5 ways to turn your website into a passive income source

Having a website (especially one with a blog) takes a lot of effort. But websites are still one of the most common and most reliable sources of passive income. As a first part of my “Passive Income for Freelance Writers” series I’m giving you 5 ways of earning passive income with a website.

Advertising

Incorporating ads into your website is still one of the most popular choices when it comes to monetizing your website or blog. The most common tool is Google AdSense (or Chitika, popularized by Darren from ProBlogger.net). But it’s worth remembering that once the website is popular and has a lot of readers, you can always cut out the middle man and start looking for advertisers directly.

Many popular websites and blogs use their sidebars to display “sponsors”. Many of those websites are direct clients paying monthly for the exposure. You can also use the advertising spots on your website to display banners from your affiliates about more on that later.) The key to a successful ad is to make sure it fits into the general topic of the website. The ads will bring profit only if they are of interest to your readers.

Affiliate marketing

By promoting other people’s projects, you are earning a percentage of the profits from each sale. Your partners usually provide you with great promotional materials that you can use to promote their work.

If you’re wondering where to find the right affiliate programs, you’re not looking right. Your first choice should always be products and programs you have personal experience with. It’s the ultimate truth – it’s easier to promote something you know and something you believe in.

When choosing the affiliate programs keep in mind what it is that your readers are looking for. And try to provide it not only with your content, but with the products you promote as well. Even if you choose to work with Amazon Affiliates, you should select the products that can benefit your readers.

Self-made products

You either build a website around a product you wish to sell, or you promote a product on a site you already have. Either way a website has an enormous potential of helping you sell those products and, once again, it allows you to cut out the middle man and earn a bigger profit (when you don’t have to pay commission to anyone else.)

Freelance writers usually decide to create eBooks or online courses and tele-classes and share their knowledge with the world. But those are not the only products that can be sold and/or promoted with a website.

Membership sites

Majority of the websites offer some sort of content to the readers. If they are product pages, they offer information on the product. If they are websites of companies or people, they offer information about that. There are sites that have been created and published and are updated rarely, but there are also websites that are updated every other day.

Websites like that can be turned into membership sites, charging readers a monthly fee, providing them with exclusive content (either in a way of a premium newsletter, special blog posts, eBook reports etc.) that they are interested in. Obviously, the details all depend on the niche, but the general idea remains the same.

But what you need to remember is that nowadays, with all the free content you can imagine, you need to be offering something spectacular and amazing to convince people to join the website. You might consider teaming up with somebody else: a graphic designer, or a programmer; where you provide content and all the written material and they add the extra content.

Launching platform for other projects

Sometimes, you don’t have to earn the passive income directly from the website. But if your website is good and provides great content, attracting a lot of readers, it can become a valuable platform from which you can launch your other projects (especially if the projects are in the same niche, or your website is a personal one.)

Whatever your next project is a CafePress shop, another website covering your niche from a different angle, a book deal or a class you can plug it on your website and some of the readers will follow.

Final notes

No matter how you decide to turn your website into a passive income source, there’s one thing you need to remember. No passive income will earn you money if you just set it up and forget about it. It will only bring in profits if you promote it, offer great content and supervise it regularly.

For the entire series on Passive Income click here.

How Somebody Who Hated Change Decided to Become a Freelance Writer

If you ask anyone, who knows me, they will tell you that I don’t deal well with changes. It’s a God honest truth: I HATE changes. It doesn’t matter how big or how small the change, I will always try to resist and whine about how much I hate the new thing.

To give you an idea of how extreme my dislike for change is: I only eat one type of pizza (or no pizza at all), I dropped out of my studies because getting a degree and defending my thesis was too big of a change from my usual way of doing things (and it took me two years to go back to school), I don’t like meeting new people, because, well, they are new people and they don’t understand how OCD I am about the smallest things.

In fact, my entire writing career moves at a pace everybody else would consider “barely not moving backwards”.

It took me years and meeting very supportive people for me to start writing more seriously in the first place. It took an extremely enthusiastic writing cheerleader to talk me into writing my first novella. I hesitantly wrote what I thought would be a good story but didn’t like the results. But the feedback I got was encouraging, so I decided to try writing another novella the following year... It took two years, a support system and four big fiction projects for me to get comfortable with an idea of writing a novel.

My freelancing career went almost the same.

At the very beginning (back in, I think, May 2008) the idea of receiving payment for my writing seemed rather surreal. I didn’t treat it seriously, so when I stumbled on Helium, I looked around and set up an account, because it seemed harmless.

And I did nothing.

