Have you ever thought of looking for ways to make extra money? It’s likely you have answered yes, right? Most people want to make more money, no matter how much they already get!

There’s always something we want to do (or wish to purchase) but can’t because there are different priorities. Additional income solves this problem because there’s no need to quit what we already have to reach a new goal.

In this post, we’ll provide you with a complete guide to start generating additional income, without quitting your day job. And, if you still don’t know how this works, don’t worry, because we’ll explain everything. Just keep on reading!

Is it possible to make extra money without working non-stop?

Lots of people believe that to make extra money you need to work long hours and give up on a lot of things (such as being with your family, practice sports, or having leisure moments).

ndeed, this happens sometimes. If you decide to work at night to have a new source of income, you’ll really have less time to do things you love and to be with the people you love.

However, there are several options for people who wishes to make more money without having to work extra hours for that. We’re talking about passive income, which is a great option for everyone who want to increase their revenue without trading their quality of life.

What is “passive income”?

When we’re talking about passive income, we’re referring to the income you can generate without the need to put in constant efforts. This means that, after you start a business that fits this model, you’ll continue to receive money throughout the time, without having to work for it (or working very little).

Let us explain a little better…

First, we’ll give you an example of a work that does not generate any passive income. Imagine you’re a business manager and work for an engineering company, however, your salary isn’t enough to pay for all your expenses. So, to make extra money, you decide to sell homemade baked goods to your friends. Everyone loves them and you’re very successful doing so. Besides, at the end of each month, you get a good sum of money.

However, to keep on making this money every month, you need to keep on investing your time and capital to make more baked goods: you need to buy the ingredients, bake the goods, pack, promote your products, and make the sales (you still have all the work to manage the money, and exchange bills whenever needed). It’s a simple equation: to make more money, you need to put in more hours.

Now, let’s change the scenario and think of a situation where you make passive income. Imagine you want to continue in baked goods business, however, you want to work less and to make more money. So, you decide to use all your experience (in baking the goods and selling) to create an online course and help out other people who also want to make extra money or create a small business.

To do so, you plan your content, write scripts, record the lessons, and upload them to a distance learning platform. Then, you only need to worry about promoting your product. This means you’ll only have the work to create your course a single time and you can keep on selling it through the years (and around the world).

Besides, you can work with Affiliates, which are people who sell your product in exchange for a commission. Therefore, you might be at home watching your favorite TV show while people are buying your product! And best of all: you might live in the US and someone from France is subscribing to take your course.

Types of passive income

As we’ve mentioned, passive income arises from work you do only once and have the potential to keep on generating income throughout the time, with minimum effort for it to happen. Here are some types of passive income:

•    Renting a house or an apartment: If you have real state property, you can rent it. Every month you’ll receive a pre-established amount without having to waste time or putting any effort to make it happen.
•     Collecting intellectual rights: If you publish a book, you’ll be paid intellectual rights anytime the publisher makes the sales.
•     Receiving commissions for artwork: If you’re a photographer, for example, you can upload your images to websites such as ShutterStock and get paid when people buy them.
•     Owning a franchise: If you own a solid store or restaurant franchise, you can sell the license so other business people use your brand. However, this can prove to be a long and bureaucratic process.
•  Selling digital products: If you have any talent or skill able to help other people, you can create a digital product (such as an online course or an ebook) and sell it online.

Advantages of passive income

Passive income has many benefits. Here are the main ones:

It can walk hand in hand with your day job

If you already have a career that you don’t wish to quit, you can choose passive income for making extra money and fulfilling a personal wish, such as buying a house, going on a trip, or just investing your money to make more of it.

Since it requires little of your time, you get to keep your job and continue to do what you like doing.

You get to manage your own time

If you decide to dedicate only to passive income, you can choose when you’ll work. Also, if you’re a night person, for example, you can leave the day to focus on other activities and work on your projects at night, which is when you work best.

Besides, you don’t need to drop all your other tasks. If you’re a parent who needs to take care of your kids, you can adjust to their routine, having more time to take them to school, to the doctor, and to extracurricular activities, for example.

Traveling is a lot easier

Have you ever noticed how some months are more expensive to travel than others? Summer and Holidays have the highest prices in the year. And, even so, that’s when most people want to travel because it’s when they’re on vacation.

If you’re dedicating only to passive income, you can travel during low season, saving a lot of money and having a more pleasant experience, once places will be less crowded and noisy.

You’re your own boss

When you have an extra source of income, such as the ones we’ve mentioned in this post, you get to be your own boss! This means you decide the strategies you’ll use on your business and control your time. Besides, you get to decide where to work (from home, at a coffee shop or even in a park).

Although passive income isn’t your only job, you’ll at least have the experience to be your own boss for part of your day. This will make you grow and allow you to develop professionally and personally.

Digital Products: Why are they the best option nowadays?

