Platforms like CJ are actually 'third party' website that connects merchants and affiliates. There are plenty of network around, ClickBank and ShareASale are the other two popular networks that you might want to check out.
For any further general information... I believe a simple search on any related terms should lead you to the answer. Personally I follow Aaron Wall's SEO Book and SEO By The Sea at this time. I used to read a lot at CopyBlogger and Webmasterworld.com but that is history. Most so-call gurus or forum posters nowadays produce nothing but noise so I read a lot less after 'blogging' become such common.

Do I have more personal time compared to my old job? Hell yeah! Life's totally different from any normal 9-5 job - time is flexible and there are plenty of my 'job' can be outsourced. Furthermore I prefer to work smart (instead of hard) and I try to work not more than 24 hours a week (6 hours/day, 4 days/week - read Tim Ferris 4 Hours Work Week - efficient business owner should never work more than 4 hours per week ). Fact is I love this business I am running so much and the challenge is how to stop thinking about work and have more 'non-working' time.

On the startup.... well this is a tough one. Different player will have different strategy and it's hard to give a fixed answer. When I first started 7-8 years ago - I spent less than RM1000 (if you exclude the cost of my work time). Let me count - a hosting account cost about RM400 (conversion was 1:3.8 that time), a domain name at Godaddy cost RM30, a useless ebook that cost me US$99, and that's it. I wrote my own content, designed my own website, SEO-ed my sites... and that's how I got started.

At this time of writing, I spent roughly 10-15k/mo for regular operations (hosting, ghostwriter, design job, etc) and advertisement; but that's me. I would strongly recommend any newbies to start small (but think big), any solo Internet business plan requires more than RM5000 should have a very solid strategy on how to earn that modal back.

So... that answers your questions?