Affiliate Marketing and The Disabled

When I moved close to Fargo, ND in 2003 I needed a way to earn a living. I learned about affiliate marketing from my landlord and friend. I have multiple sclerosis which isn't getting any better. I'd been married to a woman from North Dakota for 9 years and we had a son. When we divorced she moved back home and my son went with her. It didn't really matter to me where I lived because I had quit my cell phone sales job at the end of 2002 and my health was getting worse. I had very few ties left with the Minneapolis area. All of my friends had gotten married or moved away and had lives of their own.

I didn't want my son growing up without me so I moved to ND in September of 2003. Now, I'm 20 minutes from where my son lives and I can see him 2 or 3 times per week. In the past year I've really learned what it means to be disabled. I can barely walk and I need my electric scooter 100% of the time when I go outside. I rely on my walker for balance and help with my walking indoors.

My landlord and friend in ND was a former employee of Microsoft in Fargo. He's the person that first told me about affiliate marketing. In 2004 I started learning slowly about affiliate marketing, google, adsense, gurus and home based businesses. I signed up to be an affiliate for about 20 products. However, I still had rental houses in Minneapolis so I was spending a lot of time managing them from 250 miles away. It wasn't until mid 2006 that my plate had cleared enough so I could start seriously looking at affiliate marketing as a way to make a living. The thing I learned quickly is that 20 products is way too many to manage. I would suggest 2 or 3. That is a manageable amount.

I would be the first to admit that I struggled with affiliate marketing so I became discouraged. I have cognitive problems with my MS and it seems when things get confusing or hard to comprehend it's easier to just quit or run the other way! When I first started affiliating I was trying to understand mailing lists, autoresponders, sales letters, article writing and everything else. My brain was overloaded! Then I found Plug In Profits! It seemed like everything fell into place. That is a great product and I highly recommend it to anyone! That link is listed below in the resource box.

Two good things that I did do in 2005 and 2006 concerning affiliate marketing were these. First, I built a website called Disabiz. The word Disabiz is short for disabled businesses. With the social security system up in the air I thought it would be a good idea to show other disabled people how to make money on the internet. The second good thing I did during those two years was write an e-book. It chronicles my life and how it has changed in the past 16 years since my diagnosis. It's called I'll Run Again In Heaven and details my life from college until the present. I finished my e-book in the spring 2007 and I'm now selling it online.

I've listed 4 affiliate products on Disabiz that I really like and they will make some money for anyone. They are all under $100 to start. On my website I also talk about ezine article writing, places to advertise your affiliate products, my MS and I also have an excerpt from my ebook there. So all in all I'm very pleased with affiliate marketing. I think if my MS progresses like it has been I feel confident that I can still earn a decent living working from home.