Category Archives: Jobs
Self Employment Ideas – Work For Yourself and Be Free
One of the best ways to escape your nine to five job is to go self employed, escaping the boss and work for yourself. You’ll still have to work, unfortunately there isn’t a career that involves scratching your backside and getting paid for it (if there is, somebody please email me), but the point is that being your own boss brings a freedom and flexibility that you’re probably never going to get in a workplace where you don’t have a special relationship with your boss.
We can’t go self employed without knowing what we want to do, so these self employment ideas will hopefully help you to work out what you might be able to do away from the shackles of traditional employment.
Become a Consultant
Perhaps your years of work have given you a good knowledge of a specific subject. Especially if you have worked in a B2B environment, you may well have a skill or knowledge that people are willing to pay to hear all about! A lot of people leave their 9 to 5 job and carry on in a consulting capacity to make some cash while they chase another dream. It’s a good way to pay the bills and get a slice of freedom back. Another major plus point is the low startup cost – you don’t really need anything other than a website (you can make one yourself) as you are simply selling your time.
An Online Business
Tough to set up, these, but if you can get to the point where you’re making enough money to live on via the internet then you don’t need to worry about location or time, you can work when you want and where you want, the ULTIMATE definition of freedom. There is a lot of work involved getting to where you want to be, but that’s just the price you’re going to have to pay if you want to get there. Online businesses include things like eCommerce, niche sites, blogs, even services such as writing. The world is your oyster in the modern age of internet.
Freelancing
Again, you’re still in a ‘cash for time’ business model, but that doesn’t mean you can’t expand and move into work you want to be doing. Freelance work can be anything from photography to marketing, only you know the skills you have that people would pay for freelance. Set your hourly rates and reach out to some companies and you’re underway.
A Physical Business
The more traditional route into self employment is probably to set up a ‘buy and sell’ style of business such as a store. Physical businesses can also include things like Photographic studios, rehearsal rooms and physical spaces you can rent out, hire businesses…the list goes on. A business like this may well mean big overheads and you might need staff too, something to think about before taking the plunge.
Conclusion
Self Employment is full of benefits, and though there is an added risk factor, the potential to grow is massive and you can build the career and life you want, not be molded to what a company want. I hope these self employment ideas help you onto the path you want to be on. Take that leap!
Too Old For a Career Change?
If you’re a regular reader of our blog here at Escape Nine to Five, you’ll know that a lot of what we cover revolves around careers, and specifically dissatisfaction within careers. So many people are staying put in jobs they don’t enjoy for all the wrong reasons, and though my chosen path was to try and run a business and escape the rat race altogether, for some people a career change (whether employed or self-employed) is a great way of getting away from a job they don’t want or enjoy.
Colonel Sanders was 65 when he started KFC, and sold his business (which he invested very little money in starting) just ten years later for $2 million. The company now is of course worth a lot more but the Colonel did well out of his investment and is surely the ultimate proof that it is never too late to make something big happen. Though not a big career change Sanders proved that you could go in a different direction and still be a success even later in life, it is all about drive and passion.
Of course, writing this I do not have the luxury of knowing your circumstances, your age, financial commitments, current career and future plans for a career, but I do assume that you are not thinking too strongly about retirement just yet and that your proposed new career is one you would care a lot about, otherwise why would you be changing?
It is easy to forget just how long we spend working. Here in the UK it is not unusual to work into your 70′s, so if you’re in your 40′s and wondering if it is too late for a career change, think again! You could have 30 more years working, would you deprive yourself of the change you desire for a whole 30 years? I have seen people as young as 30 wondering if they are too old for a career change, a ridiculous idea when you consider they may be only 7 years into a 40 0r 50 year career. You might have to take a step backwards in your earnings but hopefully you can prove that your skills learned elsewhere can relate to your new job.
Retraining
Depending on your ambitions you may well need to retrain to work your new job, and some sacrifice could well be in order. If you absolutely have to get a new qualification though, options are available, consider home learning, evening classes or saving money for a career break. It can be expensive and sacrifice earning potential, but it will probably be more than worth it in the long run.
In summary, we are all about following your passions here on Escape Nine to Five. There is always a way, and age should not be an obstacle. Don’t let your fears stand in your way, it might be hard work but you can make it happen.
