And as a product creator, I can tell you it applies outside of affiliate marketing too. Take the story of RAP Bank, for example. Read all about it in my first ever guest blog post on Lynn's ClickNewz. Enjoy!

It's interesting to see a few enterprising individuals are riding this wave to good effect by compiling lists of such programs and selling them anywhere from $7 on up to $17. I have to laugh, because there's a real easy way to discover these programs...

A couple powerful searches is all it takes:

• Google Search #1
• Google Search #2

And here's another resource worth perusing:

• The RAP Mall

Whenever possible, the listings will be for joint venture (JV) and affiliate opportunities, so you can get on board these promotions. I encourage you to have a look thru the prior months as well, since many do not require you to get in on the ground floor. I hope you find this resource useful, and if you're a product owner with an upcoming launch, please let me know.

Sign up for my centralized affiliate program and you'll be credited with every other sale! (Just like with my own products.)

Furthermore, if you have a large list to which you'll be mailing this offer, please see me about customizing a coupon code for you.

And, while you're at it, be sure to buy the product yourself and listen to all these great interviews! There are some seriously good insights to be gathered.

In the almost two years since it's release (as of this writing), it's become the all-in-one system of many big name internet marketers, like Willie Crawford.

And, the support forum is second-to-none. I'm in there daily, joining the many regulars helping people out, brainstorming ideas, and reviewing one another's sites. A great group of people and a great script, which I'm proud to say I've helped expand by way of my Addons. (That's a great feature of RAP right there, its extensibility through developer Addons, just as with WordPress plugins).

Well, you can tell I'm a fan and could go on and on. That's why I'm delighted that Sid has put together a payment plan that makes it quite affordable for anyone to get in on the action (pun intended). If you didn't think it was in the budget before, I encourage you to take another look now.

See you on (or is it in? or either? anyway, LOL...) the forums!

Since the choice of affiliate program ("scheme" in the UK) is by product, you might find using this traditional method particularly helpful for big ticket items that often make only a few sales a month.

It reminded me that I had a similar article queued up in my blog drafts. This one may be even scarier for affiliate marketers when it comes to potential liability.

I see also Alan Bechtold has blogged about the pervasiveness and persistence of our online communications. A hastily crafted tweet written in frustration or misunderstanding can have you regretting it over and over as its replayed in cyberspace with each new search hit.

Having recently read the excellent Launch Your Own Affiliate Review Site Monopoly by fellow software developer and recognized expert on the topic, Stephen Carter, I was curious to hear what he had to say about the issue. I wrote him and he kindly provided the following commentary.

I think the average blogger, or online reviewer, is more likely to get struck by a car than get sued for anything they say online. But if you stick your neck out and say that some business is a scam, instead of saying that you feel like you got scammed by that business (big difference) then you make yourself liable for your comments.

Libel laws protect businesses and people from having damaging non factual information about them spread around. So to cover yourself, just don't assert anything you cannot prove. You can always get your message across if you have had a bad experience. You just have to frame it as an opinion. I don't think you can be sued for having an opinion, though you can still reap a lot of bad juju for announcing ideas that others find offensive.

Of course, that's the layman's approach to this issue. Lawyers always have the last word.

Like I said, I really respect Stephen, and encourage you to check out his thorough and cogent book, which also includes his review site software.

(Similarly, the Info Riches course, about which I have a video in a previous post, is going up dramatically in some eighteen hours or so! Ultimately, I wussed out on buying it myself, so I can only comment on the pre-launch Future of Internet Marketing interviews, which I've found a great way to put voices and personalities to the names.)

Anyway, maybe you're wondering what the heck a devoted RAPateer, as we like to call ourselves, is doing thinking about Clickbank. Well, I've long been considering also offering products there too in order to capture a larger affiliate audience (though I believe the number of people promoting RAP products will continue to grow and may increase exponentially in the near future with new tools like my Affiliate Cookie Wordpress Plugin).

But, there's more to Chris Freville's Clickbank Inner Circle than his strongly advocating you become a CB publisher. It's also about how to approach the big names for joint ventures, whether there really is an inner circle, and all the other whats and hows of affiliate marketing.

I'm still working my way through all the PDFs, but I've watched the videos and listened to the audios. In particular, I burned the Alex Goad interview to CD, and it's received several playings in the car now. There are some quality gems in that one for sure.

By adding a "ref" parameter to your blog's URL, or any post or page therein, it sets the "aff" cookie for your domain. In the case of Rapid Action Profits (RAP), the sales system I use, the default matches, but I've included simple instructions on how to change it.

This enables your affiliate to simply send traffic to your blog or a favorite post, and if the reader then purchases one of your products, the affiliate gets credit for the sale. The upside is huge for both the shy affiliate (no selling) and the blog and product owner (more traffic).

To see it in action, click on Tools up top or any of the product links along the bottom of the page, signup for my affiliate program, then add http://www.netkickstart.com/blog/?e= to your blogroll. (You'll note it also cloaks the URL, so it doesn't look like an affiliate link!)

When I sign up to help make a launch or giveaway successful — in whatever small way that may be — I have a reasonable expectation of only receiving news and updates about that event. Or, at most, notification of a future JV with that same individual.

What I don't expect, nor want, is to be pitched every new product on the market. Maybe joint venture opportunities for them, but even then, don't you think, as a supposed insider, I'd know about those from their creators? Certainly by the time it comes to being a purchaser for the next big thing, those on a JV list are going to know about it already.

Why segment your lists if you're going to send the same damn thing to all of them?! Near as I can tell, the answer is because that way if someone unsubscribes from one, you still have them on five others. (Aweber and several other autoresponders will let you unsubscribe from all at once, but it's a list-owner option that not everyone leaves checked.)

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. My humble plea, to all you "JV" and affiliate list owners, is... Please keep these lists clean, by which I mean on-topic, informative, and respectful, not salesy. We're ostensibly partners, right? (Yeah, I know...)