I sat on the brand new account for a few days before I decided to see what the whole thing was about. Because it’s just my luck, I had no idea what to write about, so I randomly searched for an Empty Title and wrote my very first advice article about treating painful periods. I did research on natural remedies to have the knowledge, but I winged everything else.

I knew nothing about a proper article structure for online content, I had no idea what a keyword was and why it was important. I just wrote an article to see what would happen.

Or rather, I was conflicted between wanting to see what would happen and being terribly afraid of what would happen. What if the article was terrible? What if people wouldn’t be interested in what it said? What if the article didn’t earn any money? Or worse, what if IT DID?

In the first week after publishing, the article earned one or two cents from pageviews. I found that idea absolutely terrifying and closed the browser. I didn’t touch Helium for another month after that.

I returned to the site in June and started to write simple opinion pieces on topics I knew from personal experience. Nothing I would have to do research on. The idea that anybody could take me for an expert was too scary.

By the time December rolled in, I was comfortable with an idea of getting paid for my writing, out of curiosity I was reading blogs about freelance writing and publishing articles from time to time.

All the blogs I’ve read seemed unconnected to what I was doing. They were all talking about setting up websites, blogs, pitching editors, being able to pay bills from money earned with writing... The idea of giving up my cozy and safe job to pursue something that earned me cents seemed ridiculous.

Then, by complete accident, I sold an article in Helium Marketplace. After the initial euphoria that somebody liked my article and wanted to pay for it (and after the panic that followed: “what if they change their mind and demand a refund? what if they clicked the wrong button and they really wanted the article next to mine?”) I realized that you can earn more from writing than just cents based on pageviews.

I filed that information away, because “why mess with something that’s working just fine?” But just to be sure, I did some additional research and found online marketplaces like oDesk, Guru and eLance. They all seemed really scary and confusing and there were some fees involved and I decided I really don’t like the idea of exchanging my Helium earnings for what seemed to be very stressful and demanding.

I kept writing for content sites (expanding outside of Helium was a nightmare, but I knew that keeping all my eggs in one basket would be unwise if a dreaded change decided to surprise me).

Nothing changed for a year in my writing career (which I considered to be a good thing, most specialists would never agree with me) but then I started to get bored with my day job. Long time ago I learned to recognize boredom as a first symptom of change and I did what I’ve always done when I felt change coming. I started to make plans how to make that damn change as painless as possible.

Which brings us to six months ago and my new year’s resolution to switch to full time free end of this year.

It’s worth stating that I admire people who can quit their day job and become freelancers in a day. People who take risks are amazing, but I’m not one of them. If there’s a way to avoid the change, I’ll take it. If I need to go through a change, I will hate every moment of the transition.

I need numerous support systems, safety nets, cheerleaders and people who understand that I need to have complete control over the process or my stress levels reach catastrophic very quickly.

At the same time, I love writing. I get huge satisfaction from it and I love looking at the finished product and knowing it’s worth something (I feel even better when other people say the same thing). I want to keep doing it!

And yes, for some, the pace in which my freelance career is moving, might seem unwise, or time-wasting. To some, my choice to keep writing for content sites while I pursue other freelancing options, might seem counterproductive. But the truth is I like the passive income. And another change (in addition to all the changes that will happen to me this year) might be too much for my poor little heart.

I’m optimistic though. I have a plan, which includes several safety nets and contingency plans (and contingency plans to my contingency plans) and for a first time in a very long time I think I might be able to handle the change. That I might even like what it’s going to bring.

Still, I’m not going to jump head first. I’ll keep poking at the idea, moving forward slowly. It’s going to take some time to get where I want to be. But it’s okay.

Passive Income for Freelance Writers

5 ways to turn your website into a passive income source


I hope you all had a very good start in the New Year. I kicked off 2011 by writing two articles (total over 1300 words) and it made me feel really good. I also decided that January will be a month of Passive Income here at WritingMakesRich.

I consider passive income to be one of the more important revenue stream for freelancers. There are only that many hours you can work in a day and at the same time, raising your rates stops being enough at some point.

I’m not going to hide, this Passive Income series is going to serve mostly as my very own resource center as I learn more about passive income opportunities and try to find out which work best for me.

Freelance writers have a lot of options open to them, though most of them demand a lot of time and effort before they even start paying back.

I’m at the very beginning of my freelancing career. I don’t work non-stop and I don’t have a whole bunch of clients. Which means that I do have the time to invest into my future income. There are many things freelance writers can do when they don’t have enough work and while I keep applying for various jobs, I always preferred investing in myself.

