SweetGigs Newsletter: December 28, 2005
http://www.SweetGigs.com
A SweetGigs Publication

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SweetGigs- Your Ultimate Resource for finding Paying Work or Making Extra Cash without being stuck in the 9-to-5 grind!

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Letter from the Editor:

Welcome back to another edition of SweetGigs newsletter. If you haven't logged onto the site lately, you might want to check it out. We've recently added a few new articles and a bunch of new sweepstakes and contests to help you earn and win some extra cash.

Today, we look at one of the most popular ways to make money online- affiliate programs. We tell you how to get started and where to go to sign up and start getting your piece of the ever-growing affiliate cash pie. Affiliate programs are one of our favorite cash-earners here at SweetGigs. Our bookstore, for example, is an affiliate under Amazon.com, which allows us to offer every book we review without having to deal with inventory. Sales from our affiliate bookstore help keep SweetGigs running- always a good thing, in our opinion. Keep reading to find out how to use affiliate programs to increase your own cash flow, whether you use the cash for running an important and informative website or just to get a new ipod.

Also in this issue, we review a book on how to make money online, show you how to get local services and products on the cheap and offer up another fantastic contest-of-the week. We hope you enjoy this issue, and please feel free to email us with any comments, criticisms, or suggestions of topics you'd like to see covered in future issues.

Your Editor,

Colleen Buckley

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Main Article: Affluence As An Affiliate

If you've ever bought anything online, or even comparison shopped for products you planned to buy offline, you've probably encountered affiliate programs. These programs, created by both large and small companies selling over the Internet, offer a commission to affiliates for driving traffic to their sites. You may not even be aware they exist, but affiliate programs have conquered web shopping and are hard at work making millions every day for the people who use them.

Affiliate programs work like this: A company offers a commission on any of their products you sell. Sometimes this commission is in the form of a percentage, often 5-10% of the total selling price. Other affiliate programs offer a flat dollar amount for each sale you make. At the end of the quarter (three months), they send you a check or deposit your earnings into your bank account or Paypal account.

The programs are free to sign up for and easy to use. Just fill out their form and build links using their free link generators with your affiliate number filled in. Post your links on your webpage, blog or wherever else you think someone might be interested in the product and promote, promote, promote!

As with all business ventures, how much you can make off affiliate programs depends greatly on how much you're willing to put into them.

The best affiliate links are tied somehow to your website or blog. If you're a freelance illustrator, for example, and have a blog on your artistic exploits, an affiliate program selling art supplies might be a perfect fit. Tying your affiliate programs into your hobbies is another way to get sales. A link on your homepage that talks about your cats can offer affiliate-linked cat toys for sale. A blog post about your latest rock climbing adventure can link to an affiliate site for ropes and harnesses. Think creatively about how you can tie in affiliate programs to your own website and start reaping the rewards.

Another alternative is to create affiliate links that you then advertise on other's websites or in ezines. One growing trend is to use paid search advertisements, such as Google Adwords, to promote your affiliate links. You pay a small amount to display your ad, but then keep the commissions you make when people click on it and buy stuff.

The two biggest mistakes people make when joining affiliate programs are not promoting their affiliate links and overdoing their affiliate involvement. If your website has no affiliate links, you're in need of more promotion. If your site has a hundred affiliate links, most people will not linger long enough to buy anything through your links. The best way to get involved in the affiliate lifestyle is by choosing your programs carefully and making sure they are relevant to your target audience.

If you're ready to get started signing up as an affiliate for some programs, here are a few of our favorites:

Commission Junction

Clix Galore

LinkShare

ClickBank

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Check out the newest diet craze- The Sonoma Diet- designed for people who love good food and wine.

For more details, go to:

http://www.sonomadiet.com/publicsite/funnel/index.aspx?promo=823853B7-C504-46DB-AEC7-952D1304F06D&np=1

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Book Review: Making Money in Cyberspace by Paul & Sarah Edwards and Linda Rohrbough

 Making Money in Cyberspace offers loads of ideas for ways to do business on the Internet. The book offers case studies of successful online entrepreneurs, tips on how to effectively do business online and a list of 175 business ideas for the web. The book covers a lot of ground, giving info to people who want to take their existing small business online as well as those who just want to jump right in and start making money on the web by themselves. There's even a chapter on how to work for someone else online, freelancing your services to people who might want to hire you.

