The latest issue (#2) of FeedFront magazine was sent out earlier this week and I received mine yesterday. If you were subscribed to receive the first issue, you will immediately notice that the second issue is nearly double in size. Not only does it provide for more useful content, but also more space to sell ads in the magazine! Also, if you haven’t received your copy yet, you will also find that this issue will double as the program for Affiliate Summit East in Boston later this month.

Just when you thought FeedFront magazine couldn’t get any better… there’s more! Since Affiliate Summit is just days away, I wanted to share my experience and stress the important of networking, in an article I wrote, which is titled “Six Degrees of Affiliate Marketing” (and you can find it on page 28). In short, the article covers the importance of networking and how my first Affiliate Marketing conference changed the way I ran business online forever. The contacts, life experience and knowledge you get from attending these conferences is amazing. Click here to read the full article.

Speaking of networking… I look forward to meeting with many of you at Affiliate Summit this weekend in Boston! If you haven’t subscribed yet, head over to the FeedFront web site and get a free subscription, or view the full issue on PDF.

More of a motivational post than anything else… but where do you and your affiliate earnings rank among some of Hollywood’s elite? For those of us fortunate enough to be able to make a living online, we have a lot more in common with celebrities than you might think. Like celebrities, we are our own company… without the celebrity, there is nothing to their name, likewise, without yourself to run your business… there is no business.

Here are just a few of the top earners last year in Entertainment.

Miley Cyrus, 15, Singer/Actress, Los Angeles $18.2 million
Katherine Heigl, Actress, Los Angeles, $11 million
Jessica Alba, Actress, Los Angeles, $9 million
Dr. Phil McGraw, 57, TV host, Los Angeles, $90 million
Steven Spielberg, 61, Movie director, Los Angeles, $110 million
Ryan Seacrest, 33, TV/radio host, Los Angeles, $12 million
Mariska Hargitay, 44, Actress, Los Angeles, $7 million
Trouble, 8, Leona Helmsley’s dog, Sarasota, $12 million
Tiger Woods, 32, golfer, Orlando, $115 million
Jeff Foxworthy, 49, Comedian, Atlanta, $10 million
Oprah Winfrey, 54, TV personality, Chicago, $260 million
Mary-Kate Olsen, 21, Actress/entrepreneur, New York, $17 million
Gisele Bundchen, 27, Model, New York, $33 million
Scarlett Johansson, 23, Actress, New York, $5 million
Eli Manning, 27, NY Giants quarterback, New York, $11.5 million
50 Cent, 32, Rapper, New York, $33 million
Carrie Underwood, 25, Singer, Nashville, $7 million

While some of the names on the list like Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods, earn over $100 million a year… there are many names on the list earning under $10 million a year. I’m sure $10 million dollars is more than plenty for most of us, but numbers like that (and above) are being earned by some of the “elite super affiliates” in the world! Try not to take this post too seriously, and take it more as a just a little kick in the butt to get yourself motivated again and to earn those big bucks!

[For a complete list of what people earned last year, take a look at Parade Magazine's Annual "What People Earn" Issue.]

I just received my latest Market Leverage American Express gift card yesterday, for my June earnings through their network. So when I saw their latest promotion, I thought it would be fitting to announce. During August, you can earn more money with Market Leverage than ever before. The ML network is holding what they call a “Double Play Triple Pay“, which means, if you can double your affiliate earnings from last month (July 2008), then you will receive Triple ML Rewards based on your commissions for August 08.

Market Leverage already has the best rewarding Rewards program, which is a 1% bonus of your monthly earnings. If you are able to double your previous month’s earnings, you are looking at a 3% bonus at the end of the month. This may not sound like a lot, but in the end, it all really helps with your marketing numbers. If you earn $20,000 this month, you would receive an additional $600 ML American Express Bonus Gift Card on top of your earnings. The gift cards can be used for personal use, or to put towards your marketing efforts.

The winner of the Apple iPod Touch from the Market Leverage promotion will be announced early next week.

