In order to succeed with this method you need to have patience. There is much to learn before jumping the gun and getting started without being educated. Promoting the wrong product will have negative results. This will quickly lead to frustration and the lack of desire to continue. You need to learn the market and your customer. Niche markets are a great avenue for revenue. The key is to do your homework.
Once you do your homework and find the right products or niches there is yet more investigating to do. What is the best way to promote these products? This may require email marketing, writing articles, creating websites, blogs or writing reviews. Again this takes time and a bit of effort, not to mention some out of pocket money to create domains and get hosting if needed.
You need to learn about search engine optimization. This includes key word research which needs to be taken very seriously. Skipping this step and not doing your due diligence is setting yourself up for failure. There are a lot of FREE services online that are very useful in this step. In order to succeed you need to be seen. Traffic! Traffic! Traffic!
If you are determined and have a positive attitude Affiliate Marketing can be quite successful. You will get out of it what you put into it. You determine your own fate. Get rich quick. I don't think so. Take a few weeks to properly educate yourself and decide the best way to promote your product. You could be earning a couple hundred a week just on a part time basis!