Passive Income

Do you dream about achieving true financial freedom? Do you want more time
to spend with your family and friends, or to do the things you love?
Money does make certain aspects of life easy. It makes it possible to do things
we couldn’t do without it. We could all use more money than we have. For
many of us, it can seem like the only way to get it is to put in longer hours at
work than we already do. We feel limited in terms of what we can earn. Taking
a second (or third) job is exhausting to think about, yet many people do exactly
that in an effort to break free of debt and earn a good income.
There’s an old adage that says that nobody ever wishes, on their deathbed, that
they had spent more time working. Whatever you earn during your lifetime –
and however much time you spend earning it – you can’t take it with you when
your life is over.
Working longer hours, and taking time away from the people and things you
love, is not the answer. The real answer is to find ways to make money that are
reliable and steady, and that don’t require you to spend your life working so
hard that you don’t have time to smell the roses.
What You Will Learn in This Book
What if you could earn money while you sleep, or while you spend quality
time with your family and friends? The goal of this book is to help you do
exactly that. It might sound too good to be true – but I promise you, it’s not.
The secret to accomplishing that goal is learning about a type of income called
passive income.
In the first chapter, I will cover the basics of passive income. What is it, and
how does it differ from the income you earn working a 9-to-5 job? I’ll give
you basic definitions of active and passive income so that you understand the
difference – and why passive income is preferable to active income in the long
run. I’ll also explain why it is so important to set up multiple sources of
passive income if you want to attain true financial freedom.
The second chapter will go a little deeper into the benefits and risks of passive
income. Any income strategy, no matter how tempting or reliable it sounds,
carries some risk. That is inevitable, and it is important to understand those
risks before you move forward. In my opinion, the benefits of earning passive
income far outweigh the risks. However, you need to make that decision for
yourself, and the information in this chapter will help you do so. I’ll also give
you an overview of my favorite methods of earning passive income, which I
will explore in greater depth in the coming chapters.
In the third chapter, I will talk about one of my favorite passive income
methods: writing an eBook. It might seem like a daunting task to write a book,
but I’ll give you my best tips on how to get it accomplished. We’ll talk about
making the decision to write the book yourself, as well as the option of hiring
a professional ghostwriter to do it for you. I’ll include tips for hiring a
ghostwriter, and how to find a designer to create a compelling cover for your
book. I’ll also cover the process of formatting your book to sell on the Kindle
store, writing a book description that will help your book sell, and uploading
the book using Amazon KDP. Finally, I’ll tell you how to market your book
using specialty websites, social media, and more.
In the fourth chapter, I’ll talk in detail about marketing affiliate products.
Affiliate products are often the first thing that people new to the idea of earning
money online try, and yet they often fail. I’ll help you understand the process,
starting with choosing a niche and researching the competition, as well as
giving you tips on how to choose the best affiliate products to guarantee a
stream of passive income. After that, I’ll tell you how to set up a website using
WordPress and how to optimize your site so that it ranks high on Google.
Finally, I’ll give you some tips for obtaining quality backlinks to boost your
rank, and tell you how to market your products on social media.
The fifth chapter covers several other methods of earning passive income.
Writing eBooks and selling affiliate products are my favorite methods, and so
I have covered those in a lot of depth because they are my areas of expertise.
However, I do want you to be aware that there are many other methods you can
use to earn passive income. In this last chapter, I will cover numerous methods,
including:
■ How to conceptualize, create, and sell a mobile app. Mobile apps are
more popular than ever. While coming up with an idea for a great app
isn’t easy, I’ll give you some pointers on how to do it.
■ How to set up and monetize a YouTube channel, including information
about creating and promoting your videos, and using YouTube to boost
your SEO.
■ How to create and sell an online course in your area of expertise. If
you feel that you have the knowledge and passion to teach others about
something, the time and effort involved with creating a course might be
worth the effort. I’ll also give you some information about where and
how to sell your course.
■ How to conceptualize and create your own product. Selling affiliate
products is easy, and selling your own product is a way of taking what
you learn from affiliate marketing to the next level. When you create a
great product, you can earn a significant profit from it. I’ll even explain
the benefits of setting up your own program to let affiliates do the
marketing for you.
■ Niche product review sites are very popular, and I’ll explain how to
take your affiliate marketing skills and use them in a different way by
reviewing and comparing products within a niche.
By the time you are done reading this book, you will have all of the
information you need to start building multiple passive income streams, and be
well on your way to true financial freedom.
Let’s get started.
Chapter 1: Understanding Passive Income
The first step is to understand what passive income is and how it differs from
the kind of income you earn working an hourly or salaried job. The
differences are key because they point the way to financial freedom. If you
want to be your own boss and the master of your own destiny, passive income
is the way to do it.
The Differences between Active and Passive Income
Even if you use a different term to describe it, you already know what active
income is. Active income is the kind of income that requires you to actively
engage in work for a set period of time before you earn it. For example, if you
have a job that pays you by the hour, you receive money only for the hours you
work – right? That’s active income because your activity is required on a
consistent basis if you want to earn a living.
The same is true of a job where you earn a salary. You are expected to do
certain work in exchange for your salary. You must show up at work on time,
work a set number of hours, and complete the duties that are part of your job
description in order to earn your salary. You may even be required to work
additional hours without additional pay if you are an employee with exempt
status.
Finally, freelance work also qualifies as active income. Freelance workers get
paid only for the work they complete. If they get sick and are unable to
complete a task or job, they earn nothing.
