There’s something about winter that brings out the worst in many affiliate marketers. Maybe it’s the snobbery of being able to relax in the warmth while office-working ordinaries slip on the ice outside. Or maybe it’s the fact that Christmas ushers monetary pressure on to seemingly everybody except your fat cat self.

I guess you realize how lucky you are to be working at home, and you want the world to know about it, right? So to display your Alpha Male bread-winning capabilities, you pull on some slippers, log in to Wickedfire, and proceed to castrate the crowds for “only earning $100/day”. It’s so easy that you need to be cashing a new villa every month or you’re just not doing it right. Bah humbug to any fool who hasn’t carved a fortune from the Internet!

The reality is that nobody cares how much money you make. Bragging about it is one thing. Dismissing the efforts of those who only earn a small income online is bordering on the ridiculous. I read this post from Browie a few weeks ago and I thought…whaaaaat?

Of course, it doesn’t matter who you ridicule as long as they stack less money than you. You could be mocking a hard working doctor who spends a lifetime helping others and just wants to find a side income to boost his paltry salary. Or maybe a father of many who works bone to the ground and knows more about the value of a dollar bill than you’ll ever appreciate in your lifetime. Anybody and everybody is fair game for the demeaning prick who thinks his ability to make money online puts him in the elite tier of high society.

I received a snotty email from an affiliate this week suggesting I go in to a partnership with him because he’d earned X here, and another X there. In fact, he’d earned so much that I was left wondering why he’d want to venture in to a niche where the absolute best results would act as no more than loose change compared to his bounty campaigning elsewhere. My blog was proof – to him – that I’d be a suitable match for his big plans. His pitch was proof – to me – that his greatest asset was an ability not to feel stupid when he reads back what he types and pushes “Send”.

By the time I finished reading the email, I was so turned off from the sheer arrogance of telling me how rich he had become in the last year, that I didn’t even bother to reply telling him that his idea sucked. So if you’re reading this now, there you go. Nobody cares how much money you make. People only care what value you can give to them.

There are a lot of posers and pretenders in this industry. Affiliates inflate their earnings in the same way that a sixteen year old inflates his profile of sexual partners. We’d hate to fall for inadequacy, right? Let’s be realistic. Affiliate marketing may be a lucrative industry, but don’t go putting your balls on a pedestal. There are bigger fish out there. And in fact, nearly every successful affiliate I speak to has little interest in becoming a multimillionaire arbitrage marketer.

Most successful marketers are using affiliate campaigns as the launch pad to bigger and better projects. As they should be. Any other attitude is bordering on the retarded.

But let me tell you, it’s not always in your best interests to parade yourself as the guy with the deep pockets. I make an effort not to brag, or even talk about what I earn. Partly because in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that impressive – there’s always somebody earning more. And partly because it attracts freeloaders.

I can often tell when somebody is bullshitting about the money they’ve made. Simply because most people who’ve been in such lucrative positions are aware that bragging attracts only the kind of people who are interested in taking you for a ride. If you’re rich, you don’t go rubbing it in peoples’ faces. It’s not cool to be seen as a walking ATM. Unless you’ve got an ebook to sell, of course, in which case your Clickbank stats Jpeg also includes an unusual sidenote stating you wiped your arse with dollar bills for the month of November.

I sure as hell don’t walk down the street singing “Look at me! Hear my pockets jingle with the coins you’ll never have!” If this is how you portray yourself, then you probably need a personality transplant to go with your weeklies.

It’s the same kind of naivety I see on display in Bangkok’s red light district (in my imaginary head, because I obviously never go there). “Ooh, I’ll just wander down Prostitution Boulevard with my wallet out and act surprised when some beautiful Thai girl falls hopelessly in love with me. Hey, that girl just winked at me!”

There are some things your money cannot buy, and a sack of common sense is one of them.

My Token Whoring Here Recommended Action:

• Feel free to add Finch to your Facebook. Yes, this is the right link. My real name is not actually Finch.

• Also follow me on Twitter, where surprisingly, 1 times out of 10*, I actually have something meaningful to say.

* Likely to be bullshit