In this edition of the Affiliate Buzz, host and Instructor of the Affiliate Marketers BootCamp, James Martell and wife Arlene continue sharing tips for turning your passion into recurring income and offer 5 reasonably no-brainer ways to monetizing your membership site.

Update on the Transition from Elance to Upwork

James and Arlene kick things off with a recap about their transition from Elance to Upwork, discussed in Episode #397. Arlene describes some trouble she had navigating the Upwork site and suggests spending an hour or so clicking every option to see where it takes you.

James agrees, explaining about the hours spent trying to find things on the site and calling Upwork for direct support. Upwork has 9 million freelancers and more than 4 million clients who do over $1 billion in work done annually. Despite these stats, James feels the problems run deeper than just being a new platform.

5 Ways to Monetize Membership Sites

Next James hearkens back to last week's discussion which included Dr. Raj Banerjee's site, Go Beyond Fat Loss and The School of Internet Marketing, both linked in the References section below, as well as software and structuring.

This week James and Arlene discuss the monetizing side of creating a membership site in order to generate recurring income. During their career as internet marketers, their revenue from

1. Recurring Membership Websites

An example of a recurring membership site is The School of Internet Marketing. Members pay $47 per month, which is deposited into PayPal.

2. Affiliate Programs and Drop Shipping

Generating income in the affiliate marketing industry means selecting the products and services that will be of interest to the people who sign up for your membership site.

James points out that these products should be something the audience needs to complete the course. As students go through his Podcasting Mastery course, for instance, students need things like podcast hosting and graphic design.

This is a good opportunity to attach merchants who pay a commission to refer your students to them. James explains you want to disclose affiliates during the course, as he does when sharing about his headset, seen at http://www.podcastingmastery.com/headset which is an affiliate link.

Arlene adds that with all the great companies joining the affiliate arena, it should be no problem finding one that complements your site. Examples discussed during the show include the F.U. Money Show, Dan Lok's Shoulders of Titans, and the Road to Wellness, all linked below.

For drop shipping, James uses the example of Dr. Raj Banerjee's site, Go Beyond Fat Loss. Raj is very selective about the products he endorses through his site. If you are interested in this, James suggests a Google search for the type of products that interest you as they typically pay higher commissions than other affiliates.

3. One-on-One Coaching

Arlene adds that coaching is a great way to monetize your website, as you can get paid quite a bit for it. James has experience with this, and points out that it's a fun way to really get to know your client or student.

4. eBooks

Next Arlene segues to eBooks. After you write the book, have it edited and a nice cover created, turn it into a PDF and you can repeatedly sell it. The first book James wrote, The Affiliate Marketer's Handbook, sold around 5500 copies at $167 each. His next book is based on his popular Podcasting Mastery course.

5. Larger Courses and Products

Then James lists some larger courses and products, such as his Podcast Mastery course, or Dr. Raj's full training session. Because the larger items come with a larger price tag, you can sell less of them and still see a profit from it.

James goes on to explain that it all begins with putting together a course starting with the outline and table of contents, back filling that with content,