7 Passive Revenue Streams for an Authorpreneur
How do I make money as an author? What is passive revenue? What are some passive revenue streams for writers?
One thing no one tells you when your first author dreams begin to form, is that you really don’t make all that much money from book sales.
After attending a conference on digital marketing (I was there on assignment for one of my side-gigs and gratefully sucking up knowledge for my own benefit as well) I learned that unless you are spending $200-400 A DAY on online advertising, you aren’t going to see a whole lot of results from your efforts. (This post is going to be about making money, not about spending money, but real quick let me tell you to quit boosting that Facebook post for $10… it ain’t doin’ you any good.)
I’m not sure about you, but it was (and still is) my goal to write books full time. But in the meantime, I’m trying to figure out how to make enough money to be afforded that luxury. My plan? Passive revenue. If I can figure out how to make money come into my bank account automatically… then I don’t have to use my working hours to trade time for it. If I can build up the amount of passive revenue I make to a certain point, I can use all of my working hours to write, which means I can write more, resulting in more books and also more time in which to promote those books, equaling more money earned. This will also mean that when I do get opportunities to speak or teach about writing, that income will just be icing on the cake. It sounds like a pretty good plan, right? Right. Now, I just need to make it happen.
“You need to depend on multiple forms of communication to reach your audience. You need to own your contacts. Facebook and Instagram could crash tomorrow.” We hear this all the time. And I think the same is true of your revenue streams. Anyone of them could disappear at any moment in time. You might be nodding your head and thinking… yes, yes, Amanda. I know that. But do you REALLY?
I make money a lot of ways, but my largest source of writing income comes from in-person speaking opportunities. And when the pandemic rolled around in the Spring of 2020, completely obliterating my event calendar, my largest source of income vanished. Because I’m all about transparency, let me tell you what I lost.
International Children’s Book Festival - $1,300 (plus an all-expenses paid trip to Dubai)
WSRA Young Author Fair - $400
Winona State University Young Author Festival - $550
Teaching at Authorquest (a summer writing camp) - $550
Blogging Workshop - $150
Community Business Blogging Workshop - $300
In addition to these missed opportunities there were a handful of free events like book clubs and library visits that would have yielded book sales. Actually, most of these events would have also included book sales. So, we’re look at a total revenue loss exceeding $3,200. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. And this was just between the months of March and June of 2020.
I re-learned the lesson very quickly that I need to spread out. Relying on one source of income as an authorpreneur/entrepreneur is foolish. So, as I move forward with my plan of creating, building and sustaining my passive revenue streams, I have kept this in mind.
Here are seven ways you can passively make money so, eventually, you have more time to write, and can legitimately make a solid living wage as a creative professional.
One more quick side note before I dive in. These income streams are not PASSIVE when you are in the process of setting them up. But once they are established, they will be. For a while, it will feel like you are doing alllll the things, because you are. This is a long road, you are playing the long game, but I think will be worth it.
Book Sales on Amazon
When you think about it, books in general are a passive revenue stream (once they are written). You write the book ONE TIME and then make money off it again and again. Yes, it takes work to market and sell your book, but it isn’t say, like a massage therapist, who after “making the sale”/booking the appointment must still DO the work.
It is free to list your books on Amazon. The only time you pay for this service is when you order author copies of your books to sell yourself. Without big marketing or multiple events to make your presence known you won’t sell many copies, but when a copy is sold, it is ZERO work on your part. Amazon prints, it, ships it and takes care of the financial pieces like collecting payment and appropriate amounts for shipping and state sales tax. Easy cheesy.
If you need help getting your books on Amazon, I have a great course that includes the step-by-step process, but more on that later.
Drop Ship
I experimented with adding different SWAG items to my line up at vendor shows but found that ordering/storing/hauling/paying for all that merchandise upfront was kind of a big ask for my small business. Now, I’m trying a drop ship option and I’m excited to see how it goes.
Through drop shipping I can design a much wider array of products and I don’t have to worry about stocking or paying for them in advance. Much like selling books on Amazon, the third party drop-shipper takes care of production, shipping and payment.
