Alternative Small Office Home Office

Sometimes being an internet marketer is a tough job, but someone has to do it.

With the WordPress release due out in November, I’ve been making some notes for changes to the WordPress Affiliate Guide course. I had planned to update the videos for 2.6.x (the ebook is already updated), but with WordPress 2.7 on the horizon and heralding a number of astounding changes, I’ve decided to pour my energy into updating the videos for that version. Unfortunately, it also means that I need to wait a couple more weeks until the changes have been finalized on the WP developers’ end. The last thing I want to do is create a video only to find a few days later that the devs decided to move stuff around last minute.

I’ve also been working on adding a bonus guide for building a membership site using WordPress. Again, that’s been paused until WP 2.7 is out and official.

Aside from that, WP Affiliate Guide has seen a few other updates as well. In addition to the previous bonus items, I’ve included two new ones: SLM Plugin Lite and WPDFI Lite.

Just to give you the rundown, here are the current bonus offerings available to WP Affiliate Guide customers*.

• WordPress Mini Site Report and Theme: This is a short report
  explaining how to build a lazy affiliate style mini site using
  WordPress and the included theme.
• Simplified Silos with WordPress: In this report, I focus on creating
  a silo site using WordPress’ pages feature.
• Super Social Directory: A directory of social networking, bookmarking, and video sharing
  websites including their PageRank and Alexa rankings.
• Affiliate Sandbox Theme: Bare bones theme which mimics the style of a
  catalog style website–all that’s required is your own personal
  styling and graphics.
• Simple Link Manager Plugin Lite: A light version of the SLM plugin. It still has the basic functionality, however, it doesn’t include referrer tracking or data export which is available in the full commercial version of the plugin.
• WordPress Datafeed Import Lite: A light version of the WPDFI script. It allows you to import datafeed content; each product in the datafeed will be imported as a WordPress post. Post scheduling and content customization are not available in the light version.

I’ve also been working on some client work, and plus, of course, there’s life and we all know how tricky that can be. So, if you’ve been wondering why I’ve been so quiet lately, now you know.

Tags: affiliate marketing, internet marketing, product management, wordpress affiliate guide, wp affiliate guide

The lack of respect some people have for another person’s property never ceases to amaze me. The other day, someone informed me that one of my products was being sold elsewhere. Actually, it was someone enquiring whether or not she would receive access to the videos, bonuses and updates if she were to purchase through this other website.

As it turned out, someone going by the name of Agus Rachmani Saidar (superwebx@gmail.com) was selling unauthorized copies of my brand new WP Affiliate Guide course as a bonus item for purchasing the WP Affiliate Pro plugin. I went ahead and ordered (which I’ve since had to write off as the cost of doing business) to confirm he was, indeed, selling a copy of my WP Affiliate Guide and sure enough, complete with copyright notice intact, was my ebook.

Without a second though, I immediately sent an e-mail to PayLoadz about the offending product and it was removed within a few hours. Less than 24 hours later, his entire account appears to have been removed from the site. (Apparently, I wasn’t the only person whose product he was selling illegally.) Learn the gory details »

Tags: product management, resale rights, wp affiliate guide

From the merchant’s perspective, it can be difficult to troubleshoot a problem, especially when you’re not seeing the same thing (or receiving the same results) as the customer having the problem. Unfortunately, there can be a loss in translation when trying to get the root cause of something.

Today, I was just reminded of one simple, yet highly useful technique for getting to the root of the problem…a screenshot. Continue reading →

That’s where I’ve been spending a majority of my time for about the last month — the WP Affiliate Guide website and forums and it’s been a lot of fun. So, I’m sorry for being so quiet here and not picking up where I left off with my 20/20 challenge.

Like I said on previous occasions, it’s not forgotten, although it seems that way; it’s just been placed on an indefinite hiatus. For the most part, I’m okay with it for now because 2008 started with a bang.

Here’s a quick time line just to give you an idea… See the time line

Tags: 20/20 challenge, my products, product launches, wp affiliate guide

Unfortunately, there’s a random Office Open XML error that can really cripple your work and it seems I’m not the only one to experience the problem.

For a couple months, I’d been working on a new ebook. It had about 58 pages of text formatted with about 30 screen captures and images used throughout. In other words, it was a highly customized Word 2007 document which I diligently saved while working on it — I even saved various versions as I went along.

Nothing was out of the ordinary; my computer was chugging along swimmingly and Word confirmed each save as complete. There was no reason for me to believe I’d have problems in the future.

Little did I know that actually saving the document wouldn’t help, because when I went to work on the file again I was greeted by some obscure and unhelpful XML error. Read the gruesome error

Tags: microsoft office word 2007, office open xml error