In this edition of the Affiliate Buzz, host and Instructor of the Affiliate Marketers BootCamp, James Martell, is joined by Joel Comm, the successful internet entrepreneur and Times Bestselling author. During this episode they discuss creating and running an online business and how business success can help you lead a rich and rewarding life.

Joel is a very prolific entrepreneur. He has 80,000 Twitter followers, 37,000 fans on Facebook and 27,000 followers on Google Plus. He has written books on Adsense and has expert knowledge of affiliate marketing. He continues to develop and release his own products and books and he offers consultations for businesses at $10,000 for six hours.

Joel’s first business started when he moved to Dallas, Texas to become a DJ. He established his first website in 1995 and his first online business success was in 1996. It was at a point where he was about to run out of money and his partner had left Joel to go work with Microsoft.

Joel prayed for a solution to his problems with the website. Within a week, a man representing a Japanese group of businesses wanted to licence his content on WorldVillage.com. They offered $5000 a month, which was a life changing moment and it turned his fortunes around. This domain is still owned by Joel.

In 1997, his webmaster pointed to a site springerspan.com. The owner had developed the foundation for one of the first multiplayer game sites using java. Joel approached the owner to do a joint venture and this became Classicgames.com.

It wasn’t long before some big brands became interested and Joel was able to sell the site for a seven figure amount. Classicgames.com became Yahoo! Games.

Joel speaks a lot about his online business career. Included in the conversation is:

• 
  
• What place in Joel’s history do Dealaday.com, drugstore.com, staples.com and pets.com have?
  
• Why is Google’s Adsense important for Joel at this time?
  
• How was Joel’s income changed by the use of Adsense?
  
• How this has progressed into a successful career as an author, spurred on by advice from Chris Pirillo.
  
• How his book sales picked up with the help from Paul Myers.
  

Joel has written specifically about Twitter, a subject that James himself has covered in other podcasts.

James and Joel first crossed paths when Joel was at a convention, after he released the app Kerching button, something which regularly makes an appearance throughout the show. The KaChing button has now become important for some individuals as a way of ringing in online sales.

This isn’t the only app which has been developed by Joel. Recently he has created an app which was used by everyone including George Clooney and Demi Moore: the iFart mobile app.

The app has netted Joel a total of $0.5 million and was number one on the iphone app store 12 days after its release. The novelty application however has not had a completely easy ride. At the same time another ‘farting’ app was released called Pull My Finger as well as two others.

The creators of Pull My Finger were not happy about Joel’s app and even less so when theirs was knocked out of the top 100. They accused Joel of unscrupulous marketing techniques and threatened legal action.

Joel goes on to explain what happened next, how that helped his app and what the results were.

When Joel released his Twitter book he decided to hold an innovative book launch and hosted a tweetathon for 12 hours. Part of the aim for the book launch was to raise funds and awareness for waterislife.com.

Joel’s innovation is even shown in his later product, the Hand Drawn Whiteboard Megabundle, which was in the middle of the product launch at the time of the podcast.

The idea for the latest product came about between him and Scott Hamlyn after discussion of how some online businesses were making good sales videos with whiteboard video software. The software for this is available through some of their competitors such as Easy Sketch Pro and Videomakerfx.

Yet Joel knew he could do better as he saw that videos from these software packages were beginning to look the same. During the podcast Joel will explain the following about the launch:

• 
  
• How some of the affiliate marketers are performing.
  
• What the conversion rate is of their sale pages and affiliate marketers.
  
• Why this product is better than what is currently on the marketing.
  
• What his competitors are asking him, hours after the launch of his product.
  

Those interested can also watch a video on Powergeek.com.

At the end of the podcast you learn even more about Joel in a quick fire 10 question speed round presented by James.

• 
  
• Joel Comm
  
• Books on Adsense
  
• WorldVillage.com
  
• Yahoo! Games
  
• Chris Pirillo
  
• Paul Myers
  
• Affiliate Buzz #283 – Twitter, Twitter – Oh What to Do?
  
• KaChing button
  
• The iFart mobile app
  
• Pull My Finger
  
• Waterislife.com
  
• Hand Drawn Whiteboard Megabundle
  
• Videomakerfx