Tim Ferriss Quotes – The Best Of Tim Ferriss
Here on Escape Nine to Five we’re all about getting out of the rat race, being the boss of our own time, traveling and being the masters of our own destiny. If you’re interested in all or some of those things you probably know who Tim Ferriss is and what he has done for the world of the solopreneur and “New Rich” (a term that Tim himself coined). Many of his quotes have been greatly inspirational to me and I hope that by sharing some of my favorites I’ll do my bit to help out your endeavors.
Here are the best of Tim Ferriss Quotes from his books, interviews and speeches.
From the Four Hour Work Week:
“It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them… People are smarter than you think. Give them a chance to prove themselves.”
“The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is… boredom. Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase.”
“True freedom is much more than having enough income and time to do what you want. It is quite possible – actually the rule rather than the exception – to have financial and time freedom but still be caught in the throes of the rat race. One cannot be free from the stresses of a speed-and size-obsessed culture until you are free from the materialistic addictions, time-famine mind-set, and comparative impulses that created it in the first place.”
“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.”
“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”
“I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”
“Pacifists become militants.
Freedom fighters become tyrants.
Blessings become curses.
Help becomes hindrance.
More becomes less.”
“By using money as the scapegoat and work as our all-consuming routine, we are able to conveniently disallow ourselves to do otherwise: ‘John, I’d love to talk about the gaping void I feel in my life, the hopelessness that hits me like a punch in the eye every time I start my computer in the morning, but I have so much work to do! I’ve got at least three hours of unimportant email to reply to before calling prospects who said ‘no’ yesterday. Gotta run!”
Other Quotes:
“The commonsense rules of the “real world” are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.”
“I have quit 3 jobs and been fired from all the rest. Getting fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you scrambling to recover, is often a godsend. Most people aren’t lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30-40 years of tolerating the mediocre.”
For the full low down on Tim’s amazing entrepreneurial career and outlook on life, check out his books on Amazon:
Make a Living Out of Your Passions With the Internet
You may already know that here on Escape Nine to Five we’re all about getting out of the rat race, and without any of the BS methods bandied around the internet. Loads of people are happy to offer you some magic pill rags-to-riches method that they’ll promise you will make you a success on the internet, and that you’ll have so much money sent to you you wont know what to do with it for 12 minutes work a day. In case you can’t already tell, they’re lying. However, there are a good chunk of people who do make a good living out of things they are passionate about online, and some make an excellent living, or use their online pursuits as a launchpad for bigger and better things.
I can’t go into detail of every method in this post, but there’s a lot of information here on Escape 9-5 already on some of them, and I’ll be covering the rest of them in the future. I’ve done my research, and I’ve at least dabbled in most of these methods, so I’m not just regurgitating other people’s info. Here are some ways you can make a living out of your passion.
- Run a blog. This is the method a lot of people opt for, and is also one that a lot of people bail out on before turning it into a success. Blogging is a viable way to earn a living, and though it is hard, and can take over a year to build up the necessary following to make any real money, it can be very rewarding once you do. The beauty of a blog is that it can be about whatever you want, whether your passion is golf or knitting, sailing or bargain hunting. Of course some subjects will have more potential readers than others, some will be worth more than others in advertising revenue (that’s how these sites usually make their money by the way) and some will have more existing competition than others. It can take a while to explore the ins and outs of blogging, but it is a great way to make a location independent income.
- Self publishing. More and more people are turning to the world of self publishing as it continues to become increasingly accessible. As long as people share your passions, with a lot of hard work you can probably find subject matter enough to write about. If you provide value, your eBooks or even physical books can make you a nice sum of money. A golf fan might write “the history of golf”, a semi professional photographer might write “photography for beginners” and so on and so forth. It isn’t easy to make a lot of sales, but it can be done.
- Create a course. You’ll probably have some knowledge of your passion, and people will probably pay you to teach them! Make sure you offer a lot of value in your course, with PDFs, videos, audio, whatever it takes to get the message across, and then sell it on to make money. Love guitar? Make a guitar course. Love cooking Indian food? Teach people to cook indian food…
- Create and sell something. This is hard to generalize as everybody has different passions and some are easier to turn into something physical than others. Love photography? Create some beautiful prints to sell online. Love fashion? Design and sell some T Shirts or other clothing. With a little creative thinking you can turn your passion into something to sell.
- Stock. I’ve talked about this before, and it is slightly different from the above. If you love music, you can create stock music tracks or jingles, love video? Sell stock video footage. Love design? Sell graphics. By latching onto existing stock sites you can make sales quicker than the other methods, and a big stock library can make you a handsome living.
