Time for a reality check in this thread. Too many damn negative "the world is ending" personalities here for my liking!
erniedawg: Get a grip, seriously. I'd slap you with a big stinky wet fish if we were in the same room right now!
Ignore 98% of the crap in this thread too. I haven't seen such a massive load of negative hog-wash in a long time. What a load of utter nonsense people are spouting about things being harder now than they used to. Rubbish, total rubbish. Things are *exactly* the same as they used to be. Some succeed, some are super-successful, a good few make some extra cash and most fail.
Some things in marketing are easier, some things are now impossible. It's a huge huge field. Just because a few guys were able to easily spam sites like myspace a few years ago doesn't mean things were any easier back then. There's so many easily spammable sites and opportunities now.
Do you know why you and others think IM is harder now?
Answer: Because you have access to old information about things that used to work and they seem like they were easy.
Reality: Back when those things did work that information wasn't easy to obtain and the only people who got the information were the ones who researched and tried stuff.
It's NO different now. In 2 years time I guarantee people will be saying "Oh, remember back in 2012.. Gawd it was so easy to make bank then".
There's still so many easy ways to make money. The word 'easy' can be misleading. They're easy once you know how, but they require work to find them. For instance, it's not easy to build a rocket that will reach orbit, but it is easy to do 99.9% of IM once you know how.
How do you learn? You just try stuff. Everyone who's successful on bhw has done something along these lines:
1) They look for other successful people on bhw and read their threads, taking notes.
2) They compile a list of different methods.
3) They then, in an organized fashion implement those methods.
4) They record the failures from that implementation, and yes, it will be mostly failures.
5) They tweak and re-implement.
6) They record the failures again maybe with 1 or 2 successes or signs of getting closer
7) Repeat these 2 steps 50x if necessary because EVERYTHING works and I mean *everything*. It's just a case of finding out how to make it work for you today.
While doing these steps you need the following qualities:
1) No expectations. This means you don't expect your next method to make you a fortune. You do expect that you'll succeed no matter what, but that's it. Nothing else.
2) A cold scientific persistence. No matter what happens you can't cry like a little god damn baby.

Get a grip erniedawg!! *slap*
That's it. That's a simplified recipe for success as it pertains to someone on blackhatworld looking to make money.
Cut the emotional bullsh*t basically. This is business. You won't hear any fortune 500 CEO's or successful business tycoons moaning or crying EVER and some of the things they have to deal with makes most people's problems look like nothing.
The bottom line is to be successful in business you have to be tough as f*ck. Excuse the language, but it does help to get the point across.
Employees and losers cry, moan and feel sorry for themselves.
Business men and women smash through every wall that appears in front of them like a massive bad-ass rhino.
Choose which you want to be, it's that simple.
*slaps* erniedawg again with a big stinky wet fish for good measure.
I'm at work in my 9-5. I havent really made a single dollar from my site. Ive tried numerous techniques. I've followed instructions. I've paid for services. I've become a backlink whore. Yet I'm failing. Yes I have one site but just one site is a TON of work. I put in the time on social sites. I have them all.... twitter,facebook, pinterest, watever you name it, i have created a small presence and linked back.
I'm frustrated once again. I think if I had jumped into IM a couple years back before the G swinged its giant arms I might have had a better chance. Today, I checked my site ranking to my keywords, and I'm on page 5 with 100 links to each page. So 4 hundred and change! I've paid for ads which worked some what until my coupons ran out. Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Bing/Yahoo/MSN Ads. Tried them all. I'm out of ideas and I'm tired.
I'm calling it for the day, maybe I'll quit... I've been doing this for 6months now and I suck. The guys making money continue to make cash because they have bots, aps, better ideas...shit better everything. Dude, if i was an IM making thousands a month I would easily pay some programmers for watever tools i need to streamline the process. But my 9-5 only pays my rent and food.
Ive search for classes/courses and cant find anything really worth going to that isnt made up by the guy next door. I've attended several web seiminars that got me to this point but shit... its a lot harder than I ever expected and its just not working for me. I searched to be an apprentice of somone magnificent but the guys who are awesome at this dont have time or are too busy to even answer some newb questions. Besides, who would really hand out their cool techniques out for free?? Pshh, no one would. It probably took them years to refine and get to where they are.
I usually work through my lunch on my IM stuff. Thats how fuckin dedicated Ive been. Working all night and working on my days off. Today, I think I'm going to go outside and fucking stare at the successful people and just gauck.
One last thing, there are loads of good people on here. Some of you guys have given me some really cool free stuff. Free advice, free services, and free tools. You guys are awesome!! Thanks for everything.
I've been beaten by IM today maybe forever... blahhhhhhh. One less newb affiliate to worry about. Good luck to you guys.
-Erniedawg