Working an hour a day or so on a personal project that has the potential of bringing extra money in might seem like a big commitment, especially if the money isn’t anything impressive at the very beginning, but I believe in planning and considering all the options before actually taking the jump.

I will no doubt write about revenue streams that I’m not involved in personally. I will mention things that are great for writers, but take a lot of time, which is why I’m not tapping into their potential just yet. But they are nonetheless good opportunities and every writer should at least consider them.

It seems like it’s going to be a very productive and a very interesting January, and hopefully a year. Happy New Year everybody!

Where Freelance Writers Can Find Work?

Because of my grand plan to become a freelance writer full time in 2011, I’ve been thinking about all the possible revenue streams that I could support myself with. And since I’m a nice person like that, I decided to share my conclusions on my blog.

oDesk

Right now, oDesk represents my biggest source of income. It’s a marketplace for online freelancers, not only for writers. Once you register, you big on projects along with others and the employers choose the person they want to work with. You can charge an hourly rate or a fixed rate and oDesk adds a fee to your quote (which is how they profit from the entire arrangement).

There are other marketplaces similar to oDesk: Guru, eLance, Freelancer.com. But I’ve registered to all of them, and I found that oDesk works best for me. If you’re looking for a good site, you should check out all the possibilities before settling for those that work best for you.

It’s worth saying that at the very beginning I was afraid that with my high rate, I wouldn’t be able to find any work – a fair concern since a lot of workers bidding on jobs are from the Philippines and their rates are often below $5 per hour. But I find work and I didn’t have to lower my rate, so it’s good to know that if you know your craft, you can find work no matter your rate.

Job Boards

A good place to find writing gigs is searching on various job boards. Personally, I prefer Job Board over at Problogger.net. But I also subscribe to Anne Wayman’s About Freelance Writing where she regularly posts a huge number of jobs available to freelancers that she found all over the Internet (including Craigslist).

If you, like me, have an account with Helium, it’s always worth checking out their Marketplace. The articles that don’t get purchased are turned into regular Helium articles and will bring passive income to the author.

Don’t look for jobs, create them yourself

And by that I mean creating sources of passive income of course. Things and assets that will earn money even after you stop working on them. The website/blog combination is the first idea that pops in mind, and it’s also a great tool for exposure. It makes it easier for future clients to find you and your work. And it can help with starting any future projects.

EBooks are also very popular when it comes to creating passive income sources, but freelance writers shouldn’t limit themselves to just eBooks, because the online world is full of possibilities and you can always think of something that will have the potential to bring in great revenue.

So here you are. Those are the ideas I got for bringing in various income sources. I will most likely brainstorm and come up with several others. And if you sit down and think about it, you will probably find something that will work best for you. Good luck!

Make Plans for 2011

I hope you all had a very good Christmas. For me it was a time of procrastination when I did absolutely nothing productive and watched an obscene amount of Christmas movies. Although I did read the Unlimited Freelancer eBook and found it extremely useful for my plans for 2011.

Like every year during Christmas, I also started on my New Year Resolutions. In previous years my New Year’s Resolutions were more like wishful thinking of what I would love to do next year. This time, I decided to be more serious about it and make actual plans.

-          Write 100 000 words in 2011
Every year I participate in the challenge over at FindYourWords. In 2010 I wrote over 85K and I plan on writing more actively next year. My three bigger commitments as far as fiction writing goes mean I will write at least 41K of fiction in 2011. The rest I plan to reach with my freelance assignments.

-          Finish and defend my thesis
This goal has a very strict deadline because I need to finish it by the end of March and most of my time will be devoted to writing it.

-          Set up a website
I actually have plans for two websites in two different niches, but I want to be realistic which means that I want to end the year with a fully functioning website with an incorporated blog, capable of bringing me revenue (either with passive income, or with actual clients)

-          Switch to freelancing full time by the end of the year
I wrote on numerous occasions how I’m not ready to become a full time freelancer. I already thought it through when I wrote the 5 step guide to becoming a freelance writer. And when I graduate in 2011, I will no longer have major expenses and I’ll be able to save up for a safety net and switch to full time freelancing by the end of the year.

Those are four major goals I want to reach in 2011. They are big and require lots of smaller sub-goals and a lot of planning. But this year I’m determined to make them happen.

And what are your goals for 2011?

Part-Time Writer, Full-Time Dreamer

It feels like a voice beyond a grave. My life was so crazy these past months that I honestly didn’t know what to put my hands into. During that time I struggled with a major Writer’s Block, a general bad mood and school.