Now let’s contrast that with passive income. Passive income is income that may
require some work to set up. However, once you have established a passive
income stream, it often requires only minimum maintenance to keep the money
flowing.
Let’s look at a simple example. If you write an eBook, you must spend time and
energy writing it. You have to hire an editor and someone to design the book’s
cover, and you’ll have to make sure that it’s in the proper format to sell on
Amazon. However, once the book is completed and it’s for sale on Amazon’s
website, you will earn money every time someone buys the book. That’s what
makes the income passive. If someone buys a copy while you’re on vacation or
asleep, you still earn money.
I hope you are beginning to see why passive income is the answer to achieving
financial freedom. Instead of adding more hours to your workday, passive
income can make it possible for you to work fewer hours and still earn a
living.
Why Passive Income Matters
Now let’s talk about why having sources of passive income is so important.
The average person is not going to earn a huge salary. True, a select few
people do earn enormous salaries as CEOs or in other top executive positions.
Others may be in-demand consultants who can charge huge hourly rates. For
the majority of us, though, our income potential is not huge. We are limited by
our education, experience, and the number of hours that we can physically (and
mentally) spare for work.
Passive income opens up possibilities that might not otherwise exist. It allows
us to earn money in ways that do not require hours of additional effort on an
ongoing basis – and that’s huge. If you find that working long hours translates
to having only a limited amount of time with your family – or that you’re
passing up opportunities to do what you love – then passive income can make
the difference.
Passive income matters because it’s the kind of income that can easily
supplement your active income – and eventually, it may even replace your
active income. Your earnings with active income are limited based on the
number of hours you work, as well as by things like your education and work
history. There are no such limitations on passive income. You have complete
control over it, which means that nobody can cap it. The fact that you can earn
it while you are sleeping, playing with your kids, or on the golf course means
that you have the freedom to do what you please with your time.
As you can see, passive income does differ significantly from active income.
Money is money, but the money you earn from passive income streams is the
kind of money that can set you free from the daily grind and allow you to
pursue the things that are most important to you.
In the next chapter, we will talk about the benefits and risks of passive income
in greater detail so that you know what to expect as you work toward setting up
passive income streams.
Chapter 2: The Possibilities of Passive Income
Before I share the best ways to earn passive income with you, I want to take a
few pages to review the benefits and risks of passive income. The truth is that
no form of income is without risk. Even if you were fortunate enough to
inherit a large amount of money, there would be some risk involved with
investing it. That’s the way life works.
We have already touched on some of the benefits of passive income, but let’s
review them in a bit more depth:

1. Passive income can lead to financial freedom. When you earn passive
   income, you can earn it any time of day or night, and from anywhere in
   the world. You do not have to be tied to a particular job or schedule. Once
   your passive income streams are set up, the money will flow into your
   account.
2. There is no limit on passive income. There is nothing preventing you
   from setting up a hundred different streams of passive income if you
   choose to do so. You can dedicate as much time as you wish to
   establishing passive income streams, and once they are set up you can sit
   back and collect the money. You are not limited by the number of hours
   you work.
3. Passive income can come from a variety of sources, which means that
   you can choose the options that appeal to you the most. You aren’t limited
   or required to do work that you genuinely dislike. You have the ability to
   choose work that you love.
4. You can be your own boss. When you set up passive income streams,
   you don’t have to answer to anybody other than yourself. You can decide
   when to work and when not to work. You set your own hours, and you can
   decide the best way to do things without interference from anybody else.
   In my opinion, those are some very good benefits – and reason enough to take
   the time and energy to set up passive income streams. However, there are some
   risks and concerns to address too.
5. Setting up passive income streams takes time and effort. It might be
   tempting to look at passive income streams as easy and requiring little
   labor. However, that is an overly simplistic view and one that can lead to
   misunderstandings down the line. Make no mistake. You are going to have
   to dedicate a significant amount of time – and probably invest some
   money, too – if you want to get your passive income streams up and
   flowing. All passive income is active at the beginning.
6. Passive income streams don’t grow overnight. Even if you put in a lot
   of effort, it may take a while for passive income to become a stream. In
   fact, it may start off feeling more like a series of inconsequential drips
   than a true stream. You need to be prepared for the eventuality that it will
   take some time to get things flowing. That’s one of the reasons that I
   recommend starting to set up your passive streams before you quit your
   day job.
7. You need to diversify to ensure that you have money flowing in at all
   times. A single stream of passive income is not going to be enough to
   help you achieve financial security and freedom. The danger is that your
   stream could dry up, leaving you with no income at all. The best way to
   overcome this particular risk is to set up multiple streams of income so
   that even if one source slows down, you’ll have others in place that are
   still bringing you money.
8. Passive income can be too passive for some people. It’s a very rare
   person who will feel passionate and fulfilled about income streams that
   require little or no work. No matter what you choose to do, it’s probably
   best to combine some active work that fulfills and satisfies you – even if it
   doesn’t pay much – with passive income streams to help you earn money.
   In my opinion, the benefits of setting up passive income streams far outweigh
   the risks. Passive income, as I said, starts out active. As long as you are
   prepared to do the work to make those streams flow, then passive income
   could be the best way for you to achieve financial freedom.
   Proven Passive Income Strategies
   As I mentioned in the introduction, the next three chapters will cover some of
   my favorite passive income strategies in depth. There are many different ways
   to earn passive income, and you certainly do not need to restrict yourself to the
   methods I discuss here. However, these methods are, I believe, some of the
   most reliable and easy to achieve.
   Here is a quick overview so you know what to expect in the coming chapters.