The book doesn't emphasize any one aspect of working online, but instead offers important details that apply to any online business. The authors cover promoting business online, setting up a business website and securing ads for your new business. All the basics you need to get started, in other words.

Another positive aspect of the book is the focus on how to avoid making mistakes while doing business online. With real-world examples, the authors help you navigate the potential pitfalls so that you can get your business up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Overall, we liked this book a lot here at SweetGigs. It gave us some new ideas we're ready to go try and taught us a few tips we hadn't heard of before.

Buy the book from our bookstore:

http://sweetgigs.com/bookstore.htm

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Ads:

Love to Shop? Want to Get Paid for It? Our Mystery Shopping Packet can get you started! Click here to get information on over 200 mystery shopping companies ready to hire you to shop for them:

http://sweetgigs.com/shop.html

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"All in One" Web Hosting! - $7.77/month! From PowWeb Hosting. http://www.sweetgigs.com/hosting.html

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Contact newsletter@sweetgigs.com for information on advertising your products or services in this newsletter.

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Tip of the Week

If you wait until you are "ready", you'll never get anything done.

A friend once told me this and I've found it to be true. "Not ready" is just another way to say "I'm too busy procrastinating." Even if you don't have the money or the time to carry out your big business plans right now, look for ways to get started on at least a small scale. The creativity you put into finding ways to achieve your dreams will ultimately pay off in a deeper understanding of how your industry really works. Even if it's only checking out some books from the library on your business idea or creating some free promo pieces during commercials, anything that gets you closer to your goals is worth doing. So stop waiting! "Ready" is an illusion. Go out there and start working on your dreams! (Of course, we recommend that you finish this issue of SweetGigs newsletter first!)

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Improve Your Life/ Improve Yourself

 Guinea Pig Your Way to Savings


The big secret of many professionals is that they once did their work for dirt cheap. Some of them even did it for free.

Why would professionals give away their valuable services? From your hairstylist to your dentist to the person who made your wedding cake, everyone had to learn how to do their job through practice. But who did they practice on? Someone who wanted professional services at cut-rate prices. If you're willing to be someone's practice-client, you could be the one reaping the rewards.

So what kinds of professionals do this kind of practice work?
Colleges are one of the first places you should look for opportunities to be a service guinea pig. Dental and medical students have to learn to give basic checkups and dental exams. These practice sessions are supervised by a faculty member, a practicing doctor or dentist, so someone is watching to make sure everything is done correctly.

Cosmetology schools are a place to look for discount haircuts, hairstyling and cosmetic procedures, all under the watchful eye of an instructor. Another place to look for these kinds of services is to seek out salons or makeup artists who post photos of their work on the walls or windows of their place of business. Most of these photos are of people who got their hairstyle or makeup job for free, in exchange for being featured as a ???hairstyle model.???

Food is another area where you can save by purchasing someone else's trial efforts. Culinary schools often sell food made by their students, with cakes and other pastries a popular practice item for students. Some schools have an official bakery located on campus, while others take specific orders for cakes or catering.

Another way to get free or cheap services from new professionals is to exchange something of equal value. New photographers and models often work out these kinds of deals. Each gets a portfolio of photos, the model to show off their abilities and the photographer to show their camera skills. Other partnerships that commonly work well for both parties includes illustrators and copywriters creating a promo piece with words and graphics, independent publishers offering ad space in exchange for products or services instead of cash, and writers or bloggers exchanging a published review or testimonial for a sample of a new product.
 

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Sweeps of the Week

This week we have another sweepstakes- and a big one! After all, who couldn't use  $50,000 cash?

Win $50,000 from Black & Decker

http://www.blackanddecker.com/Win/ 

Also check out our other contest and sweepstakes listings at:

http://www.sweetgigs.com/sweepstakes.html

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