As marketers, we see it all the time… BIG RED LETTERS on landing pages to grab our attention. Different colors make people act differently. RED is usually seen as a “danger” or “warning” color… while BLUE or GREEN is more “soothing” and “trusted“. An excellent example of this was how in Star Wars, Darth Maul is RED and BLACK (representing his evil), and Yoda was GREEN… showing his “stability” and “safety”.

In today’s post I wanted to focus on all of the main colors and how they should be represented in your advertising efforts. Believe it or not, the colors you place on your landing pages or web sites can drastically change your overall conversions and the user’s thinking process. Below is a break down from HP, on the main colors we use for marketing and how they are often looked at by others.

Primary Colors:

Red is a very emotionally charged color. It tends to increase the respiration rate and can even raise your blood pressure. It creates excitement and can be associated with danger, war, power, strength passion, desire and love. It can even increase your appetite.

Yellow is the happy color… it is the color of sunshine. It creates a sense of cheerfulness and helps to stimulate mental activity. When yellow is very bright, it can attract attention. It can also provide a very sharp contrast to dark colors. Yellow can have the appearance of being brighter than white if over used and can be disturbing if used too much.

Blue is a trusted color. It can provide a sense of tranquility and security. It tends to symbolize loyalty, wisdom, trust, faith, confidence, and intelligence. While red can help to increase the appetite, blue tends to have the opposite affect and can actually suppress the appetite.

Secondary Colors:

Orange is the combination of the happiness of yellow and the energy and strength of red. It symbolizes creativity, determination, enthusiasm and success. In addition orange indicates affordability. Because of its similarity to red, it is great to promote food.

Green tends to suggest endurance and stability. It represents harmony, growth and freshness. Green indicates safety. Obviously, it is associated with money and wealth. With the interest in “green” products, it is the only color that can promote organic foods and products effectively.

Violet or purple combines the energy and strength of red with the stability of blue. It represents nobility, ambition, power and luxury. It symbolizes extravagance and wealth and is often associated with dignity, independence, wisdom and magic.

Others:

White is purity, goodness, light and innocence. It is considered perfection. White is generally positive and simple. Often it is the color of charitable organizations, low-fat foods and dairy products.

Black is elegant, powerful and formal, but can also be associated with death. In marketing, it is dignified. In certain contexts, black is very negative (blacklist, black humor, etc). It can also denote prestige.

Next time you are working on your landing page or new web site, step back and look at your color scheme and see how your colors are targeting your audience.

Over the past several months, I’ve found myself working on new projects and focusing my efforts elsewhere… and slightly moving away from what I know makes the most money and what I should be working on. It’s not completely a matter of being lazy… it’s more about where I would much rather spend my time, and lately, that’s been playing 2-4 hours of basketball several days a week. While it’s great to get out and occasionally set yourself apart from your business, you need to keep things in perspective, and do what’s necessary.

My average day is waking up sometime between 8am and 10am, then working on the computer till around 3pm. Around 3-4pm I usually head over to the gym and run basketball til around 6:30pm. If I don’t hit the gym up that day, then I will probably be working online til around 6… so the week evens out a bit.

It really is quite amazing how much time you can spend online, and how little work you can get done. Between keeping an eye on Twitter, chatting with others on AIM, looking at stats reports and going over new ideas… some days just fly by and it feels like you have accomplished nothing. All too often we hear from others, that they get so much more work done when they simply turn everything off and just work!

In addition to better time management, when you are focusing your full efforts on work, make sure you are working on what matters and what will actually make you money. I’m sure when you are spending time setting up new FaceBook campaigns, or setting up landing pages for a new ppc campaign, it’s probably not top priority on your list of fun things to do… but it will make you money and give you more time down the road to do whatever you want.

Not only am I possibly preaching to the choir, but I am also preaching to myself. I must better self manage my time and efforts in the right areas. I have a lot of ideas and project that I want to work on, and that have become half completed and “sitting” projects for months or even years. Focus your efforts on your main income producing ideas and you will succeed that much more.

Are you currently making money online, and know you could make “that much more” if you just started to focus your full efforts in one area… and not half ass everything?