The Chicken or the Egg?

Yes, very much so!

I've never believed much in the "If you start promoting/writing about what you're passionate about, the money will follow" theory, myself. I don't really believe it at all, to be honest. I see that it's better to promote and write about something you're passionate about than something in which you have no interest at all, but only if it's something with an existing market, and everything else should be secondary to that, for me.

I wouldn't think so.

(By the way, if you're "passionate about success", that exact subject is available for marketing purposes as a niche of its own, you know? A sub-niche of "self improvement". Just saying.)

Yes - why not?

Not so "rambly", maybe. This always has potential for interesting conversations, here, and I'm surprised it isn't raised more often ...

Yes! That's actually a great point. I'm going to contradict myself because I've often told others to get involved with something they're passionate about. Yet in my case, I started a particular type of business purely because I saw something that few people were doing and recognized the potential. In fact, I've done it several times since then.
I think the 'do what you're passionate about' is good advice for people who want to do something, but don't really know what. But if you spot something which you think has good potential and you have the capacity to learn a new trade, go for it.

That's because this is a community of internet marketers passionate about that particular subject so, naturally, it does seem to be the center of our universe.

Yes, it is possible. I have two niches in particular that do very well and were not chosen because I had a personal interest in the niche. Both were developed because I saw a need first and then, as I learned more about the niches, the passion grew. (Not IM niches, btw.)

I didn't go into the niche as an expert and I didn't profess to be one. I built a blog about each subject, did a ton of research, figured out what was important to the niche, studied forums, spoke to experts, and - most importantly - practiced what I was writing about. In both cases, I actually got the products that were involved in my niche, wrote about them, showed my own pictures, etc. I didn't just read and regurgitate and I think that made a huge difference.

Doesn't work every time, though. Both of these niches were things that I might have enjoyed anyway, I just hadn't taken the time to learn more. There are other sites I started in niches I really had no personal interest in and those tanked simply because I got very bored with the niche.

If you find a niche and you think that it sounds interesting and you think that you'd be able to add value over time, even if it's not something you know a lot about at the moment, then I think there's potential. May take some experimenting to find the right one, though. Good luck!

Personally, I think you can be passionate about the product or about the process. Many people promote products they're not passionate about but they love the process of IM.

If you're going to do your own writing it does help to at least have some interest in the market you're promoting. But it's not a requirement. You can always hire ghostwriters or use a curation method.

As Alexa said, you need to know there's an existing market for what you're promoting. Your passion for a topic won't help you if no one is willing to spend money on that subject.

Rose

Although I think it is good advice to market something you have an interest in, as it is generally easier to get to a position where you can create valuable, authoritative content. I also think it is possible to have success in niches you have absolutely no interest in.

Indeed, I have created many sites in many niches using the techniques described in my WSO and I certainly have absolutely no interest in many of them.

If you are going for this approach of creating many different sites in many different niches you must find a way to automate the process. Building traffic for them all manually would be pretty depressing when some of your sites will no doubt fail to generate income.

Basically, Just don't spend too much time on each site. Automate as much of the process as you can, and then keep on creating sites in different niches and you can will find winners.

If you passionate with succes it is great. You can start promoting everything earning easy money. Like successful forex trade or even winning lottery. I have passion about finances. In my real life I am investing all my money into real estate and silver, so writing about it satisfy me.

There are some people who are investing in agriculture because they think it is profitable and there are some people who make a living from farms just because they are farmers. It may sound a bit lame but I hope you get the perspective. If you are into IM to be an entrepreneur then your primary drive is always going to be inspired from the need to succeed. If you are fond of cats and love to blog about them, then your motivations are purely personal. If you are good at something, you have to be passionate about it. People are passionate about different things for different reasons but that doesn't really validate your efforts

You don't really have to be passionate about a subject or a niche to make it online.

People go online to do 3 things:

1. Make money.

2. Make money.

3. Make money.

One of the best ways to do that is the work at home business niche. Everyone wants to make more money and the internet has laid a HUGE field for anyone to make it BIG.

I've just created a folder in my fav's bar for "Affiliates". So far I've chucked Amazon, ShareaSale, and Clickbank and Google Ads. Any advice on others to research?

Also a folder for Wordpress themes tailored for IMer's.

A folder with Keyword and Niche research tools.

A folder with company's I can outsource backlink building to, that will do it properly and not get me sand boxed by the big G.

A flolder for outsourcing resources... You know, graphics, article writing stuff like that.

And a folder for the best threads here on getting started. I spend a lot of time reading about the failures and success's of you good people that come here and pour it out the way you do. I'll forever be in your debt, and am looking to the day when I can share my experiences, both good and bad, to help other newbies that are freshly arrived.

I'm not really passionate about most niches I get into. I'm passionate about successful niches that I get into, so sounds like you're on the right track to me.

From your post i think you are telling about someone who got lucky and got some really great deals
Yeah its possible. but you have to be really lucky. In my case, i started with Adsense. i created a blog in 2009. without any research. Just for testing. i just did some basic posting and back linking. Then i stopped. After a while i saw that i was at the first page for some of the top keywords. and i checked the analytics. i was really astonished. Today's page view was 1000.
Then i added Adsense. and believe me or not i am still getting cheques

You don't have to be passionate about something to make money marketing it but it helps. For some, it helps a lot.

Here's the reasoning. Do a search on this forum for posts where people are looking for motivational tips. There are probably thousands of them. When you're marketing something you at least like you don't often need a lot of outside motivation because it's built into your product or service. How many people do you suppose are hanging out here or Facebook or somewhere else online because they dread having to do some mundane marketing chore with a product that doesn't inspire them at least a little? Lots of people. They're the ones starting the threads on how can they get more motivated.

Take article writing for example. I'm a writer and can write about almost any topic providing I do enough research. But there are many, many topics that would bore me to pieces if I had to deal with them every day. I love the markets I work so when I sit down to promote them it's usually with lots of natural enthusiasm that wouldn't be there if I were writing about say, auto repair or politics. Ugh.

My advice to people starting out is usually the same. For your first couple of projects market something you at least like. And if you actually love it, all the better. If you're new to marketing you're going to meet some resistance as you overcome certain learning curves. My point is that you don't need even more resistance with the product because you're indifferent to it.

Once you figure out how to work a specific business model then go for markets you don't care for except that they're lucrative. You have a lot better chance of success with an unfamiliar market once you've built some momentum with a familiar one. Good luck.

You need the mindset of success. The willingness to keep trying different approaches, and in this case different products in different niches until you succeed. It's a lot of work. That's the real reason people don't make it. They give up before they make money because they get discouraged.

I would love to say, yes I try to only market what I'm passionate about, but the truth is most of the things I market I am not passionate about at all, but I see the money making potential in it. One thing I can say though is it's amazing when other people are talking and I almost always am able to carry on a conversation with them on almost any topic because I have dipped into so many different niches and learned so much.