Depending on your passion, there may well be a lot more ways you can turn it into cash to keep you going. Consulting, selling services, freelancing and other methods may well be an option if it suits your niche. The above is just a guideline, and a very flexible one which will suit many people’s needs. The one thing these all have in common is that they’re not easy, and making a living out of your passions online definitely takes a lot of hard work, but it can be done.
Do You Have What it Takes to be an Entrepreneur?
Entrepreneur is the new rock star. In a world in economic downturn (mostly), there are some trailblazers making huge waves, making a success of themselves and their business ventures. When kids of older generations may have aspired to becoming the next Marc Bolan or David Bowie, they’re now looking up to the Mark Zuckerberg’s and Steve Jobs’ of this world as their idols. Glamorized in movies such as The Social Network and a new wave of entrepreneur inspired movies, books and magazine articles, the worlds best businessmen are beginning to receive the admiration and media coverage once reserved for the John Lennons of this world.
Who wouldn’t want to aspire to becoming an entrepreneur? The money, the lifestyle, being your own boss and all the other benefits of running your own business ventures. Investing, hiring, moulding your own jobs and making big calls not just for your life, but for the companies you are building. Entrepreneurship is creating a legacy, and who doesn’t wish to make that kind of mark on the world? It’s not all glamour, though, and there are some skills and traits you need to become a true entrepreneur.
- Creativity. One of the key traits of en entrepreneur is creativity, and the ability to visualise and turn those visions into goals and realities is almost the very definition of an entrepreneur. The ability to see what others cant, and shed a new light on a product or business model will set you apart from the others. Creating things and watching them flourish or fall flat is part and parcel of the lifestyle you’ll be choosing.
- Bravery and The Ability to Cope with Risk. Risk is another huge part of the blueprint you’re going to have to follow. Throwing your life savings on the line or having the guts to make a big, make or break decision, but not letting it consume your or affect your performance is vitally important.
- Confidence. Similar to the above but also vitally different. You’ve got to have confidence in your ideas and ability in order to make them a success. A lot of entrepreneurship is about getting people on side with your project, and how can you expect to do that if you’re not confident in it yourself? I’m not saying you should be arrogant or blindly certain that you’re going to be successful whatever comes up, but knowing that your idea is a good one and that you’ll work extremely hard to achieve success will give you the confidence you need.
- Passion. This is to do with the businesses you choose to run as well. You have to be passionate about your goals in order to achieve them. I could never run a successful business in the waste disposal industry, because I don’t care about waste disposal. Travel or media on the other hand are massive passions of mine, and being able to work in those areas would put a fire in my belly and make me ambitious to succeed. Wanting to get up in the morning and care about your work is the very reason most people become an entrepreneur, if you’re in a niche you don’t care about, it will defeat the purpose entirely.
- A willingness to work hard. Very hard. Some people will tell you that it’s easy to become your own boss, ditch the nine to five and make a shed load of cash. They’re lying. If you’re going to get to where you want to be, prepare to work your little backside off. Did anybody ever finish a marathon and say “well that was easy”? No, they didn’t, but they finished, because it was worth it in the end.
Of course, there are loads of other traits found in many entrepreneurs, but the ones listed are absolutely key, and ones that you simply wont be able to bypass. You’ll need them, like the world needs entrepreneurs, and though it isn’t always cocktail parties and board meetings, the fulfillment of making things happen for yourself and others is truly rewarding. Good luck in all of your pursuits.
Can You Make Money Selling Stock Footage?
People are always on the lookout for new ways that they can make a residual or passive income online. For many a year now, stock photography has been a popular way for people to upload something they have made and watch the royalty cheques roll in, and I’ve even heard of people making a good living out of stock. A new method that has shot to prominence in recent years is stock footage.
Travel back in time five or six years and remember the digital camera you were shooting with. I bet it wasn’t ridiculously different to the one you’re using today when it comes to taking stills, but I bet there is an area where it has advanced an awful lot; video. The capacity to shoot high quality, high definition video is almost expected with the purchase of a new camera these days, and has opened up a whole new world to the photographer.
Maybe you’re not approaching this from a photography point of view anyway, your history may well be in video and the digital revolution has merely aided your prospects of selling footage, but either way, it is an option that a few years back might not have been worth pursuing.
The bottom line is that the money is there to be made in the world of stock footage, and has been for a few years now. Most of the large stock providers such as Getty Images have begun selling footage as well as stills, and more multimedia stock sites such as Pond5.com have become more popular.
So Selling My Footage is Easy, Right?
