Passive income streams home business ideas for you to make money online

In this book, we begin by helping you learn the basics of conducting invaluable market research prior to setting off on your path to a passive income.. Introduction Market Research Incom

Home Business Ideas for You to Make Money Online

By Marc Hayes

Copyright © 2016 by Marc Hayes

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in anyform or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied

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Legal & Disclaimer

The information contained in this book and its contents is not designed to replace or take the place ofany form of medical or professional advice; and is not meant to replace the need for independentmedical, financial, legal or other professional advice or services, as may be required The contentand information in this book has been provided for educational and entertainment purposes only

The content and information contained in this book has been compiled from sources deemed reliable,and it is accurate to the best of the Author's knowledge, information and belief However, the Authorcannot guarantee its accuracy and validity and cannot be held liable for any errors and/or omissions.Further, changes are periodically made to this book as and when needed Where appropriate and/ornecessary, you must consult a professional (including but not limited to your doctor, attorney,financial advisor or such other professional advisor) before using any of the suggested remedies,techniques, or information in this book

Upon using the contents and information contained in this book, you agree to hold harmless the Authorfrom and against any damages, costs, and expenses, including any legal fees potentially resulting fromthe application of any of the information provided by this book This disclaimer applies to any loss,damages or injury caused by the use and application, whether directly or indirectly, of any advice orinformation presented, whether for breach of contract, tort, negligence, personal injury, criminalintent, or under any other cause of action

You agree to accept all risks of using the information presented inside this book

You agree that by continuing to read this book, where appropriate and/or necessary, you shall consult

a professional (including but not limited to your doctor, attorney, or financial advisor or such otheradvisor as needed) before using any of the suggested remedies, techniques, or information in thisbook

Passive Income Streams is a beginner’s guide to leaving the nine to five rat race and building a

financial future for yourself using multiple streams of passive income developed from the ground upand integrated together Because many of us who have started out in passive income only had verylimited resources, we will focus heavily on keeping the costs to a minimum while also discussing theoptions of outsourcing certain tasks to help maximize time and energy on what’s truly important

In this book, we begin by helping you learn the basics of conducting invaluable market research prior

to setting off on your path to a passive income This step ensures that valuable time is spent on viableniches and products

From there, we will discuss five of the most common passive income streams for beginners Thisincludes:

Publishing eBooks on Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple iBooks, Barnes and Nobles Nook, andKobo Also discussed is going to print via CreateSpace, which sells your print book

Creating a blog that targets your niche and allows for monetization through affiliate programs,advertising, and promoting your other services and products

Developing YouTube content for ad revenue and promoting your other platforms

Creating online courses and building up the audience prior to release day

And creating online stores through affiliate programs and/or drop shipping to create aneCommerce setup without the need to ever ship your own products

With hard work and perseverance, the steps within this guide will set you off on the right path tofinally lead yourself to success in the world of earning money while you’re asleep, on vacation, orworking on a completely different project Gone are the days of hustling to work in the morning;cheers to wearing pajamas all day, waking up whenever you like, and having financial security!

Introduction

Market Research

Income Stream #1: Publishing eBooks

Income Stream #2: Blogging

Income Stream #3: YouTube

Income Stream #4: Create an Online CourseIncome Stream #5: Online Store

Layering Your Income Streams

Passive Income

The concept of passive income can be explained in fairly simple terms: earn money while you sleep.While passive income doesn’t mean you won’t be working hard, it does mean that the amount ofmoney, time, and energy put into a project is not paid back in a direct manner Instead of being paid

by the hour, you will be creating a valuable service or product and you earn your compensation downthe road for hard work already completed Hopefully, this continues to produce for an extendedperiod of time even as work has winded down on the projects

The most obvious example of passive income is authoring a book An author spends weeks, months,maybe years putting together a great novel, a great resource guide, or some other publication that willhave intrinsic value to a market They work with a publisher or even self-publish the book, putmarketing efforts into place, and after all this time of working without any payment, they hope to reapthe benefits in the form of royalties paid over an extended period of time based on sales This is aclassic passive income stream that can be repeated as many times as the author and/or publishers arewilling to go through the process

The reality of passive income is that it’s not as simple or luxurious as it sounds at first glance.However, most intelligent people should have no problem creating passive income streams Itrequires the ability to self-motivate and be able to keep yourself afloat until your income streamsallow you to leave your nine to five life, but in return, a successful passive income will pay handover fist compared to the time invested There is no foolproof guarantee that the work will becomefinancially viable down the road, but there are ways to help ensure that a product is at leastmarketable Some risks are smaller than others, and that makes all the difference

In this book, we’ll discuss several beginner-friendly methods of creating passive income streams thatcan be expanded upon and scaled quite easily This includes publishing eBooks (perfect forbeginners), blogging, YouTube, online courses, and opening an online shop

What You’ll Need Hard Work

The great thing about passive income in the 21st century is that it is no longer limited to those with ahealthy bankroll at their disposal Hard work is the main ingredient If you’re willing to put in thetime, you can start with almost no money whatsoever Of course, it would be beneficial to have somefunds available, as having money to spend can simplify the process and often improve your results

Motivation

This may be one of the most difficult things for those just starting their passive income journey It is acommon fallacy that passive income will instantly change someone’s life It is important to rememberthat passive income is a long game; it is not a get-rich quick scheme As such, a huge part of thestruggle for beginners, especially those whose finances aren’t ideal, is motivating yourself to do the

hard work without the guarantee of pay or pay directly related to your hourly input You must stay thecourse Your continued hard work will eventually pay off as long as you’re able to keep yourselfmotivated.

Time to Work

Starting out, you may need more time than you’d ever have expected Once you’ve created a systemthat works for you and have found methods to scale and repeat and begin earning for all your hardwork, you should see your time begin to free up, either to work on more projects or to do the thingsthat are really worthwhile to you In the beginning, you’re likely going to be working your day job andforcing yourself to work even more hours You will need to find the time to make this work

Computer and Internet

It is imperative that you have the internet and a reliable computer The methods we’ll lay out will allrequire the use of a computer, internet, and basic typing and competency with a computer You don’thave to be a computer science major at all, though

A Plan

This is often overlooked, and sometimes that doesn’t mean you won’t earn a decent living However,

it is wise to begin drafting a plan of action before doing anything Setting concrete goals, doing yourresearch, and having a plan will help to keep you on track, motivated, and realistic about yourprogress As you learn what works for you and what doesn’t, your plan of action can change

Ideas

There are two types of ideas you need First, you need ideas about the types of passive income thatyou wish to work on Second, you need ideas within that realm to create a valuable and sought afterproduct or service This book will help you with the ideas of what income streams you can work on,and it will give you some basic research skills to find which ideas might be viable

What You Stand to Gain

Freedom Quite simply, the best thing about passive income is that your time is spent wisely Youwork less hours and earn more money You work on the projects you want to work on compared toworking on what somebody else hands you Deadlines are self-imposed only Income comes inwhether you work this week or spend it at the beach Financial freedom is what you stand to gain.There are risks, and not every project you put in motion is going to be wildly successful But if you’rewilling to work for it, you’ll be able to create the passive income streams required to free you fromthe 9 to 5 grind We aim to help you do just that

Market Research

You can write create a product because it sounds like a good idea, but someone producing a passiveincome stream may want to take the time to do a bit of research first before investing a lot of time andenergy into a project The prime example is publishing, which we’ll cover in more detail in the nextchapter, but this market research stage applies to all passive income streams and should not beignored One of the hugest mistakes you can make is not taking time for some market research

Method #1: See what is already selling.

Take the time to look at Amazon and other major retailers online You’ll be able to see what some ofthe best sellers are in each category, whether that’s books or kitchen appliances If you have aparticular skill or interest that you believe would be a good starting point, find the category with themost popular books or products in that specific niche (A “niche” is a focused area or topic.) Seeingwhat is currently trending is an easy way to get a taste for what people are buying right now More ofthe same actually can and does often sell, but if you can put a new perspective on the topic or a newencouragement on what a product should be bought, then that’s even better

Method #2: Keyword research.

With Google’s Keyword Planner, you are able to punch in keywords related to the book topic you’reconsidering With this, you’ll be given data regarding similar keywords, how often this keyword andrelated keywords are searched for, and how much money is being spent to advertise on search resultsfor these keywords This data is potently valuable for a number of reasons While this data may not be

a direct reflection of sales on Amazon or other retailers, it does show trends of online shoppers andinformation seekers

The similar keywords provided can help you to find popular keywords or keyphrases that may not bequite as heavily saturated through online markets and websites The competition figures will give you

an idea of if you’ll be able to afford the costs involved The more competition a keyword has, themore people utilizing it within their content, and thus the more difficult it is to place well in searchengines or pay for advertising should you go down that route

Method #3: Ask the market.

You can always take the time to ask your potential market questions and gather data from actualpeople to make the best decisions possible Using a service like Google Forms to create a survey,you can source responses from websites like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk,MTurk.com, to handle ityourself Through MTurk, you can offer to pay respondents a nominal fee for their time, ten cents istypically fine for a survey that only takes a couple minutes

Alternatively, you can find survey services willing to help you find responses For those on a budget,there are a few providers on Fiverr.com that can get you 100 responses for only $5 to $25, depending

on the length of your survey and how long you are willing to wait for responses This method is highlysuggested for those that don’t want to learn MTurk or don’t expect to run a whole lot of surveys.

This type of direct market research can become helpful during many stages of passive incomedevelopment Sometimes another set of eyes is the difference a product needs You can have peoplevote and comment on book covers, title names, and other details You can ask for their opinion oncertain topics to help build you get ideas for new blog posts

This type of survey work can give you answers to questions that are otherwise difficult to find.Having a peak at a selection of your potential customers is a great way to wrap your head around thetasks ahead

Putting It Together

Now that you’ve taken the time to do some market research, you should have an idea of what topicsyou might want to write about, what topics are likely to be profitable, which keywords are likely tohelp your products (your income streams) get discovered This research stage works wonders for allpassive income streams Don’t skip it If you cannot viably prove to yourself that a specific niche isprofitable, then don’t bother with it and expect a large return on investment Find one that is profitable

or underserviced

Now that we’ve got that part out of the way, let’s begin to focus on what income streams areavailable to you Moving forward, I will provide you with some actionable steps and first-handadvice concerning passive income streams that can be handled at home, with limited budgets, andwith little to no experience

Income Stream #1: Publishing eBooks

In the traditional publishing world, a book publisher would be taking a huge risk They have to payeditors, book designers, cover designers, etc to help put together an author’s book Then to make thebooks cheap enough to sell, they have to print off at least a thousand copies, often more, just to keepthe cost per unit down and the potential profit worthwhile Then they have to spend the money toadvertise and distribute the book If the books don’t sell, the bookstores ship them back, and thepublishing company takes a loss

All of that has changed, though With the rise of eBooks and print-on-demand technology, we are nowable to keep the cost per unit at a reasonable amount (as low as nothing) There’s almost no need forhuge publishing companies at all Practically anybody can publish an eBook now with little to nocost You don’t even have to be that great of a writer to earn money with publishing, so imagine whatyou can do if you are a great writer

There are many ways to go about publishing for the sake of a passive income stream The mostcommon for small publishers and self-publishers is eBooks being sold through popular retailers likeAmazon’s Kindle store, Apple’s iBookstore, and Barnes and Noble’s Nook store

eBooks

EBooks are often going to be the bread and butter of a beginner’s passive income stream EBooks arecheap to produce and release, and it’s possible to release large quantities in a relatively short amount

of time if you’re willing to put in the work

For those that have done their market research, you probably have an idea of what types of books arecurrently selling, which keywords are frequently searched for, and which of those keywords bring upresults that you might earn a top product listing in

Let’s discuss what your options are

Kindle Direct Publishing

The most important place to have an eBook published is Amazon’s Kindle store This service is free

of charge, and if you keep your book simple, it really doesn’t require outside help You can literallypublish a book for free if you have good writing and editing skills Amazon claims an estimated 65%

of all eBook sales This is your first priority as an eBook publisher

Smashwords

Because the rest of the eBook market is so small in relation to Amazon, my advice is to use anaggregation service like Smashwords rather than publishing to each of the additional retailersindividually Not only is this cheaper because it only requires one ISBN (essentially a barcode)instead of several, but Smashwords also provides a free ISBN Smashwords will publish and

distribute your eBook through Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Txtr, Diesel, and many other smallereBook retailers Take a look at http://smashwords.com to learn more.

Direct eBook Sales

For those with a platform available for direct eBook sales, it is encouraged to take advantage of this

as well This includes a newsletter, a large YouTube channel or Facebook page, a website or blogwith frequent visitors, etc We will discuss more monetization of blogs in a forthcoming chapter

The Process

Now that you have an idea of what services you can use to publish your books for free, let’s discussthe process from start to finish

Step 1 Market Research

To reiterate what we’ve already discussed, it’s a good idea to handle some of your market researchprior to beginning the actual process of writing Having evidence that there is a market for your book

is going to save you from wasting time on unviable projects While this doesn’t mean that every book

is going to be wildly successful, it does mean that none should be complete and utter flops

Step 2 Create Content

The next step can often be the most daunting for newcomers to passive income, but creating thecontent is paramount Once you get the hang of it, this part isn’t so horrible

If you’re entirely unsure of what you might want to start publishing, non-fiction how-to guides,romance stories, and other genre fiction tend to be easy places to start Remember, this will be one ofmany books and while it’s generally nice to stick to a niche with several passive income streams, it’scompletely fine to branch off a bit when it comes to publishing, especially while you’re learning.Most importantly, don’t try to write a bestseller on your first try if that means you don’t write anything

For those that don’t have strong feelings about their writing skills, there are two really obviousoptions First, you write the book anyway and pay someone to rewrite it and clean it up and finish it.Second option, you pay someone to write the book for you instead, giving them the information theyneed to know to create the book you’ve conceived but don’t want to write The cost of a decent writervaries greatly, but you can use websites like Upwork.com to find great freelancers

Step 3 Format Content

This step can be done during Step 2 or separately Either way, I always suggest taking a couple more

looks through the finished product when that time comes.

To format your content in a method ready for publication to Kindle Direct Publishing andSmashwords, the best advice I can offer is to keep it as simple as possible This is not the time to getfancy, beginners

Use Microsoft Word’s Styles to keep everything neatly organized New chapters should get a

“Heading 1” and a page break before it Headings in the chapter should get a Heading 2 style Textshould be generally left as it normally appears in Word You should either place spaces betweenparagraphs or you can use the standard first-line indents for fictional works More complicatedformatting is not for those that lack technical prowess

It is always possible to hire someone to format the book for you, but with Kindle Direct Publishing atleast, if your simple book looks decent in Word, it usually translates pretty well to the Kindle Thisisn’t always true, but it is generally true

The most important step, and perhaps one of the hardest for newcomers to publishing, is to create alinked table of contents

For Kindle books, this can be done simply by going to the “References” tab in Microsoft Word andinserting a table of contents If you’ve used Heading 1 styles to define chapters, it will do the rest ofthe work for you

For Smashwords, you will have to insert bookmarks for each section and create hyperlinks on thetable of content items instead This is all outlined in the Smashwords style guide, which I stronglysuggest you read, as following it is perfect for highly compatible Kindle books as well

Step 4 Create a Book C over

Once your content is written and edited, you need a book cover If you’re savvy with image editingsoftware, this is probably a breeze for you Still, you have a few other options if that isn’t the case.Kindle Direct Publishing includes a free cover creator online These covers are simple, but you canupload your own image for the background and use their templates to make quick, clean covers Thesearen’t the best solution, but in a money pinch, they will get the job done most of the time

You can also purchase premade covers from Etsy, Selfpubbookcovers.com, Fiverr, and a number ofother resources While the prices will vary greatly from seller to seller, there are a load of high-quality covers, and most sellers will not resell the same cover more than once With a service likeSelfpubbookcovers.com, you can customize the cover on site with little effort required on your part.Lastly, you can pay someone to produce an original cover for you Depending on your budget, abudget option like Fiverr may produce an adequate enough cover If you need a highly professionaldesign, expect to pay $100 or more, unless you can find a great contractor on Upwork.com that’s stillbuilding a name for themselves

Step 5 Publish the Book

Now that your book is in order, you can publish it through Kindle Direct Publishing The entireprocess is guided and quite simple Sign up is free, and a new publication is usually for sale within 1-