1. Write And Sell An eBook
If you have a propensity for writing and you can slay with your prose, consider writing an eBook. While the market has certainly become saturated as of late, books that help teach people about a technical topic still sell extremely well. This is a great source of passive income but does require a large amount of effort at the outset before any money is generated.
You can sell your eBooks through Amazon's Kindle Program or Apple's iTunes Connect, which gives you access to a large majority of the digital-book reading market and the barriers for entry are incredibly low. You don't need to invest lots of money to make this happen, but you do need to invest lots of time, not only in writing the eBooks, but in marketing them as well.
2. Create An App
Yes, this is far more technical. Unless you have the right app-development skills, doing this is going to be a significant undertaking. But, apps are also a great source of passive income when done the right way. You can reach a massive audience of smartphone users by building a great app.
However, like anything else truly worthwhile, apps require a significant investment of your time or money upfront. If you don't have the skills, then you have to hire someone who can assist you in creating a great app. But first you need to come up with an idea that will sell. Do the proper market research and analytics to come up with the right app.
3. Sell Professional Services On 99LocalAds, UpWork or 99Designs
99LocalAds,UpWork and 99Designs are some of the biggest resources for selling just about any professional service under the sun. If you have extensive experience in a field, you might want to consider selling your services through one of these sites.
4. Build A Blog
One of the most exhaustive endeavors when it comes to making money online is to build a blog. But we all know that building a blog with real readership is difficult. It takes a lot of work. And I'm speaking from experience. However, once you reach a certain point, the progress and momentum sways in your favor and it becomes far easier.
Blogs can easily generate tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month when done right. Yes, that much. But it won't be easy to get there. However, looking back on it, a year from now you'll wish you started today. So why wait another moment?
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing is at the heart of every successful endeavor on the web. For those serious about making money online, email marketing is certainly where it's at. But it has to be done the right way. Before you even try to market anything to anyone via an email list, be sure that they're people that subscribed and opted in directly to you.
When you try to market to people via email out of the blue, you won't find as much success. But, if those email subscribers are actively and keenly interested in what you have to say, and they signed up directly through your blog or site, your success rates will be much higher.
6. Auction Items On EBay
EBay is a bellwether. It's been around since nearly the start of the online boom. But, like any other platform, success can seem fleeting if you don't know what you're doing. Selling items on eBay, professionally that is, can be an art form. Getting people interested in your auctions isn't always easy, especially when there's hefty competition and low demand for what you're selling.
Like anything else, you need to do the proper research, but you can make significant amounts of money as an eBay Power Seller. Find the most successful eBay sellers in your niche and model after their success. Find all of their listings and see just how they list the items that they're selling.
7. Sell Photos Online
If you're at all into photography, and you have a cache of nice photos, you could consider selling them through sites like ShuttersRock and iStockPhoto, two of the biggest photo resources online. It doesn't take too much effort to do this, but it does take creativity and persistence to succeed with it.
You'll find serious competition when trying to sell photos online, but this is also a great method for generating passive income. If you can license your images or sell them as stock photography, you won't have to do any additional work to generate income from that sale once the photos have been posted online. Just collect your payments.
8. Sell Products On Etsy
Etsy is a great resource for those that enjoy making their own products and selling them online. If you're into hand-crafted items and you have a penchant for creating killer goods and wares that people just have to have, then you might want to consider setting up an Etsy shop and selling through a massive online portal.
Etsy is a great way to go directly to where all the consumers are congregating. While the company will take a small fee to list your products, along with fees to process the transaction itself, it is easier than setting up your own transactional website. Do some research on the top sellers and try to emulate their success.
9. Build An Amazon FBA Business
If you want to go directly to the world's largest online retailer, consider setting up a Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA) business. Amazon will pick, pack and ship your orders, and you'll have enormous exposure to a buzzing marketplace where products are selling every second.
Clearly, there's a lot of demand on Amazon, and if any product is going to sell, it's going to sell well on Amazon. But the goal here is to source the right products that will easily sell at the world's largest online retailer. Generally, products between $10 and $50 sell very well here. Just be sure to do the right market research before jumping on this bandwagon.
10. Create Video Tutorials On YouTube
This is definitely a long-term strategy, and you won't get rich overnight by doing this, but creating engaging and well-thought-out video tutorials and posting them on sites like YouTube could make you a significant amount of passive income in the long term depending on just how well-received those videos might be.
Find a niche and stick to it. Build a YouTube channel and find something that you can do that will add a whole lot of value to the people that might be interested in that field or niche. However, keep in mind that this will require a significant amount of time and upfront investment before this pays off at all.
