When you read the title I bet you thought I was going to rag on another hype-filled eBook, right? Well this story is not pie-in-the-sky sales letter copy – it’s for real! “From 10 Hours a Week, $10 Million a Year” was published by The New York Times yesterday and it’s about one affiliate marketer that makes 10 Million a year from home, working only 10 hours a week.

I’ve blogged several times in the past about Markus Frind the owner and creator of the phenomenally successful dating site PlentyOfFish.com. His success and income are widely publicized and he’s a true success story for our industry.

I knew Markus worked from home like most affiliates do. I knew he worked alone, until recently, when he hired a single employee. What I didn’t know is that he only needs to work about 10 hours a week to keep his site going and the revenue rolling in. So it’s interesting to me to see how he leverages his loyal user base to help him manage the site.

The other thing I REALLY like about this particular version of the ‘Markus makes 10 Million’ article is that it talks about his affiliate marketing revenue and says his affiliate links are the “most profitable of all.” Almost every other Markus article only talks about his Adsense revenue and I know there is no way he could make that much from Adsense alone. I knew lots of his income was from affiliate marketing, it was just never highlighted in any of the articles I’ve read. So it’s nice to see affiliate marketing share the limelight with Markus in a mainstream publication like the New York Times.

From 10 Hours a Week, $10 Million a Year – New York Times
“Plenty of Fish displays banner ads, Google-supplied ads and, most profitable of all, “affiliate” marketing links that send users to other dating sites. For example, Mr. Frind said, when one of his customers clicks on an advertisement for a book titled “Double Your Dating” and, after being sent to the publisher’s Web site, ends up buying it for $40, the publisher pays Plenty of Fish a commission — of $40 — for the sale, glad to have landed a customer that past experience shows is a good prospect for “upselling” other goods and services related to dating.”

I bet the Double Your Dating affiliate program will get a nice rush of new sign-ups from the NYT and this blog post. $40 commish on a $40 product – nice! FYI the DirectTrack program closed 12/31, so if you’re already an affiliate, be sure you switched out your links. Here’s the link to the new affiliate program.