Are you a super creative person? Do you wake up in the mood to try new things and different ideas? Today, we will talk about various ways to use your creativity to make passive income on the internet.
Don’t worry; even if you aren’t creative, you can still become highly successful on the internet. As long as you are willing to follow trends and start new ones, you can cash in on these techniques. So, let’s jump into the world of selling T-Shirts, stock photos, and printables.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have been doing a deep dive into starting a business from home. So far, I talked about the general home environment in “What Kind of Home Business Should You Start?” Then, I talked about starting a home business within an outside setting.
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My next article will be about online businesses, so it got me thinking of the possibilities. There are tons of ways to make money online, but I want to focus on passive income today. The general idea is to create as many designs as possible, upload them to the various websites, and then wait for the money to hit your account.
Of course, it won’t be that easy. As with everything in the world of passive income, it will take hard work, knowledge, and persistence to build up your online presence. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to conduct deep research about the platform to which you will be uploading your work.
The different websites host your creative works. In this article, I will only talk about the websites that I have personally used. I will go through the three categories, and at the end, I will go through my own personal take on the business model. Let’s begin.
T-Shirts and other designs. There are various made-to-order T-Shirt websites, but most of them are very similar. I have used Rebubble in the past, so I will focus on this site. The idea is to come up with multiple ideas and designs.
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Customers can use your designs on T-Shirts, sweaters, polos, mugs, stickers, etc. There are almost unlimited ways they can customize your designs into their own creations that they can then purchase.
Once they make their purchases, Rebubble will pay you royalties. You can have your custom shop, where people can view all your designs in one place. Even better, your designs are not exclusive, so that you can upload your creations to all the other T-Shirt sites as well.
Selling designs sounds like the perfect way to make passive income, right? However, the competition is fierce. Every day, the site adds thousands of designs. How are you supposed to stand out in the crowd? One way is to have unique designs. I’ll talk about a more realistic way later in the article.
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Stock Photos. Every day I create article covers and books covers, and every day I go to Pixlr to find stock photos. I pay a subscription fee of $180/annually to access a massive amount of photos. That may sound expensive, but the prices elsewhere were far higher.
One of the major companies was charging $10/month for 20 downloads. I can go through 20 downloads in a day. So I am actually delighted with Pixlr. Plus, every day, there are thousands of new uploads for me to ponder over. So many photos and designs are breathtaking.
These new photos and designs can come from you. And my subscription fee could be going to your account as passive income. Just like T-shirts, the more pictures and clip art you upload, the better the chance of earning sweet passive income.
Websites, businesses, and blogs use thousands of stock photos every day, so the market is enormous. However, the competition here is also huge. You can upload your photos and clip art to multiple sites, so I highly recommend doing so.
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The key to photos is to have very original ideas and also very standard images as well. Those are two different markets, but you can address both. As I create my articles and book covers every day, I am in a different mood.
Some days I want color and randomness; others, I want down-to-Earth photos. There is no reason why you can’t offer solutions for both moods. Again, in time you can amass a vast portfolio of images.
As with T-Shirts, the search function is the most crucial part of your success. You need to have great keywords that your photos can rank high on the charts. Some days, I go through ten search results pages; others, I pick the first photo that the search returns. The higher the results, the bigger your paycheck.
Printables. Everything I talked about above will apply to printables. Printables are downloadable pdfs with valuable data on them, such as weight loss planners, wedding planners, exercise planners, and budget planners.
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The top place to sell printables is Etsy. I created a couple of designs and even sold a couple as well. My designs aren’t great because I haven’t given this revenue stream the proper attention that I need for success.
Etsy hosts impressive creativity and craftsmanship. It also allows artists to host shops where customers can buy multiple designs from artists they like. Even better, they will need to return to your shop to buy the latest calendars and updates so that you can have a considerable amount of recurring purchases.
The competition on Etsy is fierce, but they have a built-in advertising system that is not terribly expensive. If you can create a great product and use perfect keywords, you can quickly make money using their advertising system.
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My take on these passive income sources. Anybody who has read my work before knows what I am going to say right now. Yes, you can go to these sites as a random person, uploading your designs and praying that the SEO algorithms put your works on top.
The other idea is to drive traffic to your designs. The best way to do that is by becoming a content creator. I wrote an article the first week of January 2021 about becoming a content creator this year. Ten months in, what have you done to further your content career? What’s holding you back?
Even if you successfully upload designs on Redbubble as a random designer, you are still at the mercy of their rules. What if they say “no more pink shirts” and you have nothing but pink shirts? Then you are S.O.L., or “screwed.”
If you had your own content platform, you could find another vendor and continue to sell your pink shirts without a break in service. Indeed, building your platform allows you to sell whatever you want to an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you.
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You don’t have to be pushy to your audience either. As you see on YouTube, people have little T-Shirt shops in the corner of their video webpage. If you want to support the channel, you make a purchase. You’ll get decent sales without playing the algorithm game.
Even with stock photos, you can create your own platform. Every image that you upload to other sites, you can host on your website for free. Eventually, you will start to get traffic to your site because people are cheap. Sorry, that’s just the truth. You can survive on the royalties from other sites and ad revenue from your site.
Eventually, you can find a way to monetize your site. There is a great music website called Bensound that hosts its own instrumentals. He is making good money by selling his music on his website. That’s the best way to make a living.
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Becoming a Content Creator. Becoming a content creator is the long way to make a living. Yes, it will take a long time to build an audience, but you can sell whatever you want to via your group. I highly recommend studying creativity & design, entrepreneurship, advertising, and business as you become a content creator. You will need all of these things to become successful.
Conclusion. There is a lot of passive income to make with your creativity. Yes, you can spend a couple of years becoming successful on someone else’s platform, but why not create your own. The return on your investment by building your own platform is infinite because you can sell whatever you want.
From someone who has had his Amazon affiliate account deleted and his Facebook account locked and deleted, I warn you against building upon these vast platforms. Of course, you can gain a following on these sites but also create your platform.
Overall, ensure you perform your due diligence on each website, as they are all vastly different. I love talking about passive income from automated businesses and online sources. Please follow me on Twitter and my Facebook Page for more investing knowledge. Enjoy and Happy Investing.
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