I never was a reseller really, I jumped in and purchased my first server some 3 years ago and everyone told me I was crazy as there were thousands of hosting and resellers companies out there. In reality I was a reseller of a company called Alabanza when I started.
Without giving away all my earning our revenue is well into the 6 figures, we are growing at about 20% percent per month. -- but we do a lot more than Linux web hosting.
we resell hosted exchange as a reseller, we offer shoutcast hosting and have a few radio stations that we now power, we have unmanaged collocation space in Toronto - We sell windows, and Linux dedicated servers. We are always trying to keep ahead of the curve.
we just completed testing of flash media servers and those will launch on March 1 as well as Microsoft Communication server hosting on the same day! teh Communication Server from Microsoft is still new and i am sure we will be one of the few - we will leverage that with press releases etc and direct email to our existing customers.
the best advice i can give - think more than linux hosting and visit customers in your area and cold call and ring some door bells.
it is working for us -
if you don't have the capital to go this route, then partner with a company that can help you as a reseller by giving you all the automated tools you need to succeed.