In a recent google search I discovered over 5 million pages indexed for this resale rights product: “The Affiliate Marketing Success Road Map”, and was saddened.

Why? Because I just read all 41 pages of that ebook, twice, and couldn’t think of much positive to say about it. Oh yes, wait, the graphics and the sales letter are fantastic. Whomever wrote the 41 pages should have stuck to their career as a sales letter writer because it is the most useful part of the entire package.

Now usually when I find master rights products like this I can help you in my reviews by assessing exactly which market the product serves. And, if the product (in this case an ebook) is a little light on the information or doesn’t share any secrets or systems, it’s often good for the newbie set. I classify these as primers - but this ebook doesn’t even fit into a primer category.

Here’s part of the sales letter to give you a taste of the content your customers hope to find inside:

“Exactly what you need in order to get on the fast, exciting and extremely profitable road to affiliate success!”

I’m guessing this is just a generalized statement. Meant to be matched by the entire content. But it isn’t.

“The best places to get your reliable web hosting and domain names for your network of affiliate promoting websites (you’ll need this to get online and get started on the road of long term affiliate success).”

Hmmm, a quick search in google can also easily show a person the “best places” to get hosting - no ebook purchase required. If the target market for this resale rights ebook is newbies they’d be best served by showing them how they can earn affiliate commissions on their own hosting accounts - it’s a fast way to start generating some money and gets the new internet entrepreneur excited about their business.

“Exactly what your affiliate promotion website should look like and where to go to get cheap, high quality graphics and web design (your website should look simple and easy on the eyes…that’s great because it’s both cheap and effective!)”

This bullet point is lightly met by providing a few links to a few template directories. Not ‘exactly’ what affiliate promotion websites should look like - after all, to be successful at affiliate marketing is to have some ‘edge’ that sets your site apart from the other 2 million all promoting the same product, wouldn’t you agree?

“The absolute easiest, simplest and yet one of the most effective and profitable ways to get started on becoming a successful affiliate! (you wont believe how simple and easy this is…you can be up and running in under an hour!)”

Hard to say, but I believe the author is suggesting using a free blog account to build a business as a successful affiliate on. This is the only place where I see Affiliate Success Road Map to be blatantly steering the new marketer in the wrong direction. If you want a successful online business then treat it as such. Give it a legitimate home, on your own domain and account, not some free website where you can invest your blood, sweat and tears, building credibility and page rank on someone else’s domain!

“Exactly how you can use “Blogging” to drive massive traffic to the websites you are promoting PLUS what “Blogging” service to use and how to make sure your blog keeps people coming back for more.”

Gee, blog and make sure your notification services include a pile of ping directories. Only with blogger (as suggested above) this can’t be done. The next big secret is how to make sure your blog keeps people coming back for more - I couldn’t find it, other than the reference to linking multiple sites that you’ve created and own, together.

I can’t go on. Don’t buy this - you’ll see it selling on (literally) 5 million other web pages online (from $9.99 to $37.95) plus it’s likely found on a few ebay auctions as well, but I can’t recommend this product and sleep at night - not even for $5.

I’ve read other master rights ebooks - where I know full well all the information within could also be found free online from a variety of websites - but having it all in one ebook, written in one author’s voice, was helpful and provided a great resource to return to time and time again (instead of a maze of personal bookmarks. Such is not the case here.

Finally, in case you’re wondering, what the ‘Road Map’ looks like - the system that this product is meant to reveal - it goes something like this:

1. Get a domain name.
2. Get a reseller account.
3. Make your first site.
4. Make your second site.
5. Link them to each other.
6. Promote them.
7. Make another site.
8. Link it to the others.
9. Promote them.
10. Repeat.

I guess one of the things that really perplexes me, is that there is no mention of building a list to promote to (surely the most lucrative way to market), building relationships online (with customers and competition), or any technique that shows people how they can win at affiliate marketing in a sea of thousands of other affiliate marketers.

There isn’t even any mention of where to get products to add to your websites, the top affiliate directories, what sells, or even what different affiliate links look like. After all, if we’re going to provide basic information, let’s ensure that the basics are at least covered…

“A simple guide to search engine optimization, which is an awesome and very cheap way to get free and extremely targeted search engine traffic that will generate sales!”

Answered in less than 150 words that amount to use metatags, links and keywords.

“Exactly how you can easily make your websites extremely easy to edit and link with other websites you own or link partners (editing websites is a pain in the butt, this simple method will save you hours!)”

The short piece of advice here was to use server includes - with absolutely no mention of what that could be, how to set it up, where to find more information, nothing.

I’m just going to leave it off here. If you’re thinking of buying the master or resale rights to this ebook - don’t. I do believe there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll be unhappy. And if you’re unhappy so will the customers you convince to buy it from you as well. Which, in my opinion, is not a good way to run a successful online business - either in resale rights or otherwise.