   ■ Writing an eBook is the first method I will cover. A lot of people get
   intimidated by the idea of writing an eBook because they don’t consider
   themselves to be writers. I will cover the topic in great depth, and explain
   how you can get a book written with relative ease, and market it
   effectively. A well-written eBook can easily earn you income for the rest
   of your life.
   ■ Marketing affiliate products is the second topic I will cover. Affiliate
   products tend to get a bad rap because a lot of people try to market them
   and don’t earn any money. The reason they fail to earn money is not
   because affiliate marketing is bad – it’s because they don’t go about it the
   right way. I’ll tell you how to choose the best products, and set up your
   revenue streams so that they require little ongoing work from you.
   ■ Creating a mobile app is another popular way of creating passive
   income. There are a lot of apps out there, but if you can come up with a
   unique one, you can sell it for years without having to do any additional
   work. You don’t even need to be a programmer to create an app.
   ■ YouTube is one of the world’s most-trafficked websites and a great
   source of passive income if you know how to use it. I’ll explain how to set
   up a YouTube channel, give you tips for creating videos, and tell you how
   to monetize and publicize your videos.
   ■ Creating an online course is in some ways the most labor-intensive of
   all the options here, but it is also a very good way to earn significant
   passive income. I’ll give you tips for choosing a topic, creating a course,
   setting a price, and marketing your course.
   ■ In case affiliate marketing isn’t enough for you, I’ll talk about the
   benefits of creating your own product to sell, and how you can set up your
   own affiliate programs.
   ■ Product review and comparison sites are very popular, and I’ll give
   you some pointers about how to take affiliate marketing to a new level.
   The next three chapters will go into great depth on these topics so that you have
   all of the tools you need to do what you need to do. You do not need to use all
   of these methods to attain financial freedom. What I recommend is that you
   read everything, and start with the method that most appeals to you first. Once
   you have done the work necessary to establish a stream of passive income, you
   can choose another method – or repeat the first one. It is certainly possible to
   earn money by writing multiple eBooks, or by setting up a string of affiliate
   websites.
   The most important thing to remember is that you do not want to put all of
   your financial eggs into one basket. The point of having passive income is that
   you want to be able to spend your time doing the things you love. If you have
   multiple streams of income, it won’t have a significant impact on you if one
   stream suddenly slows down or dries up. True financial freedom means that
   you do not have to rely on a single source of income.
   Chapter 3: Writing an eBook
   I want to start with one of my favorite methods of earning passive income,
   writing an eBook. It used to be that getting a book published required a great
   deal of effort. Writers had to first write the book – or write a detailed book
   proposal. Then they had to send out query letters to agents and publishers in the
   hopes that what they had written would resonate with someone. Even getting a
   book agent to read your letter was an uphill battle. Most agents were inundated
   with thousands of letters from aspiring authors. Both luck and talent were
   required in order for an author to get noticed.
   I think it’s important to be honest about the amount of work required to write
   and publish an eBook. Passive income does not start out passive. You must put
   in the work up front. Once the stream of income is established, it becomes
   passive. If you decide to write an eBook yourself, it may takes months to
   complete the writing depending on your writing speed and ability. Even if you
   hire a ghostwriter, the process can take a while and will require some thought
   and effort from you.
   Finding a Niche for Your eBook
   Let’s start with the very important first step: choosing a niche for your eBook.
   If you plan on writing the book yourself, it is probably best to choose a niche
   and topic that interest you, and about which you have some knowledge. Of
   course you can research any topic you want to, but if you want to sound
   authoritative and do a great job, the process will be easier if you choose a topic
   you know than it would be if you were starting from scratch.
   If you have had a long career in a particular industry – and have some
   credentials to back up your authority – then choosing a niche where your
   career experience and authority can help you to write and market your book
   makes a lot of sense. People are far more likely to buy and read a book from
   someone they perceive to be an authority than from someone who has no
   authority. When you play to your strengths, you increase the chances that your
   book will turn into a steady stream of passive income.
   One thing that can be helpful in terms of choosing a niche topic is to start with
   a general topic and look at the sub-niches listed on the Amazon Kindle store.
   When you go to the Kindle Store and scroll down, you will see a list of general
   categories on the left-hand side of the page. Pick any topic from that list, and
   you will see a list of sub-categories, or niches, under it. Those sub-categories
   may break down further. The more specialized your chosen topic is, the easier
   it will be for you to attain bestseller status on Amazon. Being able to put the
   “Amazon Bestseller” logo on your website can do a great deal to boost sales
   and your perceived authority – something that can help you in other areas of
   passive income, too.
   To get an idea of what I mean, let’s look at a list of sub-niches related to a
   single topic on Amazon, Business and Money:
   Clicking on the first niche, Accounting, reveals another list of six sub-niches,
   including auditing, governmental accounting, and managerial accounting. If
   you have a basic idea of the area you want to write about, looking at the list of
   sub-niches on Amazon can be a good way to narrow down your options.
   It may also be helpful to look at the specific titles available in a niche and how
   well they are selling. Reading reviews may help you to identify a topic that is
   of interest to readers. For example, if several reviewers mention that they wish
   an author had covered a particular topic in more depth, you might want to
   consider writing a book about that topic.
   Even if you are planning to hire a ghostwriter, you need to pick a niche and
   topic for your book. You are going to have to market the book, so you will
   still need to do some basic research and learn a bit about the niche in question.
   It is also not a bad idea to provide the writer with an outline or – at the very
   least – a list of topics you want to be covered in your book. I’ll talk more about
   that later in the chapter.
