Yes, there's a lot of competition, and yes, it helps hugely if you follow a proven plan.
You can also increase your chances of success by studying what successful affiliates do. That's why I'm publishing a series of affiliate success stories.
Yesterday I watched a question and answer session given by Elad Shippony, who has been a full-time affiliate for nine years, and lives in a home bought with his online earnings.
He doesn't have any products himself - he gets enough traffic to his sites to earn a living from AdSense, affiliate commissions and other advertising.
During the live interview, he went into Google Analytics and showed us the screen shot of more than 1,800 people on one of his sites right at that moment. His daily visitor number was MUCH higher than that. He gets phenomenal traffic around Halloween time.
Did he write most of those pages? No, he didn't. He runs competitions and gets his website visitors to write pages for him.
As they say, success leaves clues.
I've put the recording of the interview at the bottom of an article I wrote on Elad's success...
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articl ... nings.html