Make no mistakes, I’m still struggling with school, I have three months to finish my thesis, and absolutely no time to actually sit down and do what’s required of me. I still need to write one research paper for my University to even consider accepting my thesis (once it’s written).
On top of it all, I’m seriously considering not extending my contract when it ends at the end of March.

So I’m working on the side, to have as much savings as possible. Having a safety net will definitely help while I’ll be reevaluating my future.

I’ve done at least an outline of what I need to consider back when I’ve written 5 Steps to becoming a freelance writer.

Because I need a lot of savings, I’ve put the passive income sites on the backburner and instead decided to try higher paying gigs. Because right now, I don’t really have time to look all over the internet for writing jobs, I reactivated my account at oDesk. I’ve applied for some jobs and I am now steadily working. My social life suffers from this multitasking and I have very little time for friends, but some sacrifices must be made.

To paraphrase a certain character from a certain movie about dreams: I’m not afraid to dream a little bigger. Keep your fingers crossed.

Last-Minute Writing

Remember when I posted about writing ahead of time? Yeah. It doesn't work out all the time.

Case in question: this very post.

Due to unhealthy amount of studying,my brain had been in overload and I've been struggling with a terrible case of Writer's Block. Not only that, I've also practically disappeared from Twitter, stayed away from my RSS and generally spent time studying and watching summer programming on TV.

But as the deadline to post on this blog approached, I started to stress more and more. Sure, this deadline is self imposed, but still. My brain registered the routine I've developed and the deadline became real. And so, I'm doing some last-minute writing.

I don't know about you, but in my case, that last minute writing is never as good as it could've been. I don't have time to edit properly, rearrange sentences, para-phrase or fix pacing. It all feels rushed and I always worry the reader notices all the flaws as well. I always obsess that the reader feels the idea for the article was rushed and not thought out properly.

And it adds up to the stress.

Sure, sometimes last-minute writing can turn out into additional 5K of words on a novella. And those words might be brilliant.
But I always have to ask my editor afterwards to be especially hard on those last words, pay attention to pacing and word choices.

Not to mention the fact that I often get sidetracked and my writing shows it too...

I suppose the answer to this last-minute writing problem is proper time management. Finding time to write way before the deadline, brainstorming and being more organized. But it doesn't always help. Like in my case right now, sometimes life just throws stuff at you and then you find yourself staying up all night, because of the deadlines.

Then again... Every once in a while probably doesn't hurt much...

Writer's Block

That's how I feel right now, staring at a blank page.




(Image made by me in Photoshop CS)

Monday Update - What I've been up to

A lot happened lately in my writing life, so instead of a regular post, I decided to write an update.

Writing Interruptions

Unfortunately it's that time in the year and I have to study for the exams and write those papers. And maybe work on my thesis some more. Which makes it almost impossible to do any actual writing. I'm staying possitive, since I only have one semester left and then, I'll be defending my thesis. And I'll have a new, shiny degree.

Fiction Writing

Since my last update, most of my projects moved forward.

My editor finished correcting the first draft of my bigbang story, and right now I'm fixing the mistakes. It's a painful process, I admit, but I know that it will make my story even better. I need to finish the second draft and send it to another editor before the end of June, because I need to have the final story by the end of July. It's all very exciting, since the feedback so far was completely positive.

The Epic Collaboration Project kinda took over my life. In between what I've written and what my co-author added, we basically wrote almost the entire thing. We still have three chapters to write, with the big climax, and the dramatic reveal, but I'm estimating we should be done with the first draft in maybe two weeks. We already crossed the 30K in wordcount and I think we might reach 40K before we're done.

I completely change the concept of my third big project - the 20K story I need written by September. Mostly because the initial set-up, while dramatic, didn't work with the character development I wanted to have. The scenes I already planned out will probably still happen, and I'll try to rework them into a short story of maybe 5K, but I'll have to outline it to make sure it works.

I also signed up to a writing challenge called HC Bingo. Which is an interesting concept and definitely something of an inspiration. It'll be mostly short stories, but maybe one or two longer ones. We'll see where the muse takes me.

Non-Fiction Writing

Unfortuantely I didn't work on my articles or ebook ideas, due to school and exams. I'm getting slightly worried, because I have to complete 7 more articles for Suite101 by the end of July, and I'd like to add to my articles on Helium as well. And it's not even that I don't know what to write about, it's the lack of time that interrupts with the writing.

Once I'm done with exams, I'll have to really get back into the non-fiction world.

On a plus side, even though I had little time, I managed to keep up with my blogging, which is a huge success. I definitely deserve a cookie. It becomes a part of my weekly routine, writing and posting to this blog. I suspect I'll soon be able to modify that routine to include writing and posting at other places.

