How to Make Money Online by File Sharing

When I was unemployed I looked for different ways to make money. Most of that work was connected with online stuff; I've tried writing content, refreshed my old Photoshop skills and even created postcards, but then I realized that my passion to music can bring me more money than all of the other work. I was an active member of a few musical forums and started to add affiliate links to my posts instead of simple ones, so they can be profitable.

I can't say that online money-making is my main source of income now, but I've got some experience in it and can advise how to succeed with it.

Step 1 Choose the most preferable stuff to make money with

One of the most important points for making money online is that the content which you are promoting should be interesting to you in the first place. What do I mean? When you do the job you don't like, you can succeed (if you're hard working), but in most cases you lose more than you get. The same goes for file-sharing; if you share familiar files you like, you'll always be more successful in their promotion, as you'll have more ideas what to do with them than if you're just a newbie to the topic you'd like to work with.

Of course, if you prefer some rare species of fish, and want to share your scanned albums, that won't bring you much success. So, your stuff must be interesting for others, as well! Popularity is the other reasonable point for choosing files for profitable sharing.

Step 2 Find places where you can promote your links

This step is important one. If you are familiar with files you share for profit, you know where to promote them. The best places for promotion are blogs, forums and social networks. What is important here is that the audience should trust your links. So, as a blogger you should be respected by others (have a good rating), your messages at forums should be appreciated, etc.

Step 3 Choose the most profitable affiliate programs

There are two different types of file-sharing affiliate programs: short term and long term. Long-term affiliate programs such as Depositfiles, Filesonic or Hotfile demand that you should work with them for a log time, and only then you'll be able to earn good money.

One short-term program you should consider is FileTram. They offer you a simple way of making money—create an affiliate link, post it somewhere and then just check your affiliate links list. They offer rather high payouts, and this rate doesn't depend on your level of participation (it doesn't matter if you work for a few weeks or a few months).

Other short term affiliate programs are Oron.com, Turbobit.net, Fileserve.com, but their payouts are much lower.