   Writing the Book vs. Hiring a Ghostwriter
   The next decision you have to make is whether to write the book yourself or
   hire a ghostwriter to do it for you. Let’s take a minute to look at the some of
   the benefits of each option, starting with writing the book yourself:
   ■ If you write the book yourself, you do not have to pay a ghostwriter.
   The only investment you need to make is your time and creativity.
   ■ Writing the book yourself guarantees that you have full creative
   control over the content. When you turn research over to a ghostwriter,
   you are taking the chance that certain topics may not be covered in the
   way you want them to be – and that may require an additional investment
   on your part depending on the nature of your agreement with the writer
   you hire.
   ■ A book you write yourself will reflect your true voice, and if you are
   writing about a topic that you feel passionately about, your passion will
   come through in the writing. A ghostwriter will do their best to emulate
   the tone you specify, but the book may not sound like you.
   ■ Marketing a book that you have written yourself may come more
   naturally than marketing a book written by a ghostwriter. You will be able
   to talk about your book with a great deal of passion and authority because
   you will be familiar with every aspect of it in a way that only the person
   who wrote it can be.
   Now let’s look at the benefits of hiring a ghostwriter:
   ■ Your time is valuable. While you will have to pay to have your book
   ghostwritten, the amount that it costs you in dollars may be inexpensive
   compared to the amount of time it would take you to write the book
   yourself, especially if you are not particularly comfortable writing.
   ■ When you hire a ghostwriter who is knowledgeable about your chosen
   niche, you are getting two things -- a professional writer and researcher --
   for the price of one. A lot of professional writers specialize in a particular
   niche or area, and the fact that they write about a topic all the time can be a
   real benefit to you, especially if you want your book to be about a topic
   that is not something you know a lot about.
   ■ If you write the book yourself, you may need to consider hiring a
   professional copy editor and/or proofreader to ensure that your book is
   properly punctuated and free of grammatical and spelling errors. A
   professional ghostwriter should take care of those things for you as part
   of their regular service and deliver a professional book with proper
   grammar.
   As you can see, there are pros and cons to each option. I recommend hiring a
   ghostwriter if you are very uncomfortable writing or if you struggle with
   proper English. A lot of people who hire ghostwriters speak English as a
   second language and want to ensure that the book that has their name on it is
   properly written.
   Tips for Writing a Book
   Let’s start with the writing. A lot of people don’t think of themselves as writers,
   but the truth is that writing is just putting words together in a meaningful way.
   That’s something you do all day, every day, whether you are composing
   Tweets, talking on the phone, or replying to an email. A book is just a longer
   version of that.
   To give you an idea of how easy it can be to get an eBook up on Amazon, let
   me share with you the fact that the average book on the Kindle Store is only
   about 10,000 words long. That translates to somewhere in the vicinity of 32-
   40 pages of text. That’s not much at all. If you wrote as little as 500 words per
   day, you could have a draft of your book in less than three weeks.
   If writing is something that doesn’t come easily to you, it may help to come up
   with a detailed outline first. Looking at the tables of contents in other books in
   your chosen niche is a good way to get ideas about what to include. You don’t
   have to buy the books unless you want to. Many Kindle titles have a “Look
   Inside” feature that will let you read the table of contents and the first chapter
   or so of the book. That may be enough to give you a feel for what you want to
   include.
   If you are very uncomfortable with the idea of writing, you may want to
   consider using a speech-to-text tool. The benefit of doing that is that you don’t
   have to write, at least not at first. You can pick a topic, talk about it, and let the
   tool you use translate it into text. You will still have to review the text, correct
   errors, and work to create a good flow with your content, but the process itself
   can be easy. Oftentimes, it is easier for someone who doesn’t consider
   themselves to be a writer to work with something that is already written than it
   is to feel like they have to start from scratch with a blank page.
   When you have a first draft written, I strongly suggest that you put it away for
   a week or two before attempting to revise it. Having some time away from
   your project can help you look at it with a fresh perspective. When you do
   bring it out again, reading it out loud is a very good way to spot repeated
   words and awkward phrasing. When we read silently, our eyes tend to skip
   words. Reading out loud is also an effective way to proofread and spot
   homonym usage and other common mistakes.
   Once you have revised the book, you should hire a professional editor or
   proofreader if you think your book may still contain errors. There is no shame
   in getting another pair of eyes on your book. It may also be helpful to get some
   people who are knowledgeable about your topic to read the book and give
   their opinions.
   Tips for Hiring a Ghostwriter
   If you don’t feel that you want to write a book yourself, you have the option of
   hiring a ghostwriter to write the book for you. Ghostwriters are widely
   available on sites such as Outsource and Freelancer. The key thing to keep in
   mind is that you want to make sure that you are hiring someone who is a good
   writer, ideally one who is knowledgeable about your niche. Here are some tips
   to help you choose the right ghostwriter.
9. Write a detailed job description for the project you have in mind. You
   don’t have to include your outline or list of topics, but you should give an
   indication of what general topic your book will cover, how long you want
   it to be, how quickly you expect the project to be completed, and how
   much you are willing to pay. You don’t have to specify an exact amount,
   but it is a good idea to give a range. Keep in mind that if your price is
   very low, you run the risk of attracting sub-par writers.
10. Specify any qualifications that you expect bidding writers to have. For
    example, you might want to say that you want only native English
    speakers to apply, and that you prefer a writer who is experienced writing
    about your chosen niche. You should also ask for a writing sample. Some
    sites don’t allow writers to attach a sample to their initial bid. In those
    cases, you should request samples from the writers whose bids appeal
    most to you.
11. Narrow your list down by reading bids and samples, and requesting
    samples as needed. As you evaluate samples, keep in mind the tone that
    you want your book to have. Do you prefer a casual and conversational
    tone, or a more formal one? A skilled ghostwriter may be able to emulate
    many different tones, but if you find a writer whose voice is particularly
    appealing to you, that may be a deciding factor.
12. After you have narrowed your list based on writing samples, it’s time to
    interview writers. Unless you are hiring a writer through an eBook
    publisher with a stellar reputation, you should not skip this step. The
    reason is that many of the people bidding on your job may be from
    countries where English is not the primary language. In certain cases,
    writers may take samples that they have not written and use them to get a
    job. When you speak to a writer directly, it is easy to get a good idea of
    whether they can write. As I mentioned earlier, writing is simply stringing
    words together. A person who cannot speak using proper English will
    most likely be unable to use proper English when writing.
13. Finally, make your decision and hire the writer you want. You should
    agree upon a price and timeframe. Most of the freelancing websites out
    there make it possible for you to set up your payments to the writer in
    advance. A professional writer will insist upon it, as there are
    unscrupulous people out there who might not do that and then refuse to
    pay the writer. You should be prepared to fund the project. The money will
    be held on account until the writer has completed the job and you have
    approved their work. You should also make sure to specify what you
    expect in terms of rewriting as needed. If you are paying an hourly rate,
    you have to be prepared to pay more for additional work. If not, you
    should come to an agreement about how much rewriting is included in
    your price.
    I recommend the same methods you would use for a book you wrote yourself
    when it comes to finalizing the book. Read it out loud, and make detailed notes
    about any changes you want made to the book. You have the option of asking
    the writer to make changes, or making them yourself.
    Creating a Cover
    The next thing you have to consider when creating an eBook is the cover. The
    saying is that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but the truth is that many
    people do. Even if you choose a very small and specialized niche, your book
    will be competing against dozens – if not hundreds – of others in the Kindle
    store. You need to make sure that your cover stands out in a crowd.
    Unless you have experience in graphic design, I strongly recommend hiring a
    professional designer to craft your cover. If you use a ghostwriter hired
    through an eBook publisher, they may include a cover design in the quoted
    price. If not, you will have to go out and hire someone yourself. You can hire
    freelance designers on Freelancer. Another very inexpensive choice is to post
    the job on Fiverr. Fiverr is a website where you can hire freelancers to do jobs
    for as little as five dollars – in fact, most jobs listed there are five dollars. If
    you search for eBook covers, you will come up with a list of people who are
    willing to design a cover.
    When choosing a designer, use some of the same methods you would to hire a
    ghostwriter. Ask to see samples of their past work. You should give some
    thought to the style of cover you want. If there are particular images or colors
    you want used, you need to specify those as well. It is a good idea to choose
    someone who has experience designing covers for Kindle books. Keep in
    mind that you want your cover image to look good at full size and as a
    thumbnail, since that is how it will display on the Kindle store.
    I strongly recommend that you look at the other covers in your niche before
    designing a cover or hiring a designer. Pay special attention to the bestsellers.
    What is it about those covers that appeals to you? Make notes and use existing
    covers as examples to give the designer an idea of what you want.
    Formatting Your Book for Kindle
    Once you have your book written and a cover designed, the next step is to
    format your book for the Kindle store. The instructions for Kindle Direct
    Publishing (KDP), which you can find here, should be relatively easy to follow
    if you are familiar with Microsoft Word. If you use another word processing
    software, you may need to transfer the file to Word to format it properly.
    The main things to remember as you are formatting your book is that you must
    insert page breaks at the end of every chapter to ensure a smooth reading
    experience. Kindle readers expect books to be formatted in a certain way, and
    if the chapters run together you may end up with complaints about the
    formatting.
    I also recommend taking the time to put in bookmarks to give the book a
    navigable table of contents. Put your table of contents where Amazon specifies,
    after the copyright page and before the rest of your content. From there, you
    can use Word’s automatic tool to create a table of contents (detailed
    instructions can be found here) or create one manually. You should also take
    the time to insert bookmarks so that readers can navigate to the beginning of
    the book and the table of contents from anywhere in the book. The instructions
    on how to do that are on the Kindle formatting page I linked to earlier in the
    section.
    Tips for Writing a Great Book Description
    The final thing you need to consider before uploading your book to the Kindle
    store is writing a great book description that will help sell your book. If you
    hired a ghostwriter, then I recommend paying the same person a little extra to
    write a book description too – or including the book description in your
    original job description and negotiating the price accordingly.
    Remember that the description should not be a book report. You don’t want a
    dry and serious recap of what’s in the book. There’s an old advertising adage
    about selling the sizzle, not the steak. Your description should sizzle. In other
    words, you want to accurately describe your book in a way that makes it seem
    positively irresistible.
    To do that, keep your focus on what benefits readers can expect to get from
    your book as opposed to telling them how great your book is. By the time they
    are done reading your description, you want them to feel as if NOT buying
    your book would be a mistake.
    A good book description should have plenty of white space to make it easy to
    read. Break your content up into short paragraphs, and use bullet points, too.
    You should also make sure to:
    ■ Choose keywords (Amazon lets you choose up to seven)
    ■ Use the same keywords in your book description
    ■ Use formatting options to make your headline stands out. For example:
    o to make your headline bold
    o to italicize your text
    o

    your headline text

    
    o

    the Amazon orange headline, which appears
    as the subheading

    
    ■ Choose categories (niches and sub-niches) to help Amazon know
    where to list your book
    Using these simple formatting options and writing tips can make your Amazon
    book description sing.
    Uploading Your Book on KDP
    Once you have written a great book description, it’s time to upload your book
    using KDP. You will start by visiting the KDP home page here, and creating a
    new account. From there, you will enter your book details, including your title,
    keywords, and categories as outlined above.
    After that, you will upload your word file to KDP. Again, the preferred format
    is Word but there are instructions here on how to upload and format an HTML,
    TXT, or PDF file. Once you upload the file, KDP will convert it to the proper
    format so it can be read on a Kindle.
    The final step in uploading your book is to set a price and specify the rights
    for the book. Most books for sale on the Kindle Store sell for $9.99 or less,
    and it’s a good idea to keep that in mind when pricing your book. If your book
    is very short, then you may want to consider pricing it lower than that. Amazon
    does retain the right to reprice your book based on the pricing of other books
    in your category.
    You will also need to choose your royalty level. Amazon offers two options,
    70% and 35%. Books that are in the public domain must be priced at the 35%
    level, but since you are writing an original, you can choose the 70% option.
    You can find more information about pricing your book here.
    Keep in mind that you can also use Amazon’s CreateSpace site to print hard
    copies of your book if you want them. If you choose to do that, you will want
    to review Amazon’s pricing guidelines above to make sure the price for your
    Kindle book makes sense when viewed in relation to hard copies of your book.
    Tips for Marketing Your Book
    The final topic I want to cover in this chapter is the issue of marketing your
    book. The only way to turn your new eBook into a reliable stream of passive
    income is to do some promotions to get people to buy your book. Here are
    some suggestions:
    ■ If you have the resources to do it and don’t mind spending a bit of
    money, you might consider filming a book trailer and posting it on
    YouTube. I’ll cover YouTube in detail later in the book, but a book trailer
    is a short video, usually two minutes or less, that serves as a commercial
    for your book. Think of it as the book version of a movie trailer. If you
    decide to make a trailer, your goal should be to make the book sound as
    compelling as possible.
    ■ Do you have a blog? If so, your blog is the perfect place to publicize
    your new book. You can build anticipation for its release by blogging
    about your writing process and announcing the release date. You might
    consider giving out some free copies of the book by hosting a contest.
    One good way to do that is to offer a free entry to everybody who
    comments on your blog, and then offer additional entries to readers who
    share information about your contest on Facebook, Twitter, and other
    social media sites. Your readers earn additional chances to win your book,
    and you win a ton of free publicity.
    ■ I also highly recommend advertising your book on social media. For
    example, you might set up a page for your book on Facebook, and then
    create an ad that targets the people you think are most likely to read your
    book. You will have to spend some time considering your target audience.
    You also have the option of targeting your Facebook connections and
    their friends, but only do that if you think those people represent a likely
    audience for your book. Otherwise, you are better off sticking to your
    target demographics and simply asking your friends to share information
    about your book. You might also want to consider a sponsored Tweet or
    Pin (Pinning your book cover on Pinterest is a great way to get the word
    out).
    ■ Another good idea is to reach out to key authority figures and
    influencers in your niche and ask them to read and review your book. You
    may want to give out free copies to influential bloggers or people who
    have a huge social media following. If your book is well-reviewed, the
    fact that you gave a copy away won’t hurt you in terms of income.
    Pay attention to your Amazon sales, and read reviews to get ideas about how to
    improve and update your content. It is important to remain respectful (and not
    defensive) if you choose to reply directly to reviewers. Remember that you
    don’t have to take every suggestion they make. Look at your reviews for ideas,
    and encourage people you know to read and review the book, too.
    If you follow the guidelines in this chapter and start today, you could have your
    first eBook up on the Amazon Kindle store within a month or two. I know the
    process might seem daunting, but in my opinion, it is well worth the time and
    effort required. In fact, this is my favorite passive income method – and that’s
    why I’ve dedicated so many pages to the topic.
    In the next chapter, I will talk about my second favorite passive income method
    – marketing affiliate products.

Chapter 4: Marketing Affiliate Products
Perhaps writing an eBook doesn’t appeal to you. Now it’s time to talk about an
alternative, one that – once again – will require some effort and cost to set up
but can end up earning you income for years to come if you do it properly.
If you have spent any time at all learning about earning money online, you
have undoubtedly heard about affiliate marketing. In case you haven’t, let me
briefly explain. Affiliate marketing involves marketing products (usually by
putting links on your blog or website) that were created by other people. In
exchange for displaying the ads, you get a percentage of the sales that happen
as a result. Sometimes you may get paid only if there is a sale, while other
affiliate offers may aim at generating leads and pay you for each person who
clicks on the ad.
Let’s walk through what you need to do to successfully market affiliate
products. Just as was the case with writing an eBook, it all starts with choosing
the right niche.
Choosing a Niche
Many of the same issues apply to choosing a niche to sell affiliate products that
apply to choosing a niche for an eBook. I’m not going to waste your time by
repeating the same content, so if you skipped the last chapter, I recommend
going back to read the section about niche selection.
What I would like to add is that if you already have a blog in a particular niche,
adding niche products to the blog can be a relatively quick and easy way to set
up passive streams of income. A blog, especially if you already have a sizeable
following, is a great marketing tool. Each post you write uses keywords and
covers a topic in your chosen niche. If you decide to put affiliate links on your
blog, you can review the products you decide to sell and link to your opt-in or
sales page from the review itself in addition to posting the affiliate ads on your
site.