Wrong, I’m afraid. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that the world of stock video footage is far, far more difficult than the world of stock photos. Unfortunately, a lot of the stock photos out there aren’t really taken with the most skill. Give a monkey a camera and if he keeps shooting for long enough he’ll have a decent library of images. Of course, the most successful photographers are usually the most skilled, but the barrier to entry is perhaps slightly lower.
Stock footage will show your weaknesses! There’s no sticking your camera in auto and hoping for the best, you’ve got to plan your shot, time your shot, make sure the camera is smooth and not handheld or like something from the blair witch project, you’ll probably even have to do a little editing and after all of this your footage might not be up to scratch, and then there’s another obstacle…
Selling it! Much like stock photography, there are factors that will determine how well your footage sells and how much for. For instance, some types of footage will be in high demand, things like business related subjects of meetings, handshakes and other snippets that will go well in a corporate promo video. Others simply will not be high sellers, not many people will care to buy footage of your pet snail eating dinner. That said, finding a niche can also be a route to profit in this industry and if you’re able to get quite specialist footage, though you probably wont make a huge amount of sales, you can sell exclusivity and make more money per sale due to the nature of the clip. High quality clips of things that are hard to film, for example from an aeroplane or fast moving car, or of a natural phenomenon not often seen, will command higher prices and will sell, even if slightly less than footage of a handshake. It is up to you which path, or combination of paths you take.
If you’ve got some decent gear, make sure you have a tripod and get yourself started, the best way to learn is to do, and you can earn a bit of cash along the journey. Even if stock footage doesn’t end up being your retirement or your escape from the nine to five, it can be a tidy earner and help boost your coffers along the way.
Location Independence – The Dream
Location Independence is an amazing luxury bestowed upon us in the 21st century. The art of being able to live and work anywhere in the world is a dream for so many people, and some of the lucky ones are making it happen.
Regular readers will know that escape nine to five is all about my journey to, well, escape the nine to five. Get out of dead end jobs and work towards businesses and careers that allow me to work in my own time, and my own space, whichever space I choose, be it here at my home in miserable England, or away on my travels. As you may have seen from my last post, I’ve been on some of said travels recently, Malaysia to be specific, but I’m not your boring auntie with a slideshow of holiday snaps. I’m merely inspired to write a post about the dream of working independently from home or a location of choice, and the ways we can mould our lives.
One of the main influences behind my ambition to work remotely and achieve location independence was reading Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week. I mention this book a lot, and ironically, in spite of being a must read, isn’t one of the main books that has helped me on my journey, but its ideas run alongside what we’re trying to do here on E9-5, and the book is a must read for those of you who are looking to work anywhere. The key themes Ferriss talks about are automation, outsourcing and remote work, and when I first read the book it really gave me belief that this is achievable. I dont care about the amount of hours I work, as the title may suggest, but I do want to travel around with my work, and outsource as many menial tasks as I possibly can. Tim is something of a guru when it comes to this.
So what are the options for those of us who dream of this kind of lifestyle? The four hour work week pretty much breaks it down into two options, The first is that you prove that you can do your job from home, then away from home, then you make your boss give you freedom to work anywhere providing you get your jobs done. The second is that you start your own business, and as much as possible you automate the process of money coming into your bank account. Sounds simple, right?
Of course, it isn’t easy to get to this stage, but there are a lot of options for those of us who choose the business route out of the nine to five grind, and online business is growing all the time. Some careers and methods of making your living online?
- Copywriting
- Online Marketing
- Flipping (buying and selling) websites
- Virtual Assisting
- Stock Photography
- Data Entry
- Blogging
- Subscription Websites
- Web Design
There are many more, but you get the point, most of these weren’t career choices (or at least careers you could do remotely) as recently as a few years back, but they certainly are now, and these are just some of the more obvious options and well trodden paths. Why not take a job as a virtual assistant while building a hot dotcom or starting an online shop? You dont need an office to do business, and in a world of skype and high speed internet our options are limitless.
The real inspiration for this post was my latest trip. I realised whilst in Malaysia that often, by choosing to make your living in this manner can make your life a hell of a lot easier. The benefits of time, being your own boss and working on a beach sipping a cocktail are obvious, but one of the less obvious benefits is the fact that in a lot of the countries you can move to (certainly if you’re from the US, Europe or UK) living will be an awful lot cheaper anyway. In Malaysia, I could survive on about 30-40% of a job income here. To replace the income of a full time job is difficult, but replacing 40% of it seems somewhat more attainable, and can still give you the lifestyle you desire. Once you bring your wages up to Western standards whilst working remotely, you can head to the cheaper parts of the world and live like a king. Your money can be worth however much you choose when your work follows you wherever you go.
