How to make a living while I am learning

It's actually surprisingly easy to get a job at most companies doing online marketing/e-commerce stuff, even in positions of relative authority. In most cities it's tough to find day job-minded people with much knowledge about online marketing, so it's not hard to impress someone doing the hiring.

The best part is that you get to learn about the industry while getting a paycheck, especially if you get on at a smaller company where each person gets to do a broader range of tasks. I spent time at an e-commerce company post-college and it was a great way to get to see things from the merchant side, spend someone else's money on advertising experiments, etc.
 


mcdonalds_logo.jpg
 
Similar to what Fatbat said, find Linda.com torrents on common applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and maybe InDesign. The "Essentials" series is fuckawesome and it'll really teach you how to use these applications within a few hours.

Also, prepare to do ALOT of grunt work. It'll make you better, and give you motivation to get better faster to not be doing shit jobs for too long.

Good luck bro.
 
You haven't really told us what you are good at but there is the Buy, Sell and Trade section if you think you've got the skills to pay the bills.

If you want to do design, get a portfolio together, it's pretty much a prerequisite. If you don't have a volume of work then be prepared to offer some freebies to established members for review.

You also might want to look at some of the graphic design specific forums, they all have a jobs section (I've posted links to some of them before).

In your free time when you aren't working on paid work, you should be doing work for yourself to build up your portfolio and your own money earning AM projects.

Look to places like linda.com for tutorials and learn all you can.

I just spent the past twenty minutes looking through your portfolio. Extremely amazing design work you have going there.
 
HONEST TO GOD SOLID INFO:

1. Sell seo and internet marketing related gigs on fiver. Use blackhat forums to find all the tools you need to do so.

2. Upsell and offer SEO services to clients online like monster.com, etc... They can easily bring you $500+ a pop

3. Just do freelance work while building enough captial to do email marketing/ppc/media buys.

You can get the ball rolling *today* if you needed cash.