If you don’t have a blog already but there is a niche that appeals to you, starting
one is a very good first step when it comes to marketing affiliate products.
Blogging can help you establish yourself as an authority figure in your chosen
niche, which will give your choice of certain products more weight than it
would have otherwise.
I do recommend sticking with products in a single niche as you get started. You
can always branch out to other, related niches as you get things established.
However, as a new affiliate marketer you don’t want to overdo it. You are
going to have to spend some time creating content (or hiring someone to
create it), as well as setting up and testing an effective sales funnel. The
narrower your specialty is, the easier it will be to build upon your knowledge
and start the money flowing.
Checking out the Competition
Another good preliminary step when marketing affiliate products is to do
some basic keyword research. A keyword is any word or series of words that
an internet user types into a search engine. Looking at keyword usage and
trends can help you identify topics within a niche that get a high volume of
search traffic – in other words, they can help you narrow down your choice of
products to those that have the best chance of selling.
One tool that I like to use is Market Samurai, which lets you view the top
trending keywords in any niche. When you sign up for a free membership, you
also get access to videos that will provide you with valuable information about
how to tell the difference between a truly valuable keyword and one that might
get high traffic but never earn you any money.
It’s also a good idea to search for the top blogs in your chosen niche and see
which affiliate products they are promoting. You can start by doing a Google
search for “your niche” + blogs. I recommend looking at the top ten blogs that
show up and writing down the names of the products they sell. That can
provide you with a good jumping off point to research products.
Researching Products
Once you have a niche, some high-traffic keywords, and a list of potential
products to promote, it’s time to research those products and find out whether
they are worth promoting. The site that I recommend for product research is
ClickBank, a massive marketplace where you can check out affiliate products
and learn about them. ClickBank is free to use and is a great resource to look
up information about the products you found earlier and find new ones, too.
For each product listed on their site, ClickBank provides a series of statistics to
help you learn about them. For example, you can learn:
■ Init $/sale tells you how much you would make for the sale of a
product.
■ Avg Rebill Total applies only to products that bill on a recurring basis,
such as membership sites and subscriptions.
■ Avg $/sale is the same as the initial sale for one-time products, but will
include the average rebill for products that include that option.
■ Avg %/sale tells you what the average commission percentage is for
all products (including rebills and upsells) for a particular product
■ Rebill %/sale tells you the commission you can expect to earn for
rebills.
■ Grav is a unique statistic created by ClickBank to tell you how hot a
particular product is. It is a reflection of recent sales as well as the number
of affiliates promoting a product, so a high Grav number might make a
product a good choice, but may also indicate that you will have a
significant amount of competition.
When you click on a category or subcategory on ClickBank, you will see the
products listed in order of popularity. However, you can also choose to sort the
products by any one of the statistics provided to get an idea of which products
you prefer.
I recommend taking a look at the top products in your chosen category and
also looking up the products you noted earlier. Narrow them down based on
what you learn. After that, I recommend taking the following steps to
thoroughly research the products left on your list:

1. Do a Google search and read reviews of the product. You’re going to
   face an uphill battle if you choose to promote a product that has a slew of
   bad reviews, and you might as well know about it up front. If you notice a
   lot of complaints or people saying they have returned the product for a
   refund, you may want to think twice about sinking your time and effort
   into marketing it.
2. Opt in to the mailing list for each product so you can get an idea of
   what the sales funnel is like. You want to know what materials you’re
   going to get as an affiliate.
3. Do a search for affiliates who sell the product in question. You should
   look for complaints from affiliates, especially those that have to do with
   not getting paid in a timely manner. You may also want to reach out to
   marketers in your niche to see what they have to say about a particular
   product. Knowledge is power.
4. Once you have narrowed down your list again to three or four
   products, I strongly suggest that you buy at least the basic product to see
   what it’s like. Trust me, you don’t want to be selling a product that you
   know nothing about. You need to know what is included with purchase of
   the product so you understand what you will be selling. Doing a thorough
   review of the product can help you make your final decision and see
   what’s worth selling and what isn’t. Many products have a 30-day money
   back guarantee, so you can always return a product that you think is no
   good for a refund.
   By the time you are done with your research, you should have a product (or
   maybe more than one) that you feel you can do a good job promoting. The
   more strongly you believe in a product, the easier it will be to promote it. If
   you’re selling a product you haven’t seen and don’t understand, your lack of
   knowledge is going to show – especially if you are promoting it on social
   media and on your blog.
   Some of the best products to sell include digital products such as eBooks and
   online courses. They pay high commissions – sometimes as much as 50% --
   and they are a fairly easy sell. Another good option is to market memberships
   in online forums and membership sites, which can set you up to receive
   recurring commissions if people buy ongoing memberships. I also like to look
   for a product that has a good number of upsells. For example, many basic
   weight loss plans have upsells that include:
   ■ Cookbooks
   ■ Food measurement cups and accessories
   ■ Fitness programs
   ■ Workout DVDs
   The more upsells and related products there are, the higher your earning
   potential is. Look at the entire sales funnel of a product before you select it so
   you understand exactly what product(s) you will be promoting.
   Set Up a Page Using WordPress
   Once you have chosen a product to promote, the next step is to set up a landing
   page using WordPress. WordPress is free software that you can use to design
   an effective website even if you have no design experience or programming
   knowledge. All of the programming is accomplished from a user-friendly
   dashboard that makes setting up a landing page for your new affiliate product a
   snap.