Twitter

A mix of writing and networking, I've been active on Twitter, and it's been great fun. Apart from three days when I went offline to study.

I switched from TweetDeck to HooteSuite, because the latter offered me option to schedule my Tweets, which turned out to be extremely helpful since I share a lot of links to writing resources and blog posts. Plus I can keep it in the background and write or work, and it doesn't interrupt me with constant sound effects when somebody update's their account.

I also ventured into the world of Sponsored Tweets. It was more of an experiment, but it turned out to be a very interesting experience. It's not a big thing, nor it's extremely big revenue stream. But I can choose things I want to advertise, I can write the tweets to match my other content and all in all, I'm very pleased with that site. You can check it out for yourself here.

5 Steps to Becoming a Freelance Writer

Not so long ago, I wrote an article explaining why you don't need experience to be a freelance writer. I really believe it's true, after all I landed my first problogging job with no experience. Although, if I had a say in how the title was formed, I would rephrase it.

You don't need experience to become a freelance writer.

Whether you stay on the job or not, is a different matter.

There are two schools of becoming a freelance writer. One saying you have to risk it, because that risk will motivate you into pushing yourself and your business into success. SelfMadeChick is a proof that approach works.

There's also the less radical idea to first keep your day job and start freelancing part-time, building your brand, getting clients, finding out what works for you and what doesn't. Save up some money, to create a safety net, before transitioning to freelancing full-time. That's me.

I decided to share the Step-by-Step Guide to becoming a Freelance Writer, which is basically my To-Do list.

1. Answer important questions:
    Do you want to be a freelance writer?
    Why do you want to be a freelance writer?
    What kind of writer do you want to be?
    Do you have a niche you want to write in?
    If yes, why this niche?
    If yes, how competitive is this niche?
    If no, why?

2. Make basic calculations:
    How much money do you need to survive? Count the bills (rent, electricity, media, food etc.). That's what you need to survive. Not counting the holidays, fancy dinners, parties and sudden natural disasters.

Now add to that health insurance, additional expenses like paper, printer, other office supplies.

You got the minimum of what you need to earn every month. Now, you should probably add at least 50% of what you calculated, to actually have some profit.

It's not a good business if there's no profit.

3. Research:
    No, seriously. RESEARCH. Before you jump in and do any actual freelancing. Research the field. Research the markets. Watch, read and learn. There are number of great, informative websites out there designed to help freelancers to build and develop their freelance business. There's FreelanceSwitch, FreelanceFolder, Problogger, About Freelance Writing, All Freelance Writing, The Creative Penn, The Renegate Writer and WriteItSideways. And that's not even half of my RSS Feed. There's a lot of material out there, all you need is to learn from all the great people.

Research also helps you to learn about rates, invoicing, marketing, branding and the business side of writing. And while there are some good freelance writers out there, it's the actual business knowledge that can turn a good freelancer into a great one.

3a. Find out what works for you:
    It could be considered a separate point, but for me, it's part of researching the business. It's about trying out different revenue streams and figuring out what works for you best. Is it blogging? Self-publishing? Writing novels? Writing online content? Writing for print magazines?

What are additional revenue streams you can pursue in addition to your main source of income? Teleclasses? Affiliate marketing? Adsense? Passive income? Anything else?

The reason why I put it in the research step is because I strongly suggest trying out every road. Try querying to magazines, maybe bid on a blogging job or two. See what works for you, makes you more comfortable. What's most fun/better paid/better for you? Sure, you could just read up on the subject, but I strongly believe that you don't really know what works, until you try it out on yourself.

Sure there can be missteps and false starts. But in the end, you'll truly know what fits you and your working style best.

4. Get a website:
    This step is actually one of the crucial ones. Nowadays, a professional doesn't exist if he or she doesn't have a website. Today, a person's first instinct is always to look up something (or somebody) online. Which means that to be found, and most importantly, to be hired, you need a website.

4a. Get a blog:
    If you decided to write in a particular niche, blog about that subject. Not only it will show off your knowledge, but blog posts (if you use proper SEO - what's SEO? Go back to step 3!) will help your website's Google ranking. And a higher Google ranking will make it easier for clients to find you. Additionally, blog is one of the best ways to connect to other people in your niche. And while being a freelancer is fun, it's much better when you have people to share the experience with. So go, and make friends.

5. Work!
    In previous steps you made some decisions about how you want your freelance career to look like. You tried various ways of earning money with your writing. You did your research.

All that's left is doing the actual work. And the actual earning money.