The holy grail of any unfulfilled Joe-shmoo professional is creating passive income – if you’re unfamiliar passive income is when you make money without it necessarily being a result of current activity. Essentially you create something people want then you sit back and every time that “something” is sold you make money! It’s like a musician that makes money every time their song is played in a movie or big theatrical production. I see your finger raised in protest and yes, I can plainly see you aren’t a rock-star or prodigious composer, but anyone can make passive income, here’s how.
Self-publishing
Are you an expert in anything? Yes, even making birdseed balls…then you can self-publish on multiple platforms – the most famous of which is of course is Kindle Direct Publishing for Amazon Kindle. CreateSpace is another interesting option, owned by Amazon, that prints your books and for a fee Amazon will distribute your printing book to retailers around the world.
Sure, this can take a certain amount of dedication and focus, but again if you know something really well, then you can definitely write a book that some people might want to read. The more you write the more chances you have of making a livable salary. Even if you aren’t a great writer you can send your awkwardly conceived manuscript to an editing service or a freelance editor.
Real Estate – crowdfunding
I bet when you first read this entry you scoffed: “Real estate?! Real estate?!! Who has money to invest…what do you mean crowdfunding?”. In basics you aren’t really investing in real estate per se but in the financing of real estate. Websites like patchofland.com invite investors to crowd-fund real estate projects – once the project is completed (i.e. the creditor pays off the loan) the investor/crowd-funder is paid back with the interest they are entitled to. Throughout the life of the project you will also receive monthly distributions.
The best thing (ok honesty sitting back and making money is the best thing) is that all participators are vetted, to ensure everything stays on the straight and narrow.
Do you even affiliate bro?
OK maybe that is a reference to a dated meme, but the question still holds – do you even affiliate bro? I guess you have to know what an affiliate does first to know if you do it. Companies like to promote their services and products – this is an obvious and inevitable function of a system called capitalism. So, what do they do? They set up programs which pay people to refer customers to them. For example, Amazon pays “up to a 10% advertising fee” (according to amazonassociates) to affiliates that direct people towards their products. It’s really simple too, you sign up for the program you are provided links that lead to the company’s products and services.
So what do you do with those links? If you have a blog or share any other type of content (like YouTube videos or podcasts) then you can use those links on banners or recommend that your viewers click the links. For every person that visits the website and places an order you will be paid commission. The thing you need to keep in mind if you intend on making passive income this way is to cater to the audience you are already speaking to. For example if you have a blog that talks about global finance, partnering with a broker’s forex affiliate program, can help you get the best bang for your buck – excuse the well-placed pun. Most e-commerce websites have affiliate websites – including Japan Candy Box which would be a perfect fit blog that deals with video games, anime or other pop culture. So no matter what the niche you are talking to, there is bound to be an affiliate program that will fit the bill. Again, excuse the well-placed pun.
