Dear Derek:
Don't follow the crowd! Follow your instincts! There are plenty of methods to become a good affiliate, and the best one, I suppose, is writing good articles and reviews, and submitting to articles submission sites. Get people to read the article and come to your site / blog. From there pass them to your affiliate product! This method is best and challenging. Other method is to use PPC and again get the visitors to opt-in first, then try and sell the your product... you can do this for multiple affiliate products.
After you make a few sales, then you'll find that you can make money easily. So, stop comparing and get busy selling online.
