I have tried to answer some questions for people about how best to setup Thunderbird and decided I should just post some instructions here. My pers

What Would You Do?

First, I was depressed and you all helped me get over that. Then I was angry and you all helped me get past that. Now I'm mostly curious and I'm hoping you will help with with that. I was turned down for another affiliate program, this one a very large representative of various tool companies. Once again, I'm having no luck in getting them to tell me why. I really am only asking so I can learn where they think I need to improve my site. Is it because I don't have enough there for them? I

Three Months...Almost

I'll make this fairly short. I'm about a week short of being a member at WA for three months! I have what I think is a great website, even though it is FAR from complete. I've made some really good friends (I hope they think so, too!). I've learned way more than I thought I would in this amount of time. I've even hit page one of Google (with a keyword so specific that I know I'm the only one who will ever search for it). All great things, right? I've also ranted about a number of things, w

Rejected Again

A few weeks ago I posted a rant about waiting to be approved by an affiliate program before writing a product review. I was somewhat dejected that I had been declined as an affiliate after spending the time and effort to write a product review. Well, I've been rejected again, by Amazon; this time I'm not dejected. I'm PISSED OFF! Before you start saying, "Now wait a minute Tom. There's no guarantee that any program will accept you," I know that. Being declined is not why I'm upset. When I

What Am I Really Doing Here?​

I see a lot of blogs and comments in which the writers are venting frustrations at not having traffic, not knowing what to write about, not believing their work is going anywhere, etc. I try always to respond in a positive way. "Keep your chin up, it will happen" I say, or "Your work looks great, give it time." I say these things because I believe they offer some comfort, but also because I believe them to be true. Or at least I think I believe them. I feel these folks' frustrations, becau

Finally...Forums on my site!

At some point last week in one of the threads to which I was responding, the question came up, "Is it possible to host a forum(s) on my site at WA?", or something very much like that. It was a question I had been wondering about as well. It seemed to me like an excellent way to attract more traffic to my site. I promised to look into the matter and post my findings. So I am here today to report that it is indeed possible and I have finally gotten it setup on my site. There is still a lot o

Before You Write That Review...

I'm still pretty new to this whole affiliate marketing thing and I've run into a few snags that I thought would be worth mentioning. The idea is to save some of you other newbies a little trouble and heartache. I spent quite a while researching a particular product for a recent review, even contacting the only seller I could find directly. Turns out, the owner of the brand name went out of business, but the product was still available under a different brand name; same product, same specs, di