How I Escaped a 180k Yen Take-Home Salary: Starting an Affiliate Side Hustle. A Roadmap for Beginners to Aim for 50k Yen a Month Without Getting Lost

Are you feeling anxious every day while being jostled on a crowded train, wondering, 'Will my future be okay with my current salary?'

When I was an office worker with a take-home pay of 180,000 yen, I used to sigh in bed every night, too.

I completely understand the feeling of being interested in a side hustle but stopping in your tracks because you don't know where to start or are afraid of failing and losing money.

There are countless ways to earn money out there, but the way of working I arrived at after overcoming numerous failures was 'affiliate marketing'.

The great appeal of affiliate marketing is that you can start with just a computer, it has low initial costs, and you can proceed at your own pace.

In this article, I will carefully explain how to start an affiliate side hustle step-by-step for those of you who are struggling just like I was in the past.

I have avoided using technical jargon as much as possible and have organized the specific methods and content in an easy-to-understand way, so please rest assured.

Don't rush; let's take a new step forward together, little by little.

What is an affiliate side hustle? A gentle explanation of its content and mechanism

When you hear the word 'affiliate,' some of you might feel it sounds difficult or suspicious.

Simply put, an affiliate side hustle is a system where you introduce a company's products or services on your blog, and if they sell from there, you receive a referral fee.

For example, imagine a situation where you tell a friend about your favorite skincare product that you use regularly and feel is 'really great!'

When your friend says, 'That looks good, I'll buy it too!' and makes a purchase, the basic content of affiliate marketing is that the company pays you a reward as a thank you for the referral.

Since this system also has the benefit for companies of being able to use advertising costs without waste, it is established as a very legitimate and common business model.

Because there is no need to have a physical store or stock inventory by purchasing products, it is the perfect side hustle for beginners who want to minimize risk.

[Preparation] Basic steps on how to start and do an affiliate side hustle

Now that you understand the mechanism, let's look at how to actually do an affiliate side hustle.

You might feel overwhelmed by how much there is to learn at first, but each individual task is by no means difficult.

Setting up a blog to serve as your own 'shop'

First, you will create a place to publish your articles on the internet—in other words, a 'blog'.

While there are free blog services, I recommend using a system called 'WordPress' if you are serious about monetization, to avoid the risk of the service suddenly shutting down and your articles disappearing.

Renting a server (land on the internet) and acquiring a domain (an address on the internet) costs about 1,000 yen per month, but this is a necessary expense for having a proper 'shop' that is all your own.

Registering with an 'ASP' to handle advertisements

Once your blog is ready, the next step is to register with an 'ASP' (Affiliate Service Provider), which will issue ad links for you to introduce products.

ASPs act like intermediaries that connect companies wanting to advertise with bloggers like us.

For beginners, the standard first step is to register with 'A8.net', which is one of the largest in Japan and has a wealth of offers.

Also, 'Amazon Associates' and 'Rakuten Affiliate,' which you likely use for your own shopping, are highly recommended because they make it easy to introduce daily necessities and home appliances, lowering the hurdle to generating your first earnings.

Registration is free, so please take a look at the screen and enjoy the excitement of seeing what kind of products you can introduce.

[Practical Guide] How to Write Articles for Your Affiliate Side Hustle That Move Readers' Hearts

Once your blog is prepared, it is finally time to start writing articles.

The most important thing when writing for an affiliate side hustle is 'not to try to sell'.

Readers are not searching because they want a product; they are searching because they 'want to solve their own worries or anxieties'.

That is why it is more important than anything else to be close to the reader's heart, as if you were writing a letter to your past self.

For example, while you should certainly talk passionately about the points you liked after using the product, you should also honestly convey points of caution, such as 'this might not be for everyone' or 'this part was a little difficult to use'.

By sincerely conveying both the good and bad sides from a neutral perspective, readers will trust you and be able to make their own decisions, convinced that 'if this person says so, it must be right'.

When thinking about the structure of an article, my recommended method is not to sit down at the computer right away, but to use a note-taking app like 'Goodnotes' to freely write out the ideas in your head and the worries of your readers.

If you expand on your ideas by hand like a mind map, you will be able to see the reader's real emotions, which will allow you to write text that resonates more deeply.

A few tips for working efficiently and recommended books on affiliate side hustles

While 'consistency' is the biggest hurdle in affiliate marketing, you can significantly reduce the burden of your work by utilizing convenient tools.

For example, when you are struggling with article title ideas or spending too much time researching information, it is a smart move to use generative AI tools like Google's 'Gemini' as your assistant.

By using AI as a sounding board, you can find angles you wouldn't have thought of on your own, which will dramatically increase your writing speed.

Also, as your number of articles grows, using spreadsheet software like 'Excel' to create a list of which articles you wrote, when you wrote them, and which keywords you targeted will make future analysis much easier.

And to learn the basics systematically, it is reassuring to keep one or two 'affiliate side hustle books' on hand, rather than relying only on information from the internet.

By choosing books for beginners that contain many illustrations and using them as a dictionary when you don't understand something, you can proceed at your own pace without being swayed by information.

Summary: Don't rush, start 'small' at your own pace

So far, I have shared how to start an affiliate side hustle and a roadmap for aiming for 50,000 yen a month.

Some of you may feel, 'This seems like a lot of work and sounds difficult...'

But there is absolutely no need to aim for perfection from the start.

I, too, took days to write a single article at first, and there were many times when I felt like giving up as days went by without anyone reading my work.

Even so, by praising myself for moving forward just a little bit more than the day before and continuing within a reasonable range, I was able to achieve the independent and free way of working I have now.

Affiliate marketing is not a 'magic way to make money,' but if you steadily accumulate the right efforts, it will definitely become a skill that expands your life's options.

First, try taking a small, risk-free step, such as browsing an ASP to see what kind of products are available or writing down things you like in a notebook.

I sincerely hope that the anxiety you feel about the future will one day turn into a smile where you say, 'I'm glad I gathered the courage to start back then.'

[Reference Information/Sources]
In writing this article, I have provided information based on objective facts by referring to the following public institutions and highly reliable sources. Please refer to the following for mechanisms and legal guidelines regarding affiliate marketing and side hustles.
・Consumer Affairs Agency: Internet Shopping Troubles (including warnings regarding affiliate marketing) https://www.caa.go.jp/
・National Tax Agency: Regarding tax returns for those with side income, etc. https://www.nta.go.jp/taxes/shiraberu/shinkoku/tokushu/fukugyo.htm
・Japan Affiliate Council: Affiliate Guidelines https://www.japan-affiliate.org/