The affiliate marketing business is changing all the time. Whether you are new to the game or just want to keep up with the latest developments in the affiliate marketing world, you are going to have to find resources that you can trust to learn new information from. There is always blogs and forums that could help, but I personally recommend adding a few books to the mix just to give your information diet the right balance. There are plenty of books that promise to teach you how to make millions, but we are going to focus on affiliate books that actually teach you something useful. With that in mind, here are 5 books (courses) that could help you become a better affiliate:

Mastering Niche Marketing: niche marketing is one of the best ways to make money online these days. If you know how the game is played, there is no reason you can’t make a living online.

Google AdWords For Dummies: one of the best Adwords books around. If you want to promote affiliate products through pay per click marketing, this book is a must read.

Web Analytics 2.0: a refreshing look at how you can use your analytics software to optimize your pages and get more out of your affiliate campaigns. It teaches you enough to be very dangerous.

Landing Page Optimization For Dummies: if you have not done landing page optimization before, here is your chance to learn enough information to get started. After all, what’s the point of knowing everything there is to know about analytics if you don’t know how to optimize your pages.

The Art of SEO (Theory in Practice): you can’t be a successful affiliate without knowing how to optimize your pages for search engines. It’s just a no brainer. Nobody wants to pay more than they have to for traffic, so why not go for free traffic if it’s available to you.

So how about those Clickbank or PayDotCom courses? I can tell you from experience that most of them are junk. MMM was certainly an eye opener as it discusses a variety of tactics used by affiliates to make money online. Other than that, I can’t say I have seen a good affiliate marketing course on Clickbank for years (since Affiliate Project X). But the above books are a great place to start (next to blogs and forums out there).

Feel free to add your favorite books below.

I remember when I used to manage an affiliate program for a highly reputable company in the financial industry. I had made my move from the publisher side to the advertiser side, and obviously things are a little bit different when you change sides. When you are a publisher, you care about helping the merchant make more money (which leads to you making more money). However, you don’t notice all the things that go behind the scenes from designing offers to writing affiliate notes.

Thankfully, I had a guide that helped me get through my first couple of months without too much trouble. The tone that you use with your affiliate letters are very much different than when you are responding to them as a publisher. Putting up unique competitions and awards for affiliates is a must, and having sample communication documents would definitely help. And that’s what you get with A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing: Quick Reference for Affiliate Managers & Merchants.

Unlike hundreds of other affiliate books that promise to teach you how to make millions in 10 seconds, this book is designed more for affiliate managers than publishers. Having said that, publishers can learn quite a lot from this book about the mindset of their affiliate managers. At the end of the day, if you are thinking about working as an affiliate manager or starting an affiliate program from scratch, you should consider reading this book.