5. Once a day go through all entries in your stenobook and act on those you can.

6. When you complete an item, check it off inside circle. If you decide not to do an item, put an X in circle. If item is information or an idea only, put a triangle inside circle.

7. When a page is completed in your stenobook, put a colored hi-liter dot at top of page. Then when you are glancing through your stenobook you can easily see what pages are done and which pages still have active items on them.

8. When your stenobook becomes full begin a new one and number this book 2. Keep first one nearby until all pages are marked.

9. Store your completed stenobooks for possible future reference.

Examples of entries you can make in your stenobook are: * a website address to a useful site * an email address of a person or organization * a newsletter you may want to subscribe to * something new that is being done on Internet * a tip or clue you think might work for your business * online research results * something great that someone else does

So, no longer let those secrets pass you by. Capture them in your business secrets stenobook. Soon you will notice a control returning to you. Watch your business go from an amateur effort to a respected and successful company.

And once you're publishing your own ezine, it's a simple enough matter to distribute your articles for other ezine publishers to run in their ezines. That 4 or 5 liner at end telling readers who you are with a link to your website (or, if you don't have one, website of owner of product you're selling) is effectively free advertising for you. Not all publishers accept article submissions though, so be sure to find out whether they do before submitting your articles to them.

But think about this. If you're doing all this work anyway, doesn't it make sense to create your OWN website (in addition to your ezine)? Sure it takes time and it takes work and it takes money (but not a lot - hosting fees can be pretty cheap if you know where to go). But once it's done and you're just in maintenance mode - adding fresh content every few days, uploading your latest ezine and maintaining your archives - your website does so much of work for you. Generate a few hundred unique visitors a day and you can be getting same click- through rate to your affiliate site *for nothing* that you were paying someone else 14 cents a click for. EVERY SINGLE DAY. 24/7/365.

So, this is truth about affiliate programs. They're great if you're product owner and they're great if you can link to your affiliate site from your own high-traffic site. But if you don't have your own site, you're going to have to buy traffic to your affiliate site - either with money, time or both. How many sales are you going to have to generate to earn enough commission to more than cover your time and costs and leave you with a profit?

Bottom line? Setting out to make money with affiliate programs before you have your own site in place is putting cart before horse. Yes, you want to make money and you want to do it quickly. But it just doesn't work that way. Not with affiliate programs, anyway. So adjust your expectations and do first steps first. It will be slow going to start. It will take you weeks to create a worthwhile site and then MONTHS to generate kind of traffic you need. But if you take a long-term approach to your business and take time now to lay proper foundation, you'll reap dividends for years to come.

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Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ... practical home business ideas for work-from-home entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com _______________________________________________________________