How can writers and authors find passive income opportunities?
All of us are writing every day. For business or pleasure, we are all now sitting at a keyboard for hours and hours.
You might not be writing a book, but words are continually streaming from your fingers. So why not make some money from your writing?
Working towards generating more income from writing has many advantages.
Ideas for passive income for writers
The best part about looking for different types of income from writing is that you don’t need to make a big investment.
You might need to buy some online tools.
However, these small costs won’t break your credit card or bank account.
The second is that there are so many ways of earning passive income from your writing.
The obvious way is to sell books and ebooks.
But blogging, content marketing, affiliate marketing, and advertising are all income-generating and potentially very lucrative.
They can all deliver reliable cash flow that can be much more than the income from writing a book.
On top of that, it is time-flexible, so you can do it whenever you have the time.
Are you thinking about making money from your writing?
Well, here are a few ideas you might want to consider.
Start a blog or improve your existing blog
A monetized blog is, by a long way, the most popular way for writers and authors to earn passive income.
Many writers make money from blogging.
For some, it can sometimes become a full-time job.
Each blog post they write and publish will last for years and become an ongoing income source.
A blog is a versatile and adaptable means of earning money.
All you need to do is use your imagination.
Here are some proven ideas for authors and writers.
Accept paid articles
For quick, short-term earnings, a blogger might accept a one-time fee for publishing advertorials or sponsored content.
Many content marketers are now turning to blogs because social media penetration is declining.
Generally, the content marketer supplies all the article text and images.
For a blogger, it’s a matter of taking just a couple of minutes to publish an article to make money.
The amount of money you can charge will depend on the ranking of your blog.
However, you can expect to earn between $25 and $100 for each article placement.
Add advertising
There are many ways to add advertising to a blog.
The most popular is Google AdSense. However, there are many others that offer banner or link advertising.
The basis of these programs is that the blogger gets paid when a visitor clicks on an ad on their site, or per 1,000 impressions.
This is genuinely passive income at its very best.
It’s not a lot of work. All you need to do is add some code to your site and wait for the money to roll in.
I have been using AdSense for years now. While it’s not my highest passive income source, it’s my most reliable, consistent, and easiest source of income.
My only work in the last two years was moving some of my AdSense codes for better placement. It took a whole two minutes.
The only regular task is to check for any invalid clicks about once a month.
Affiliate marketing
You can earn money by writing articles on your blog that promote a product or service with affiliate links.
Unlike advertising, you don’t get paid for a click. You only get paid if someone makes a purchase.
There are many variations, but typically, if someone clicks on your link, a cookie is added to their browser.
The cookie controls how long you can earn money from your link.
For instance, if you use Amazon Associates for affiliate marketing and someone clicks on one of your links to an Amazon product, you will usually earn money if the buyer makes a purchase within 24-48 hours.
Other affiliate programs offer much longer cookies. Some are even up to six months.
I focus most of my affiliate marketing efforts on products or services that I personally use, as I believe it’s a more honest way to promote a product.
Sell a service
You can use your blog, social media, or even online advertising to sell your service.
All you need to do is use your expertise or develop a service.
You may want to consider setting up an editing or proofreading service, or a beta reading service.
Perhaps you could think about creating an online course.
For example, if you are bilingual, you could offer online courses to learn a language.
If you have experience in self-publishing, you could create an online consulting service.
Self-publish a book or an ebook
Selling books on Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo is the most common way for writers to make an income.
It is tough work writing and promoting a book.
So it is hard to define the income from book sales as passive.
But if you have a blog with a focused topic and offers genuine advice, have you considered creating an ebook from your blog posts?
It doesn’t take long, and once it’s published and available for sale, you can promote and sell it on your blog, as well as hope for income from sales on ebook retailers.
Summary
There are many ways to earn money from writing.
Some ways are active income and involve a lot of hard work. However, there are many more passive ways to earn money.
The most effective passive income streams are those that can be set up once and then left to run on autopilot.
But they will make you money, even when you are asleep.
The big advantage is that you won’t have to invest thousands of dollars to do so.
Even if you go for a self-hosted WordPress blog and a couple of premium writing tools, you won’t have to outlay more than perhaps a couple of hundred dollars.
We all live busy lives, and a writer needs all the time they can get to write.
But you also want to put food on the table, so consider your options to earn a little more money the easy way.
Related reading: How Often Should You Write Blog Posts On Your New Site?