Need a Break From Work? How To Make It Happen
It’s nine o’clock again, and you’ve just clocked in. You realise that you’re about to face another 9 hours (if you’re lucky) in this building…again. Is this what it is all about? Was this what I was born for? If your job isn’t giving you fulfilment anymore, or you simply don’t have the motivation for it, there is no quick fix I’m afraid. I’ve been in this position before, and it didn’t take long for me to realise that I needed a break from work. You’ve probably thought about this, and if you’ve come to this article through Google then you’ve definitely thought about it, but perhaps you think it’s out of reach? Not true. Career breaks - or just breaks in general- are completely normal and not just reserved for the rich, famous and careless.
My first tip is to be frugal and get some savings behind you. Not going to happen overnight is it? If you’re lucky enough to be a blogger or a mobile entrepreneur, your income probably needs you to be tied to one place, which is fine, but can prove really tough for taking a break. If you can get a few G’s in the bank you’ll be well on your way to a break, whether you’re aiming to get away or whether you’re just in need of some time away from work.
Your Job
Yeah, it’s an obstacle, and not a small one either. The dream scenario is what I’ve mentioned above, don’t be tied to one place and run a business where you can be anywhere. That’s my goal, and though it doesn’t mean I wont ever need to sit back and take a break for a week or two, it definitely means that it is more attainable, and hey, I can go and chill down in Asia for a few days and live like a king for a few dollars (or pounds as is the case with us UK Bloggers). I’m not daft enough to think that we can all suddenly be mobile, and for those of us that cant, there are still ways to escape the rat race if only for a while. Career breaks are increasingly popular, and if you’re lucky enough to have an understanding employer, they might not be adverse to you taking a month or two away from your post in order to make a once in a lifetime trip or just to explore other avenues of your life that your job can make it easy to forget you even have.
Your Mental Health
An increasingly common reason for needing time away from work is not being in the right headspace. Depression in the workplace is rife in the 21st century with an increasing number of people needing to take time off to get their heads together. Jobs can be stressful, or they can be monotonous and soul destroying and sometimes our brains just aren’t in the best place to cope with it. I’m not saying call your boss and tell him you’re depressed so need time off, but if you’re feeling down and the motivation to go to your job is lessening because of your headspace, you should go to a doctors and see if he diagnoses your feelings as something more sinister than just a minor case of the blues.
How Badly Do You Want It?
Like many things in life, unless you really want a break it may well simply become a pipe dream. Sacrifice could well be involved, and to take a long term break to explore the world or a different hobby or career you may have to quit your job, you may have to cut the bills down and even move to a smaller place (or back in with the parents). If it really is in line with your dreams to treck across China or to take a year to start a business or work on your art, you will find a way to make it happen, through saving or through cutting costs.
Short Term Breaks
They’re important, you know! The above might be pretty irrelevant to you if you’re literally just in need of a week to recharge your batteries, but make sure that you do actually take a break when the opportunity to take a week’s holiday or a long weekend arises. If you stay at home it can be really easy to get caught up doing the chores or replying to emails. Even if you just go and stay with a friend, make sure you don’t get sucked into the daily grind and you take the time to do the things your brain so desires without giving it any extra stress. It will thank you when you take it back to the office.
The Most Boring Jobs in The World
The reason I write Escape Nine to Five is that I don’t want people to spend their lives in a job that sucks. How many people do you know that are in jobs they hate, are unfulfilled, underpaid and in almost all cases, BORED. I fear that the reason you’ve found yourself reading this article may be that you fall into this group, too, or that you’re scared of ending up in a job that is mind numbingly boring. If my list of the most boring jobs in the world helps a few people steer their career path away from one that they will feel like a zombie in, then it has served its purpose.
- Data input – In the wonderful world of date input, you’re basically doing a job because it’s slightly above the mental capacity of a monkey, yet slightly below the abilities of technology and computing. There are different kinds of data input, but it’s all still putting numbers or letters into spreadsheets or other computer programs. Not fun, not fulfilling and something that 9 hours of will leave you very unhappy.
- Driving – Delivery driver is probably one of the more boring types of driver job, and I’m sure some aren’t that bad. If you like your space and dont want to sit in an office all day then you may even enjoy a driving job, but if you want to be engaged and fulfilled then you certainly wont enjoy yourself.
