Very few people really understand the true potential of affiliate marketing as a method to generate a long term income. Other than a small (or large) website, often just one page is all that is required as long as it is designed for the product in question. Many people like this because they can pick and choose which product they want to sell.
The next step is to consider the affiliate program you intend to promote as your first project. However the tedious part that must be carried out: reading the terms and conditions, you fail to do this at your own peril. If you are taking your business seriously then this is something you would do in the ordinary world so do not be fooled by the ease with which the virtual world appears to work. There are many companies that will only trade with certain countries so will not pay affiliates if they live there.
Although many affiliate programs pay better than 50 percent, some are much lower than this and unless there is good turnover it may not be worth signing up for small percentages/trends/hottrends and Clickbank where you can also sign up for the programs using their own payment gateway. Steer clear of any affiliate programs that request money for membership, this is not normal and it might be the way they earn an income. Many programs these days will use Paypal or Clickbank; they are easy to use, have good reputations and do not charge to join and you can expect a high level of service from both. At a later stage, trying different companies to handle payments will be fine but your inexperience in affiliate marketing at this point could lead you to making mistakes that are unnecessary.
For ebooks and other sites that can help with your marketing affiliate products business just do a search online, you will be surprise just how much information is out there. Many of the free ebooks contain web links to buy products that the author receives an affiliate commission on but you do not have to click on these and it does not mean the information is of little worth. when you are making some money. This can benefit you because if the free programs etc.
For the best exposure of your affiliate marketing campaign, use alternative sources of advertising, do not restrict your efforts to purely online methods. The purpose behind this is to direct traffic to your website where a certain percentage of people will place an order. To find out where your affiliate marketing efforts are best spent you will need to track where the traffic to your site is coming from and stick to those methods. There is a huge amount of freedom associated with affiliate marketing and the potential earnings are massive, but this can take many years to build up. A great deal of information is out there but you are warned about some which will be out of date or misleading.