RAPBank.com – An Alternative To ClickBank Marketplace
If you’ve been affiliate marketing for any length of time, one of the things you always look for are new exciting products that you can promote on your website or list.
There are the old standbys like ClickBank’s marketplace and PayDotCom… the downside with these guys is that a lot of these products have been over-sold, so finding “fresh blood” is important to keep the edge.
So, just this past week a brand new affiliate product portal opened up called RAPBank (http://rapbank.com).
RAPBank.com offers “Instant Commission” products that are running on the Rapid Action Profits platform.
This platform is cool on a few different levels:
1. It gives affiliates a new place to find products
2. It gives affiliates an Instant commission product
3. It gives product creators a way to advertise their products (if it’s running on RAP)
So, if you haven’t checked it out yet, I encourage you to go over to RapBank.com and check it out for yourself.
Disclaimer: This blog contains affiliate links that compensate my company should you make a purchase.
Colorado To Ditch Amazon Affiliates
So… Amazon decided to bail on Colorado affiliates today…
The following email was sent out to all Amazon.com affiliates who reside in Colorado today:
Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:
We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.
We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.
There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.
You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.
Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010.
We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.
Best Regards,
The Amazon Associates Team
If you’re in Colorado (or any other State that has passed this law), it may be time to setup a corporation “out of state”… (consult your CPA or Tax Lawyer about this stuff!).
Senator Greg Brophy tweeted that they “will seek emergency legislation if necessary to fix” this problem.
Here’s another post about this on Huffington Post.
Have a… day.
Inspiring Words From Will Smith
I’ve always felt that having the right “Mindset” is the difference between success and failure in any venture (life, business or otherwise). Because of this I’m often on the lookout for good books, quotations, interviews about successful people and mindset.
Here’s a compilation of different interview with Will Smith talking about success and mindset. Totally worth the 10 minutes you spend watching this video. Enjoy!
Look Back At What You’ve Accomplished
I was reading a blog post by Yanik Silver yesterday and had to share it…
In it he talks about how you should take the time out and write down a “best of the decade” list. Very cool idea and very worthwhile (in my opinion).
I encourage you to read the post by Yanik here: http://www.internetlifestyle.com/blog/resources-and-tools/decade-lessons-growth/
It’s a long post but totally worth your time.
Plus, I found a really insightful quote by R. Buckminster Fuller:
“Your true success is found perpendicular along the path to your original perceived goal”
I like it. 
Have fun!
/Steven
The Death Of Article Marketing (or is it the death of EzineArticles)?
You know, there’s been a lot of talk on various forums about some of the changes happening over at EzineArticles.com and how it will affect Article Marketers or Bum Marketers as they are also called.
If you’re not familiar with what Chris Knight is looking for in new articles, read this post by Chris: http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2009/10/from-my-desk-to-yours-3.html
He also sent out an email today where he said:
Get this: Over 142,000 articles are currently in “Problem Status.” Of those, 41% are under 399 words. Compare that to those that are over 750+ words which account for 1-2% of the total. That means you can significantly increase your chances of having your article accepted purely by increasing your word count to the 400+ range. Watch for a full blog post this week with the details on this internal stats study.
While I for one think it’s a good thing that Chris is increasing the quality standard of the articles, many think it’s the “death of Bum Marketing” and EzineArticles.com as we know it.
I wouldn’t necessarily go that far since there are several quality options available for article marketers. Travis, Mr. Bum Marketing himself, created a video addressing this and now recommend ArticleBase.com as an option: Read the rest of this entry »
Learn Copywriting From Jay Abraham (Jay Abraham’s School of Copywriting)
I recently came across a series of videos by Jay Abraham where had discusses a cool way to use Amazon.com for copywriting.
Check it out: