15 Passive Income Ideas To Build Your Own Empire

Passive income can come in many forms. If you found your way to this post then odds are you are looking for a way to generate passive income. That said, Googling around you’ll find a few articles with passive income ideas. Well I decided to make my own list since there were some ideas missing from the other ones I saw.

First let’s start with a definition of passive income. In a nutshell, passive income is about building something that will generate income, regardless of whether you’re there or not. Once income starts coming in, the idea is that it should require minimal time to keep it profitable while it still generates income. This is opposed to the old nine-to-five where you put in time for money for your services rendered during the time period you are working. With passive income, you work for yourself. So you’re building your own empire. Which is extremely fulfilling.

Now the methods I’m going to curate to you are some great ways to generate passive income. That said, it goes without saying, it takes hard work. Huge passive income success doesn’t happen overnight. For example, affiliate marketing is one of the methods I describe. To be really successful at affiliate marketing takes time. It takes time to build traffic in various forms (website traffic, email lists, social media followers, etc…). Ideally, that traffic should then lead to sales of the items you are promoting.

So let’s keep it real. The main point is that passive income success never comes easily. The way I look at it is like this. In order to succeed one must put in lots of work at the beginning to in order to swim in the benefits later on. So, without further ado, here is my list of passive income ideas.

1. Write a Book

Writing a book can be a great way to generate some passive income. There’s a few different methods for selling the book and here they are:

1. Sell it on Clickbank. Here’s some documentation about selling your first product on Clickbank.
2. Sell it on Amazon using Kindle.
3. Sell it on iBooks.

Here’s a great piece of advice I once heard when it comes to selling books. Sell your book on all three platforms (ebook, audio book, hard copy book). Doing only one platform is a good way to limit yourself (not good). For the audio book, you can sell using a service such as Audible. Then for selling a hardcopy of your ebook, you can use a service like CreateSpace. They will print your book on-demand (meaning once the book is ordered, it’s printed).

2. Affiliate Marketing (Commissionable Sales)

Affiliate marketing is where you partner with a company to promote their business. With traditional affiliate marketing, when a sale is made via someone clicking on your affiliate link you receive a commission. Commission percentages vary from company to company. From what I’ve seen commissions range from 10% to 75% on the sale. I suggest taking the time to learn the art behind affiliate marketing if you decide to go down this path. Here’s a couple options for you to choose from:

3. Sponsored Ads

Sponsored ads, in a nutshell, involves reaching out to businesses who you believe would make for great sponsors on your site.The idea is to partner with them. For an agreed upon fee, they will pay you for ad space on your site to promote their business. There’s different models for how this can be accomplished. But, the bottom line is your site needs to have some decent traffic coming into it, consistently, in order to appeal to advertisers. Usually you can do this one of two ways.

1. Reaching directly out to the company you’re interested in partnering with.
2. Using a site such as BuySellAds.com as a middle-man.

Here’s a great article on selling ad space on your website

4. Create a course

Is there something you are very knowledgeable about? Something you are really good at? Well, why not create a course and show others? Creating a course can be a great way to generate passive income. Your time and effort are put into creating the course. But once it’s out there it can generate regular income for you. I am paid just about every month from Udemy for one course that I created. The upkeep is very minimal. Every once in awhile a student will have a question which I am prompt to answer. I definitely suggest checking out Udemy if you are interested in creating your own course.

5. Join a network marketing program

I’ve seen a few articles online about generating passive income. I was surprised I did not see network marketing mentioned. The whole entire allure of network marketing programs is the idea of residual income (which is pretty much the same thing as passive income). I think network marketing programs have a bad wrap because a lot people automatically start thinking MLM (multi-level marketing). That’s potentially bad because many people associate MLMs as being scams. There’s a lot of network marketing companies around that are legitimately good companies. My wife and I did a lot of analysis on different companies before we decided on the one we are in. If you’re interested in learning which one we are a part of, feel free to contact us.

6. Sell your photos, videos, and/or graphic art

If you’re a photographer, graphic artist, or videographer a great way to generate some passive income is to be a contributor on a site that sells stock material. There’s some really great sites where you can do this such as 123rf.

