This is a reprint from a post by LB over at the pond. LB represents TITAN BUCKS which is a multi niched solid sponsor and on the reccommended list.

Hey guys, just a quick tips thread for those of you starting out so that you don't waste time or money while learning.

Hosting ... don't go super cheap (hostgator, dreamhost, godaddy etc). Most of the super super cheap hosts are utterly terrible and really put you behind the 8 ball to start with. There are many many cheap hosting options that have reasonable support, good uptime and wont break the bank. Look at cyberwurx, phatservers, even Facialfreak's A1 here on np for virtual. You really don't need a dedicated server when starting out and can always upgrade as you go.

Content ... Don't buy content. Use the free content offered by sponsors which is usually also tailored to their sites content. There is absolutely no reason you should ever need to buy content as an affiliate.

Sponsor choice ... you have 2 types of sponsors to choose from - PPS (once off pay per signup) and Revshare (you share a percentage of the membership fees for the life of the member - usually 50%). They are not only 2 very different payout models, but the paysites themselves are often very different. Without going into it too much I suggest a mixture of the two when choosing paysite programs to promote, and make sure you find out if they report every click or only report say every 2nd click or join page click for when comparing stats.

Getting traffic ... you have many avenues to get traffic to your sites. Off the top of my head you have -

TGP (thumbnail gallery posts)
MGP (movie gallery posts)
Galleries (submitting either TGP or MGP galleries)
Picposts (post pictures usually with a banner or link)
Linkdumps
Linklists (you make a freesite and submit it to the linklists - loads of threads on freesites etc)
SEO (search engine optimisation)
Tube Posting (post a promo video to tube sites with your url - ask sponsor for permission first
Yahoo Groups
Community Web 2.0 style sites (facebook, twitter, youtube)
Bought traffic (be careful - many sharks out there who prey on newbies!)
Traffic or link trading with other sites
Blogging (not only great for SE traffic but pinging gives you a little too)
Forum posting or running a surfer forum
Toplists (sites ranked by how many hits they send in)

Accounting ... keep a track of sales made, checks recieved and payments made. You should set up a basic accounting system straight away before you start that tracks income and expenses.

Sales pitch ... work on your sales pitches. Use catchy sales text, convince the surfer that their world will be complete if they join Site A, and that Site A is the best damn site for whatever its selling! Also don't break the golden rule of relevancy - If you are selling Asian Porn, use Asian content, and try and get Asian related traffic. You aren't going to sell an Asian softcore paysite using blonde hardcore content getting traffic from an Ebony traffic source.

Make a Start! ... and saving the best till last ... DON'T just sit around all day reading and posting. Actually make a start, create a site, you learn more by doing than by reading and posting and dreaming. While a little research helps, you should just jump in the deep end and start making your sites and start learning. Its better to have a few crappy sites that are at least making the occasional sale with bad ratios than to have 1 perfected site that doesn't get all that much traffic though has soaked up a load of your time.