- Nighttime Security Guard – It might sound like a job that can be quite enthralling, but I’m not talking about clubs or parties, I’m talking about things like supermarkets, art galleries, all the places that need to be manned but the chances of trouble are minimal. Watching the same endless nothingness on security cameras all day long is not a job for the ambitious.
- Production Line/Factory Workers – Most of the time, you’re doing the same things over and over and over…and over…and over… Work in a factory, again, is work that could probably be done by a machine. They just haven’t invented it yet.
- Washing Clothes – Nobody wants to wash their own clothes! What’s worse? Washing other peoples! The only excitement from this job may come from some particularly racy underwear. If you’re lucky.
- Working on a Checkout – The shear repetitive nature of this job can be crippling, not to mention the constant ‘beep…beep…beep…’, but at least you can talk to people in this job, if they’re not busy being rude to your or too wrapped up in their own lives, that is.
- Cold Calling – Call centres aren’t always bad, and if you’re following up leads or receiving calls then great, but cold calling is another matter entirely. Constant rejection, and being nothing but an annoyance to 99.9999% of the people you have to call is one of the least fulfilling and most ego bashing ways to spend your nine to five.
- Ticket Inspector – checking ticket after ticket in a booth or walking down the length of a train. There can surely be no excitement in this career, and is simply one to pay the bills.
- Anything you hate! I’ve got to say that what might be riveting for one person might be extremely boring for another. Personally, I’d love a career in sports, but I know people who would find no joy in the same career whatsoever. Likewise, I could never do any work related to maths or accounting, but know people extremely happy to do so. It really is a case of horses for courses, and who am I to really say. What I will say though is that you’ll struggle to find many people not in agreement that the above jobs are pretty depressing and not exciting in the slightest.
I’m not dissing any of the above jobs, and I’ve done some damn boring jobs myself in my time, but if you’re looking for a long term career or something you’re going to enjoy, dont expect the above to fit the bill. For a means to an end, great! Part Time Jobs doing something like this to enable you to work on a passion can be a good way to get yourself out of the nine to five, so its not all doom and gloom.
Online Earning Methods
One of the most effective ways of escaping the nine to five rat race is to earn your crust online. There is a lot of scepticism around regarding how difficult this is to do, or if it is even possible to do so. Dont get me wrong, earning a full time living over the internet can be very very tough, but it’s certainly not mythology, and it can be done. One of the reasons online income is accessible in the modern age is the amount of online earning methods available to everyone, there are a lot of different things people can do to make cash online, which is why I have chosen to list some of them and break them down a bit for those looking to grab some cash from the world wide web.
- Revenue Sharing Websites. These are cool because there’s no need to lay out any money, you just create an account and get going. On top of that, you’re leeching off of the reputation they’ve built themselves. The best examples I can give you are Squidoo and Hubpages, where you create an account, create content and when the site makes money off your content through advertising, you get a cut of the cash, which is great, and is certainly a start when it comes to making some online money, but you’ll probably at some point move on to…
- Your own Site or Blog. I’ve got tons of sites in a load of different niches, and I’m passionate about all of them. Depending on the niche of your subject and whether you’re getting traffic to your site that actually want to buy something, you’re probably going to need a lot of traffic to make any real income, but its certainly not impossible and if you build up a community around your site, you can certainly turn traffic into money.
- A product to sell online. Quite a popular one, this, usually coming in the form of an online course or an eBook, which leads me nicely to the next on my list…
- Kindle Publishing. Selling an eBook has never been easier. Amazon let anybody self publish on their kindle platform, which means millions of people who visit amazon every day (and have their credit cards linked to their accounts) may see your book and buy it, which works whether you’re selling fiction or non fiction, just make sure you’re not pumping out spam! You’ll get bad reviews if you do, and nobody else will buy your book (rightly so).
- A membership site. If you’re providing something premium or have a forum full of information you dont want to give away for free, you can put it behind a pay wall, which can create a tidy recurring income.
- Youtube videos. You’ll need a heck of a lot of traffic to get anywhere with this one, but you can build up a following on Youtube with videos, whether they’re product reviews, funny videos or anything, Youtube will share revenue with you…how nice!
- Selling something for stock. If you create art, photography, music or graphics, there are forums where you can sell your work as ‘stock’. Great if you’ve got a lot of time to spend creating content and uploading it to these sites.
Of course, the above list is just some of the more common online earning methods, but there are many more, you could start a social network or music streaming service, the beauty of the internet is that the possibilities truly are endless…