I’m going to put a twist on this strategy by ordering one of each of my products and bring them to my vendor shows, but then have a sheet with QR codes for easy ordering, fulfillment and payment. I’ll report back later with the results. For now, here are a few of the items I am currently offering through Art of Where.
Digital Downloads/Courses
To create a digital download or course all you need to do is identify an area of knowledge you possess and neatly curate and package that information in an easily digestible form. If you go to my website, WORDNERDOPOLIS, and visit the GYM for a solid writer’s workout, you’ll be able to see the “training plans” I’ve got available. I utilize a wide variety of delivery methods including PDF’s, Google Slides and video. None of these delivery methods require subscriptions, vast amounts of tech know-how or expensive equipment, making them a nearly-zero financial investment to create. (I do pay an annual fee for my website and also for the pro version of Canva, but other than that… I don’t spend any money to create these products.) All you need is time and an area of expertise.
The beauty of these sales is that once I create them and put them on my site, it requires no on-going work from me. Even better than a book sale, these price points range from $15 - $650. Some of my offerings are small and bite sized meant to just get you going. Others are larger, meant to give you the full scope and sequence of a task. Here is what I have to offer:
· Canva Cheat Sheets (learn how to create professional images online)
· Start a Blog (including generating content/content ideas and creating a manageable calendar)
· Write a Novel (6 weeks of targeted writing prompts, techniques and tips
· Take Action Author Plan (Learn to self-publish and market your book & level up your author career)
· And more!
Third Party Marketplaces (Teachers Pay Teachers)
This is one of my favorite revenue streams because I use a well-known, third-party site called Teachers Pay Teachers to sell items I have created. In addition to being a writer, I am an educator. Currently I teach writing at Western Technical College, but before that I was a middle school ELA and reading teacher for 12 years. I have a master’s degree in education. I know a lot about books and teaching people how to read and write. It would be silly of me NOT to use this bank of knowledge to make money. On the site I sell materials I created for use in my own classroom… novel unit studies, quizzes, PowerPoints and more. Here are a few of my resources to give you a clearer picture.
BONUS: I hardly have to promote my products to make sales, because the site is so widely known and used amongst my audience.
Chances are that if you aren’t a teacher, you’ve never heard of Teachers Pay Teachers, but that doesn’t mean that this option isn’t available. I know a doctor who also writes fiction that has a side gig writing answers for WEBMD. Do a little google searching to see if you can find an opportunity to share what you know from a previous or secondary career… and get paid for it.
YouTube
I GUARENTEE you’ve heard about YouTube. And I bet you know that people make money on it. But do you know how? The very, very basic answer is that in order to monetize on this platform you need to reach two milestones on your channel.
1. You need to have 1,000 subscribers.
2. You need to have 4,000 total watch hours accrued for the videos on your channel in one year.
Once you reach these milestones, you can begin placing ads in your videos and earning Google AdSense revenue. It’s small potatoes for each ad view, but the idea is to have a lot of videos, with a lot of views, that eventually add up to some substantial money. I have a friend who has been incredibly successful with this (read: $20,000 a month successful). To learn directly from her how to make this happen for yourself, click here.
Personally, I’ve been working on my own YouTube channel for about a year. As I write this, I’m up to 650 subscribers and just a little over 1,000 hours of watch time. I’m still a ways off from my goal of being monetized by the end of the year, but as momentum on your channel grows, the subscribers and watch time rack up faster, so I’m still hopeful. (To help my efforts, subscribe here and then watch a video, or ten!)
I will reiterate again, that it has been a lot of work to create content for this platform and for the past year I have been paid NOTHING for my efforts. BUT, the goal is to reach monetization, and then, have the money roll in while I write, sleep, eat and create new cool things.
Affiliate Programs
When you really love something, like, love, love, LOVE it, you tell all sorts of people about it. Whether it’s a certain brand of chapstick, a favorite new restaurant or the best ball point pen EVER… you shout it out. Now, imagine making money every time someone took you up on your recommendation and purchased that item as well. This is affiliate marketing. When you establish credibility and authority, people listen to you. You can use your position as an expert to make money.
For example, in addition to writing books, I read a lot of books, so people often ask me for suggestions. To capitalize on this, I keep my reading list published on my website. Each title includes several affiliate links, so that if people purchase my reading recommendation, I get a small cut at no extra cost to the customer. (From Amazon 4% and from Bookshop %10) (Read my article on the difference between these two platforms here.)