7. Sell on Amazon usinghttp://www.willisucceed.com/123rf FBA

Now, in my opinion, the difference between passive income and non-passive income, when we are talking about selling items on Amazon, is whether or not you sell via FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon). If you join the FBA program, passive income starts happening. When something sells, Amazon will pick it, pack it, ship it, and handle all the customer service. So it relieves you of four major tasks. If you’re interested in learning all about selling via FBA, check out this bestselling Udemy course on the topic. In 2015 I grossed in about $18k selling via FBA. It was nice logging into my Amazon account and seeing sales happen while I was sleeping.

8. Youtube

Did you know you can monetize on videos you upload to Youtube? That’s right, you can. Youtube gets a lot of traffic. Essentially, you’re going to use Google Adsense on Youtube. Here is an article that shows you exactly how to get started.

9. Create a Smartphone App

Another great way to create some massive passive income is to create a smartphone app. There’s a few different ways one can make income from an app. You can charge for the app, do paid advertising within the app that sponsors pay for, or you can also become part of an ad network.

If you’re interested in learning how to create apps for the iPhone there’s a great one called Learn How to Make iPhone and iPad Apps in Under an Hour. You can also outsource the task. But personally, I suggest learning how to do it yourself. This way, even if you decide not to develop the app yourself you at least have an understanding of how the application development process works.

Finally, if you decide to outsource, here is one of the biggest, most helpful tips I can give you. Learn UX. Knowing the programming that needs to happen is very important. But knowing the UX side of things is just as important if not more important. When you become knowledgeable at UX you basically become the architect while the coders become the builders building your design. There’s a good course called User Experience Design: Complete UX Fundamentals Course that you may want to look into.

10. Peer 2 Peer Lending

Peer to peer lending operates on the idea that you are handing over money (investing) to a business such as Lending Club in order for them to loan your money out to borrowers. As the borrowers pay back their loans the money goes back to you. From what I’ve heard people see around 6% – 8% back on the dollar. Check out this page to learn how it works.

11. Design clothing

Did you know you can design your own clothing and sell them online with absolutely no investment? Well, you can. There’s actually a few sites that let you do this. A popular one you may want to check out is Spreadshirt. Basically, for every design of yours that sells you earn a certain percentage of the sale.

12. Web Hosting

Another great great way to generate passive income is to offer web hosting services. Lots of web hosting companies, such as Hostgator have reseller programs available that are very cost effective. When you signup with Hostgator you get WHMCS (Web Host Management Complete Solution). It comes with the reseller package at no extra cost. This software helps you set up your own web hosting business. So it’s really good passive income if you have lots of clients on your reseller account. Hostgator is the best hosting platform around when it comes to reselling.

13. Vending Machines

I like to think of each vending machine as a mini franchise. If I have one gumball machine at one restaurant, I’m probably not going to be making much money. Same goes with a franchise.  You need to own multiple locations to really start bringing in good passive income.  Now if I had 20 gumball machines at 20 different locations in my area I’m going to probably be making more income.  If you’re thinking of getting into the vending machine business you may want to check out this vending tactics ebook. Now I can’t vouch for this course as I’ve never taken it. From the looks of it, it looks like a great course. If you do happen to purchase it and take it, I’d love to get a review from you on it.

14. Storage Units

Now to invest in storage lot will require hefty upfront investment.  In a nutshell, people pay you to store their stuff. Customers come and go as they please to drop stuff off and pick stuff up from their storage container.  A storage lot filled to max occupancy can be a very profitable business. Hire someone to be there during business hours while you go relax in the sun. Personally, this is a business venture I may personally pursue somewhere down the line. Also, I have plans to interview a storage lot owner or two about their business as I’m very intrigued to see the ups and downs of this kind of business. I found an article online that goes over how to start your own RV storage lot business

15. Podcasts

Another great passive income idea is to start your own Podcast. Podcasters tend to make income by way of sponsored ads. So it works very similar to the way a radio company works. Your podcast should have a good following behind it before you start reaching out to sponsors or joining an ad agency such as Midroll. So think about this, let’s say that you’re able to accomplish 10 podcasts in one week and you put a new podcast out each week. In that case you have just accomplished 10 weeks of work in one week. Lots of TV shows work this way as well. They’ll pound out a few episodes in one day. The rest of the time is spent editing and preparing for release. But once all that is accomplished, every week you release a new episode which really shouldn’t take you that much time to do. If you’re interested in learning how to do a Podcast, the image there to the side takes you to the course Professional Podcast Production, Editing & Blueprint.

So there you have it. 15 ways to create passive income. But I want to hear from you. What are some other ways to create passive income?