In this post we’ve shown several ways to generate passive income so you can make some extra income. All the options we selected have positive and negative aspects. Considering these characteristics, digital products are winning the race nowadays. And here’s why.

You don’t need to invest money to get started

Some passive income options (such as renting real estate or buying a franchise) required high investments to get started. After all, you can’t rent a house without having the money to buy it first, nor you can buy franchises without investing on your own business, can you?

However, to create a digital product, you don’t need to invest money to get started. And, if you do, it’s a lower investment when comparing to other businesses. To write an ebook, for example, you only need to know how to write, have access to a computer and basic Internet knowledge. If you don’t have ability with design, you can create it on PowerPoint, for example.

The same happens if you want to create an online course. First, you don’t need a professional studio or a super camera. A room in your house is enough to record and your smartphone might work just fine (as long as the quality of image and audio is acceptable). Many famous YouTubers, for example, started like this!

Besides, there are digital platforms that allow you to store your products and take care of everything from payment to delivering the product, without you having to pay subscription or monthly fees for it.

You can make sales all over the world

As we’ve previously mentioned, when you have a digital product, it’s possible to make sales around the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Mexico: a person in Germany can buy your product. This allows you to reach a higher number of clients without having to leave your house.

A single product can reach thousands of people

If you rent real estate, for example, you can only reach one person at a time or, a family at the most. But, the question is that your income will be the same every month and can’t scale your business, unless you buy other houses (which isn’t that easy, let’s be realistic).

However, if you write an ebook on healthy eating, for example, you can sell the same product for thousands of people. Having the same amount of work only once, you get countless clients.

You can have Affiliates

When you have a digital product, you can count on Affiliates who make sales for you and get commissions to do so.

If your product is an ebook to take care of children with disabilities, for example, your Affiliates can be people who blog about the topic, pediatricians, kindergarten teachers, and other professionals who are involved in this environment.

To do so, they’ll use a specific link (known as HotLink) and anytime a person gets to your product thanks to this link, they’ll get a percentage of the sales amount.

How to create a digital product in just 5 simple steps

If you got up to this part in the text, you’ve certainly realized that digital products are an excellent option for people who want to make extra money and have passive income. But how to do so?

We’ll give you the 5 basic steps to create a digital product and, more than that, you’ll find out all the information you need to start. Shall we?

1.   Think about what you can sell and choose your niche

The first thing you need to do is decide what you’ll sell and what your market niche will be. To do so, think of the following aspects:

• What do you like to do?

• What are your talents and skills?
• How can your knowledge help people?
• What can you create with your knowledge? An ebook? An online course?

2. Study the market

After you think of the products you can create, it’s time to study the market. There’s no point in creating something that fascinates you if there aren’t people who are interested in your offer, right? So, you can use some strategies:

•     Analyze your competition and see what they are doing. Think: how can you stand out?

• Research what people are searching online (in regards to your product). To do so, you can use tools, such as KeyWord Planner and Google’s autocomplete feature. Then, you’ll know the needs of your audience and what you must do to meet them.
• Make surveys with people you know and understand if your product would be useful to them and which characteristics it needs to have to make people want to buy it.
• Take part in online forums on the subject to see the needs of people in different parts of the world.

3. Create a buyer persona

The buyer persona is a fictitious character that represents the people who will purchase your product. To create it, you need to think of all your personal and professional characteristics, besides outlining their desires and fears.

Defining this persona will allow you to come up with strategies that are really useful to your audience and develop a successful product. To understand how to create one from scratch, we recommend you read our post on how to create a buyer persona for your business.

4. Plan your digital product

After you decide what you’re going to create, research the market and create your buyer persona, it’s time to plan your digital product.

If it’s an ebook, for example, define how many chapters it will have and the theme of each one. Think about what you’ll develop on each chapter and the main problems you’ll solve. It’s also the time to think about the style you’ll adopt both for language and visual diagramation.

If it’s an online course, you need to do something similar. However, instead of chapters, think about the modules you’ll have, how many lessons and what you’ll talk about in each one. You also need to decide if you’ll apply tests throughout the course, if there will be discussion forums or other extra material.

5. Hands on!

After you finish the 4 steps above, it will be the moment to get hands on! This means actually writing the content in the chapters, revising texts, searching the images you’ll use, formatting content, etc.

In the case of online courses, it means writing the scripts, recording the video lessons, editing the content, etc.

This is the moment you have to create the best digital product in the market! But don’t despair, because now we’ll provide you with 2 must-read articles if you really want to start your online business.

Bonus: learn the step-by-step to get started

Here we’re summarizing what you need to do to create your digital product and make some extra money. If want in-depth content, we have two perfect articles for you:

• The most complete guide on the Internet to create video lessons
• All you need to know to create your first ebook.

We hope you’ve liked our tips to make extra money. If you want to read more about the topic, access our complete guide to sell on the Internet from scratch. See you soon!