Who the Heck is James Martell?

I had actually heard of James Martell, me being someone who creates niche sites I had glanced at a gazillion different systems and sales pitches. In my mind James Martell was the ‘guy who did the affiliate site thing’ so since, at the time, I was an AdSense crack head I didn’t really look closely at his system.

Now that I’ve gone into recovery for my Crack-Sense addiction I’ve begun building affiliate focused sites and when one of the email newsletters I subscribe to announced a special conference call with James, I figured I had to check it out.

Three things stuck me immediately about the call:

1.) He wasn’t pitchy. This is a good sign to me because it tells me that he probably makes enough money from doing the things that his ebook Affiliate Marketing Guide teaches that he really doesn’t need the money from selling the eBook. [tangental rant: pardon my jadedness I'm just a little burned out from receiving the endless "Internet Marketer" pitches who are selling you ebooks that really teach you to make Internet Marketing pitches and sell ebooks about Internet Marketing...it's
like an endless spiral of worthless squeeze pages and email grabs].

During the call James explained that the reason he wrote the book in the first place was because once he started to become successful at his online business, all his friends wanted him to help them out and he didn’t have any time left to work on his own sites. So he created the ebook as a guide for the friends so they’d stop bugging him! I have to say I can relate.

2.) He makes things simple. He doesn’t pretend that the whole game is so complicated that you must buy his system to figure it out. In fact during the call he repeated simplified things that I believed to be much more complex.

James’ secret Internet success formula: create content & get links to it! That’s it, follow that formula and you’ll be a success. So why do you need to spend $167 on his ebook? I’ll tell you why I did in part two of my James Martell series.

3.) He was realistic. While he is confident that if you follow his steps [the book is a guide that takes you through 8 steps necessary to create a successful website] then you will make money, he is also very careful to mix that with a healthy dose of reality. Building these sites is not a get rich quick scheme, it is a business, and like any other business it requires a plan: he suggests a minimum of one year to get to a decent income.

Well it was clear to me by listening to the call that he knew ways to run an Internet business, including creating content and getting links to it that were based on his experience that were proven to be efficient and effective. Like any other mentor he can show you what works and steer you away from the things that will hurt you.

From the ‘about James’ section of the Affiliate Marketing Home Study guide I have learned that James began his online career in 1999 and has been through the ups and downs of the web publishing cycles, including making $5000 in a month very shortly after starting his first site and then having the company who’s products he was marketing go bankrupt!

James also doesn’t hide the fact that he has done very well in his business, as the guide and his websites are sprinkled with stories and examples of his success: frequent exotic travel, fancy vintage sports cars and successfully feeding four kids [as all you CashFlow 101 players know, kids are the ultimate doodad ]

The first version of James Martell’s Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook was released in 2002, then a ‘revisited’ version was released in 2004 and now, to keep up with changes in Google and the affiliate game in general, James has released the 2006 version of the Affiliate Marketer’s Handbook which has been completely refined to match the current conditions on the web.

Thanks to a glitch during my purchase of the book, I ended up emailing James and [in the category of 'it never hurts to ask'] he agreed to do an email interview with me, which I’ll be conducting in the next week or so. If you have any questions that you’d like to ask then use my contact form or leave a comment and I’ll pass it along.

Also, I plan on writing 2 more pieces about the actual guide book. The first will include the reasons why a cheap guy like me, plunked down some pretty serious cash for a ebook and the second will be after I have gone through the book thoroughly and completed at least one affiliate site. Stay tuned!

This post was written by Jon Symons, see my short bio. Or use the contact page to get in touch.