Affiliate marketing works when you have a Web site (or one that allows you to have ads on it if you did not build it) and I as a manufacturer or company enters into an agreement with you where you will place ad code on your site (which I will provide) and whenever someone clicks onto it they will go to my site or to my shopping cart to purchase. Cookies or other technology alerts me (the company) that the sale or lead came from your site and I pay you the agreed upon amount for every sale or lead generated. The pay out can be as little as a day or once a month; many are weekly. If you have enough of the right ads on your site with the right product or service you can make a very good living, I am building a site for just that purpose. You can be making money even while you are shopping, sleeping, taking a shower, boinking your spouse, tucking in the kids, anything. Depending on the service you can clear 100s of dollars a week. Times that my a dozen and you can easy make a ton of money. I met someone who use to do that until he moved on to real estate and he said he cleared $10,000+ a month.