You can also see from my website, blog and social media channels that I have a LOT of LOVE for Canva, an online digital design tool/platform. I recommend this company ALL THE TIME. In fact, you’ll see at the bottom of each blog post their logos and a little message that says, “This post was made beautiful by Canva.” I recommend Canva in my workshops and via word of mouth when conversations about image creation pop up in my real life. I recommend Canva directly in my course work. So, if I’m singing Canva’s praises from my authorpreneur rooftop, why shouldn’t I be compensated? Thanks to their affiliate program, I am. Every time the word Canva appears in writing on something I have created, you better believe an affiliate link is attached. I do the same for Next Day Flyers, the company I order all of my printed materials (bookmarks, flyers, brochures, etc.) In the WordNerdopolis General Store I also have several other products linked for affiliate commissions. After I get done with this post I’m going to see if Art of Where has an affiliate program!
But you don’t have to contain this money-making strategy to your professional arena. I am also an affiliate for Grove Collaborative, a company that makes eco-friendly household products. And if I find something I love on Amazon, I’ll likely share a link to that via my email newsletter of on my personal Facebook page as well. Do a little searching. See if you can dig up some opportunities related to a niche content area of your books. Gardening, quilting, geocaching, hunting, cooking… what products can you recommend related to your characters, plot, story… and get paid for?!?!? The individual commissions may be small, but again, we are working to build up STREAMS of income… not floods of it. Don’t discount what multiple free-flowing, small deposits can add up to.
A Mobile App
One revenue stream that I have yet to try, but am very interested in creating, is a mobile app. I’d love to have a way to share daily writing prompts, motivation, and tips with subscribers via their phones. I know there are programs out there that can help me make this happen, and I love the thought of monthly recurring fees sliding into my bank account… but I just haven’t taken the plunge yet. Mostly because I’m busy doing all the other things. But someday!
What do you think? Is this a service you’d like to see from me? What specifically would you want me to deliver to you daily that could make your writing world a better place?
Stay tuned… I’ll keep you in the loop as details develop.
The benefit of having multiple revenue streams is that you don’t need each one to be a golden egg. Having five or six or seven mini streams that add up to my goal of $2,500 a month is what I’m after. So often we are coerced into thinking we need to be the ROCKSTAR of everything we do, but in this case, I will be happy if I can be moderately successful at many things. It will allow me financial success and stability in a less than predictable world. I know there are plenty who would disagree with me, saying that going an inch wide and a mile deep would be better than spreading out, and that’s fine. My blog is a space where I share my efforts, experiments and experiences. My goal, through sharing these pieces, is that you can better make a path and plan for yourself.
The 7 passive revenue streams I’ve shared above are just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of options for you and your business. I only feel comfortable sharing on the options I have tried or researched so I can vouch for their viability or ease. But, that being said, here are a few other options. Feel free to dig into them if they sound appealing and of value to you.
Licensing photography and/or music
and more
If you’ve got another idea that has worked for you, please share it in the comments!
Alright, I know this post was long. Like three times longer than my usual content, but once I got started writing, there was just so much word nerd goodness to share with you that I couldn’t stop. I hope that you have found at least one passive revenue opportunity in this list that excites you. My advice is to try one and get the hang of it before you add another. If you get part way in and realize it doesn’t feel like a good fit for you, set it aside and try something else. You can always come back around to it in the future. Experimentation is half the battle, but also half the fun. Find what works for you and then, WORK IT.
All my best to you my authorpreneur and word nerd friends,
Amanda Zieba
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Finally, affiliate marketing is promoting a product or service in return for a commission. When you purchase a product or service through one of my links, I earn a small part of the sale. There is NEVER any extra cost to you. If you looked up the same product on the same site through another source besides my website, the price will still be exactly the same. 100% of the time.
I also NEVER link to products or services that I don't 100% believe in. I will never tout a company or their goods if they are disreputable or if I don't believe them to be worthy of your hard-earned money. In no way are my affiliate links a scam. (Language borrowed with permission from Kristen Kieffer on Well-Storied.com)