New here, and a bit overwhelmed

Hi everyone,
I'm new to this IM thing and wanted to throw out there what I've been doing so far and see if I'm on the right track. I'm always interested any tips, tricks, or suggestions. So feel free to fire away.
Over the past few weeks, my unemployment has run out, I've sent thousands of resumes into the black hole so it seems, and I'm looking for new options. I started by writing articles for a flat fee per word through a site where all the legwork is done for you. I'm still doing this to get consistent money I can directly control to make sure bills get paid.
As I looked around and researched, I quickly realized that I'm writing these tedious articles to make other people money. Last week, my brother contacted me, wanting to collaborate. He's been trying to get an IM business off the ground for a while now and has done a good bit of infrastructure work already, starting an LLC, purchasing some tools, training videos, etc.
We've already come to the conclusion that we ultimately want to create our own training tools and market them through what is hopefully an already successful system. But, that comes later. First comes the effort at building a solid income. We've decided to focus our initial efforts at putting up pre-made squeeze pages as the process is fairly quick and simple to follow. Once these pages are out there, funnel traffic to them by creating backlinks anywhere we can using traffic tools that he has already purchased.
So, as a novice, I offer this up in hopes that the folks here can give us some advice, tell us if we're headed the right direction, or at least offer some encouragement.

Thanks!