Inevitably a big part of lifestyle design involves money, and how you make it. Ultimately every lifestyle designer, wants to make the process of earning an income as fun and carefree as possible.
The word “passive” is often thrown around. Wouldn’t it be incredible to earn an income without actually doing anything! However, in reality a passive income takes months (probably longer) of work. But that’s not to say its impossible.
Sell Graphics, Templates, Code
Unleash your creative flair on the world and sell your graphics, templates and code at one of the Envato marketplaces. Some designers are making thousands of dollars every month. Before creating anything, have a look at what others have uploaded and what’s popular.
Resell Hosting
This really only works if you currently have design clients or do consulting. Its easy to resell hosting (from say This Host) with a design or as part of a package. I’ve even seen people give away a couple of months free hosting with an info product (and then charge after month 2)
Sell an Info Product
This ones obvious and everyone seems to be doing it. If you know anything about something than you can create an info product. Of course it does help if you’re good at what you’re writing about. Don’t feel you need to create an info-product in the Internet Marketing niche (like flipped), my number one selling info product is actually outside this niche.
Build an Info Site
Also called niche mini sites, these guys are built to either sell an affiliate product or earn advertising revenue. But what to build a mini site on? Whenever you do a Google search and can’t find any suitable information on the first page, build your own site on that topic!
Build a Web App
If you build a web app with a monthly subscription, it can earn you a nice passive income. This is without a doubt the hardest route to go down, but worth it. When you come across a problem that no other web app solves, build your own.
Write How-To Guides
This is the only method I have zero experience with, but I know of a few entrepreneurs who are doing ok from writing articles at eHow and other sites that pay you for content. A word of caution though, these sites are built purely to rank well in the search engines. Google has a reputation for slapping penalties on these “content farms”. By all means use eHow, in fact I encourage it, but don’t rely on it – things may be different in a year or two.
Sell Merchandise, T-Shirts etc.
I noticed that Colin from ExileLifestyle was selling some pretty funky t-shirts, so I thought I’d include it here. This is a great way for designers to earn some passive income. Use Cafepress, Skreened or Spreadshirt to do all the manufacturing, shipping, ordering etc. for you. All you have to do is upload a design and promote!
Affiliate Products
Want realtime analytics, hosting for your blog or how about a killer wordpress theme? See what I did there?
Promoting affiliate products is dead simple and no, it won’t corrupt your blog. If you use and pay for the product you promote, its no big deal.
How Many Streams?
As many as possible! One thing I’ve discovered about a passive income is that things can change really fast. Sites close down and opportunities dry up. Your best bet is to experiment, see what works, focus on that and then once that stream is successful, expand.
All of these techniques, once setup, require minimal work, so there should be no barrier for expansion.
How do you currently/plan to earn a passive income?
20 Comments
Hey Anthony – I’ve dabbled in a couple of the above myself but I’m always looking for more things to try. So thanks for this list. I also like how you mentioned looking beyond the Internet Marketing niche for creating an eProduct. My best selling product also has nothing to do with that market.
And anyone that starts off their post stating that it takes months (or longer) to create passive income is definitely someone to listen to. It’s the millions of wild claims of instant success that drive me nuts!
Thanks Earl for your kind words!
Hey Anthony,
My main income right now is all affiliate sales, but it’s not a lot. I’ve always wanted to build a really useful webapp, but I think now I’m shifting more towards info products. It is pretty amazing the amount of stuff out there that people are selling, and I don’t know that I agree with “information wants to be free” anymore.
What I mean is, if someone has gone through efforts to synthesize their knowledge, and you want that knowledge, and have the means to pay for it – the amount of time saved makes it well worth paying for solid information. I’ll admit, I thought ebooks were kind of odd years ago, they weren’t physical things – but I think part of that was I was so turned off by cheesy sales pages. In the past few years I think that seeing more people I respect put out ebooks, and sell them without ugly red and yellow sales pages has changed my opinion of them.
Sid, if you get the time do read this post: http://feint.me/2010/02/why-you-should-build-a-web-app/ – maybe I can persuade you to join the founders club and launch a web app. The doors that its opened for me have been kinda insane (in a good way). Its a lot harder than launching an info-product, but I think its well worth it.
I still think ebooks are kinda odd – I also hate those cheesy sales letter (I designed mine differently). I think the future is going to be in products like Vook (www.vook.com) as opposed to standard .pdf ebooks.
And http://task.fm/ is one of your passive income stream (Web App).
My main source of passive income comes through a joint venture on a food business since Jan 2010 (I’m a co-owner).
Been spending my time (since beginning of March ’2010) creating a “dojo”. Will be revealing it in my blog shortly in the week.
I had to google “dojo”! Excited to see what you come up with – do let me know when it launches
Anthony,
Excellent list. The problem is that with so many passive income stream options, as a beginner it’s hard to pick one and give it your all. They’re certainly all do-able.
As Sid mentioned, ebooks kind of cross that weird border for me. I think it comes down to the cheesy sales pages so it comes off like a ‘scam scam’ alert in my brain.
With that being said, sure information is free but go ahead if you’ve got all the time in the world. You have to sort through all the information and determine what’s crap information and what’s not.
Web apps… hmm. I’d love to think of one and go for it after I quit this job
Anthony,
I’m new to blogging; at the moment I’m concentrating on the writing content side of things. I intend to monetise things later on; however that doesn’t stop me from taking a look at some thses ideas before that.
Thanks for sharing them, I’ve noticed lost of other useful stuff on your blog.
Regards
Paul
I’ve got a question(s) for you Paul – why did you start blogging? Why did you setup your blog? Whats the end goal?
Anthony,
Why did I start blogging? I wanted to write about personal development. I wanted to discuss personal development issues with other like minded people and share knowledge with others. I had spare time on my hands.
Why did I set-up my blog? See above plus with the intention of monetising it in the future.
What’s the end goal? A successful personal development product.
Regards
Paul
Nice list Anthony. Lots of good ideas. Selling an info products is a great way to make passive income.
Haven’t been able to find one that fits my niche, if I actually have one, however, may look into sell comedy books and records on my blog. thanks for the push out the door have been dragging my feet.
Whats your niche? No matter the niche, you can still write articles on a site like Hubspot.
I too think a web app is the way to go, although it’s not something that pays off immediately… and you might actually have bet on the wrong horse.. or a better horse beat you to it.
Resell hosting is a good one, but depending on what kind of hosting you offer, you do need to be quite computer savvy. It’s a steep one as well. As is everything really.
“a better horse beat you to it” – good point, although I don’t believe it matters. I learnt this from my mentor – your idea isn’t unique.
Chances are there are 10 other entrepreneurs working on the same concept – nothing is unique. You just need to stick to your plan.
btw. I started earning from Task.fm on the first day it launched.
i think Resell hosting is hard job to earn money. Anyways thanks for this great article
It can be hard. When I used to do design work, I would simply offer hosting.
That’s a great idea to sell hosting anthony
I think you really nailed it at the end. You need multiple streams. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You can choose one road such as a membership site, but then create 10 different membership sites in different niches. It’s a marathon man. Just stay motivated and keep working every day.
Very good list of things to consider for passive income. I’m working on ideas for a digital info product. This seems to be a great way to add to the bottom line. I’m also starting to promote web host packages, but it’s a very impacted market.
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With lots of work and utilising the right tools, you can generate a passive income….