Three things I think you absolutely must know as an affiliate marketer.
Pay careful attention. If you don't develop a strong grasp on
these points, at best, you will pay for it in lost profits and
time. At worst, your efforts an affiliate marketer will simply
fail; and you'll give up – just as most do.

#1 Avoid Spammy Mediums Like the Plague

As an affiliate marketer, few things are as important as your
reputation. If you develop a reputation as someone who is a) a
spammer or b) really, really desperate, people aren't going to
heed your advice. If, for instance, you recommend a product to
people – either through your list, a free ebook, or something
like that – and the people see you as somewhat of a desperate
spammer, they are far less likely to pay attention to what you
say.

...After all, why should I take your advice on purchasing some
new ebook if you receive your traffic through spam – or if you
receive little traffic at all? Clearly you haven't been
successful with the supposed techniques you've discovered in the
book, so why should I take your advice?

There are other big downsides to using spammy media. Most
importantly – even if publishing in the medium itself isn't
technically spam – it can often be associated with spam or get
you penalized by email clients just the same. And once you've
been penalized by email clients, you can forget running your
business from that email address or any other's on that domain.

With that said, here's a list of some important media to AVOID:

1. FFAs or "free for alls." FFAs are basically forums or
email lists that allow desperate people to hurl garbage at each
other and see if any of it sticks. Think about this one for a
minute: do you really want to receive 50 messages a day from
other desperate affiliate marketers? Do you think you'll buy any
of their products? Obviously not.

By the same token, they don't want to buy your products. They
want to sell products. So avoid these forums and email lists.
The
only people frequenting them are spammers and those who are
desperate to sell something. Very few actual buyers will
voluntarily decide to wade into the trash heaps that are FFAs in
order to purchase something.

2. Safelists. Safe? If you don't mind getting splattered with
spammy garbage on a daily basis. Again, you're basically joining
a list of people who agreed to join a list, so they could send
out their offers. Everyone on the list wants to send out offers.
They don't want to receive offers.

As an affiliate markter, you goal should be to find places where
people want to buy stuff – not where people want to sell
stuff.
A marketplace of all sellers is pretty useless – especially
when all of those sellers have failed virtually every other place.

In sum, keep away from spammy lists of all kinds. Not only are
they a waste of time, but they could be a permanent blackspot on
your credibility. Don't do it.

#2 Develop the "Successful Affiliate's Mindset"

It's funny. People who become successful in all walks of life
tend to talk about mindset the most. And, in general, this is the
piece of information that people who haven't yet experienced that
success want to hear about the least. They want meaty
information, full of facts and exact procedures. They don't want
fluffy mindset stuff that seems more self-glorifying than helpful.

Strangely, though, this information actually is quite important.
If you want to make a lot of money as someone who is
self-employed, you definitely cannot do it without first
accepting full responsibility for your success.

Why is that? Because no one else is responsible for your success
other than you. That's right: the guru you purchased that last
ebook from – he's not responsible for your success. If you come
back to him in 30 days and say "Hey, you jerk! I'm not a
millionare yet, as you said I would..." he'll happily give you
a refund on be on his way. What he wont do is make you money.
That part is entirely up to you.

So how can you do it? By developing the right mindset – by
accepting that no matter what happens, you are responsible. You
no longer have an employer. You no longer can say "I tried
really hard; therefore, I still deserve pay." The only way you
will receive pay as an affiliate marketer is after you have made sales.

So adopt that mindset; and do your best to avoid self-pity and
the temptation to blame others for your failure, no matter how
tempting. One good way to do this is to observe the behavior of
other successful affiliate forums. You can do them by watching
them at forums, such as the following one:http://www.abestweb.com.

#3 Create Your Own Website

Most affiliate marketers start off by making a really bad
decision: they refer all of their PAYING customers to affiliate
links, rather than their own site. This is ALWAYS bad; and
ALWAYS results in diminished selling opportunities in the future.

If you have a prospect who has enough money burning a hole in
his pocket to buy, then get him on one of your lists. Send him to
YOUR website; and get him to sign up for a course you've created.

Only once he's on your email list should you start marketing
affiliate products to him. If you don't yet have a list, you can
create one with the tool at the following 2 highly recommended
companies: http://www.aweber.com and http://www.getresponse.com

I understand that getresponse.com has free option so you can try it out.   

Remember: if you send BUYING customers to your affiliate link,
that product owner benefits more than you do. If you send them
to your website, you will not only get the sale from that one
interaction, but you also get the chance to make future pitches.

You now know the three most important things avoid affiliate
marketing. Heed them and you will do well. Ignore them and they
will poison every opportunity you encounter.