Released in early 2000, this was one of the first books about affiliate programs and it still sets the standard. While it didn’t predict the demise of the dotcoms, this book is still very relevant. For the beginner, its basics and useful tips are exactly what you need to get started.
But for the advanced reader, its unique and prescient predictions about where things where things are going are VERY interesting. (If you replace some of the book’s references to no-longer existing companies with the newer term “XML Web Services,” you have what amounts to a book that was written 5-8 YEARS ahead of its time! For instance, the authors were completely accurate in their prediction of the return of the importance of the individual/small site, a notion which was heresy in 2000 when the web was totally dominated by massive funded companies competing using millions of dollars from their IPO war chests.
I credit the authors with this foresight and find their other 50,000-foot-level insights to still be fresh, insightful, and completely unique among the books I’ve seen in this category. This aspect makes the book required reading for anybody who thinks they know anything about affilate programs today.
The only drawback of this book is that many of the examples sited in the directory of affiliate programs are no longer around. But the authors do reference other affiliate program directories which still exist and that is really all you need to know to find suitable programs today.
