The 7 Best Affiliate Marketing Books to Read

Affiliate marketing is based on a simple concept: promote a company’s products, and you earn a commission if you make a sale. Pretty easy.

In the physical world, this is the equivalent of selling. But how do you this online? While many people say it is easy…it’s pretty challenging actually. And to be able to succeed, you should never stop learning (which is why books are so awesome).

Today, I will share with you some of the best affiliate marketing books around, so that you can start learning all there is to know about affiliate marketing.

Of course, it’s not to say that you should read all of these books, or that you should stop consuming videos or shift from podcasts to books or change your strategy… not at all.

Books are a great compliment to what you’re already doing, but also remember that nothing beats applying the knowledge. These books will be giving you the overarching guidelines, and general concepts on how to do affiliate marketing…but you need to implement.

With that said, let’s check out some of the titles.

1) Affiliate Marketing Secrets 

Author: Ian Del Carmen
Price: $9.99

In this book, Ian Del Carmen discusses how a beginner can earn money via affiliate marketing. The topics covered in this book are:

• Introduction to affiliate marketing, setting up your assets (domain, hosting)
• Different affiliate marketing channels, and networks 
• Strategies to implement to make sales, scaling
• How to optimize your affiliate pages
• And a lot more (13 chapters in total!)

I’m going to be putting this one on the number 1 spot…because it has crazy in-depth and detailed strategies and walkthroughs. It basically has everything that you’d need to know, inside. Even stuff like creating your own logo, CPA, link cloaking and influencer marketing.

The best part of the book is probably where he shows a step by step process of how you can scale your business from $0 to $10,000 in a month, which is most people’s dream.

2) Passive Income with Affiliate Marketing 

Author: Michael Ezeanaka
Price: $19.99

I’m not the biggest fan of this author (even though I have mentioned him before) simply because I’m not in love with his style…but then again don’t judge a book by its cover: What is important here is the content.

The focus of this book is simplicity. The author wrote it in such a way that even beginners can implement the steps required to make money off affiliate marketing, which is kinda what we’re all here for in the end, right?

So instead of getting into great detail and overwhelming you with some more advanced concepts…you get the stuff broken down in more “bite-size” chunks.

Here are some of the things you will learn:

• Best products to sell or promote.
• How to build an email list.
• How to use social media platforms to get traffic and sales.
• Common mistakes of affiliate marketers.
• Tools you need to get started.

You will also learn about the factors that affect conversion rate—factors that you have to implement to up the chances that customers will buy your offer.

3) The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web 

Author: Bruce C. Brown
Price: $15.95

In this book, the author discusses the different, “underused” methods on how you can earn through affiliate marketing. The principles of this book are based on research and not just experience.

Here are some of the things discussed in this book:

• Ad campaigns and types of campaigns like PPC, website, SEO
• Six steps to start a successful campaign
• How to do copyediting
• Affiliate marketing strategies
• Understanding performance analysis reporting
• How to avoid PPC fraud

This book is the product of hundreds of hours of research and interviews with affiliate marketing gurus. The things you will learn here are proven techniques that super affiliates have learned themselves, and as you might have noticed if you know anything about online marketing, there is a strong focus on the paid side of things.

4) Affiliate Marketing for Beginners 

Author: Brian Conners
Price: $2.99

True to its title, this book is for beginners (its also very cheap and affordable, so it’s a great place to get your dip your feet in, if you’re starting out).

It tells the reader how to monetize a blog and how to create an affiliate marketing business on autopilot…although quite frankly, creating and monetizing a blog, from scratch, to have it spit out money on autopilot…is not very “beginner-friendly” (trust me, I think I’ve got some experience on that).

With that said, here are the topics covered in this book:

• How not to fail in affiliate marketing, and what roadmap to follow to succeed
• Strategies and concepts to build your business
• Basic concepts and how the industry works (pretty basic)
• How to become a niche authority

The book also discusses effective methods on how to earn traffic, in addition to the step by step process on how you can start a successful blog.

5) Affiliate Marketing: Launch a Six-Figure Business

Author: Noah Gray
Price: $19.99

In this book, Noah helps the reader explore the deep channels of affiliate marketing. The book is full of tips and tricks on how you can build an affiliate marketing business from scratch. Similar to the aforementioned books…although the ceiling is set a bit higher on this one.

Some of the things you will learn here are:

• Overview of the industry, the pros and cons
• How to do Affiliate marketing, step-by-step
• What mistakes you should avoid
• How to get traffic (general strategies)
• How to promote products
• How to scale your business
• Best products to promote

After reading the book, you should be equipped with enough knowledge to build your affiliate marketing business and get positive results, after all, there are some really important things you should take into consideration when doing affiliate marketing, some of which you’ll be taught in this book.

Choosing good products to promote, and getting traffic, is where it’s at.

6) Affiliate Marketing (By Mark Smith)

Author: Mark Smith
Price: $2.99

In this book, Mark focuses on the techniques that can help you make money with affiliate marketing, and how to go about creating systems that can make you money, when you’re not necessarily working. The overall thrust and theme of this book is passive income.

Here are the things you will learn:

• Basic concepts of affiliate marketing
• Terminologies in affiliate marketing
• How to put up a blog or an affiliate site
• How to look for top affiliate products to promote

The book also covers how you can use social media to your advantage (I’ve done that in the past to make my first 1k online) plus some advice on how you can avoid affiliate marketing scams. By the way, this book also has a paperback edition (which costs a little bit more).

7) Passive Income by Richard Gadson

Author: Richard Gadson
Price: $23.28

This book is not just about affiliate marketing—it offers 30 ideas on how you can earn passive income. But it’s good to have a different outlook on affiliate marketing.

A very common thing that happens to people (you can see this happens to people in MLM and biz opps too) is that they get so sucked into their niche, that they lose that “flexibility” and they don’t see things out of the box.

That can definitely happen to you with affiliate marketing (it has happened to me) and so, having a more broad outlook, is definitely worth it. 

The coverage of this book is thus, about the different methods you can use to earn money so you can leave your 9 to 5 job (a goal well worth pursuing, if you know what I mean) without having to lock down and be a slave to only one strategy.

So here are the things you will learn:

• Ideas for passive income business
• How to acquire financial freedom
• Steps to build your passive income business

There are many strategies laid out on this book for the user to choose from. Pick one, and start hammering away.

Summary

So there you have it, a list of some of the best affiliate marketing books to get and to read, especially if you’re starting out and you want to get to learn the basics.

These authors have done good research on how you can succeed in this business and their books have examples and step by step instructions that can help steer you in the right direction.

Essentially, affiliate marketing comes down to generating targeted traffic, and sending that traffic to a high quality and high converting offer, that also pays you out considerably well. If you can make more than you’re spending, you’ve won!

Out of all of the books in the list, personally, I’d recommend you check out the #1 book, Affiliate Marketing Secrest by Ian del Carmen, if you want to have everything you need, in great detail.

Even though all of the books here are great (and I’m probably missing some other titles) I found that one to be the most in-depth (maybe not the best when it comes to paid ads though) and it’s probably best to have 1 big resource, instead of multiple smaller ones.

Never rest your laurels. Affiliate marketing is an online business that is subject to change as technology changes. Always be in the loop—read books every year and learn new methods how you can grow your online endeavors and yourself!