   If you already have a blog, you may already be familiar with WordPress, since
   it is the most popular software to use to set up a blog. If you’re new to
   WordPress, I want to clarify that I am talking about WordPress.org, not
   WordPress.com. WordPress.com is a free blogging site, but it is not the same
   as having your own website. To effectively market affiliate products, you must
   have your own site. Many affiliate programs require affiliates to own their
   own domain name.
   You have the option of hosting your site through WordPress directly, or of
   using another host. Most hosts allow the use of WordPress. I caution you
   against choosing a free or very cheap hosting program. What you save in upfront
   costs can come back to haunt you in the form of excessive downtime and
   poor customer service.
   Choose a domain name that relates to the product you are selling. Ideally, you
   want to use some of the most popular keywords you found while you were
   researching. If a product is sold by many of your competitors, finding a great
   domain name may prove to be a challenge. If a .com name isn’t available,
   consider using one of the other extensions such as .biz or .us instead.
   When you set up your site on WordPress, you can choose from hundreds of
   free themes. I strong suggest that you choose a mobile-responsive theme. As of
   2015, more people conduct searches on mobile devices than on computers.
   Google penalizes sites that are not mobile-friendly, so there is no reason to
   choose anything other than a mobile-responsive theme for your new site.
   Here are some other things to keep in mind when setting up your new landing
   page:
   ■ Write a strong headline that indicates what people can expect to see on
   the page and creates a strong desire to keep reading. Try to use your
   primary keyword in the headline.
   ■ Choose a theme that is eye-catching but not unpleasant to look at.
   Clashing colors may actually drive people away from your site. You want
   them to stay, read or watch your content, and OPT IN. If your site is too
   garish it may have the opposite effect.
   ■ Stay away from fancy fonts that are difficult to read. It’s fine to use a
   special font here and there for emphasis, but do not choose something that
   is overly ornate.
   ■ Consider making a sales video for your page. There is evidence to
   show that landing pages with videos tend to get more conversions than
   pages without video. You can provide the video content in written form as
   an alternative for people who prefer not to watch a video.
   ■ If you choose to have only written content on your page, make sure that
   it is well-written and compelling. Everything you write (or pay to have
   written) should focus on solving a particular problem that the person
   reading your page has – and explain how the product you’re promoting
   can help them solve it. Break up the content with subheadings and bullet
   points to make it easy to read.
   ■ Focus on creating natural-sounding content to improve your Google
   rank. Simply using your keywords over and over again isn’t enough these
   days. Your content must be relevant and compelling, and your use of
   keywords must be natural and not forced.
   ■ Choose a strong call to action that repeats multiple times on the page.
   The best CTAs are those that emphasize the benefits of using the product
   you are selling. For example:
   o Lose Weight NOW
   o Yes, I want to retire early
   o Help me train my dog
   All of these are solution oriented and far more appealing than a bland
   “Click here.”
   Optimizing Your Site
   Setting up your basic website is important, but you also want to do whatever
   you can to ensure that your site is fully optimized. I could write an entire book
   about SEO, but my goal here is simply to give you an overview so you make
   sure to hit the important points.
   ■ Your landing page should be optimized for one main keyword and
   several secondary keywords. Your primary keyword should be a long-tail
   keyword – one that is very specific and tailored to people who are ready
   to spend money to solve the problem that your chosen product addresses.
   ■ Do not worry about keyword density. As mentioned before, the most
   important thing is the quality of your content. Use your keywords in your
   headline, in the first sentence of your content, and in a few other
   prominent locations.
   ■ Don’t neglect your tags and descriptions. The information that appears
   on your page is only half the battle when it comes to SEO. You should
   also use your keywords in the following places:
   o Your page title (the title that appears when your
   page comes up in response to a Google search)
   o Your meta description (the short description that
   appears under your page title on Google)
   o Your H1 and H2 tags, which let Google know where
   your headlines and subheadings are
   o Your alt, or image tags, which appear when one of
   your images fails to properly download on a viewer ’s
   page
   Using these tags properly can do a great deal to boost your SEO.
   Everything on your page should be informative and relevant to people who are
   searching your chosen keywords. While keywords and tags are important,
   Google places the highest premium on content that is well-written and relevant.
   As long as your page has high-quality content and uses keywords effectively,
   you should do well on Google.
   Market on Social Media
   One of my favorite ways to market affiliate products is on social media. Unlike
   advertising with Google AdWords, social media advertising is still relatively
   inexpensive. You can buy an ad on Facebook for as little as five dollars per
   day. Unlike search engine advertising, which relies on keyword usage, social
   media ads allow you to target people based on two categories of information:
   ■ Demographics, including age range, gender, income level, and
   geographical location
   ■ Psychographics, including buying habits, hobbies, and interests
   If you set up a business page for your affiliate product, you can use it to share
   relevant content and place ads. Facebook advertising is the most wellestablished
   of all the social media websites. Here are some other benefits of
   using Facebook to market your affiliate products:
   ■ Facebook offers you the option to manage an unlimited number of
   pages from your primary account. If you are marketing more than one
   affiliate product, you can easily set up a page for each.
   ■ You can follow publications and pages that are relevant to your niche
   and use them to find and share content with your followers.
   ■ Facebook has a free scheduling tool that you can use to set up posts in
   advance.
   ■ You’ll have access to Facebook Insights, which provides you with
   analytics to determine how your page is performing and which posts get
   the most engagement.
   When you place an ad with Facebook, you can send the people who click on it
   directly to your new landing page. Each week, you’ll get an email from
   Facebook showing how your ad has performed so you can tweak it and revisit
   it as needed.
   Of course, Facebook is not the only social media site you can use to promote
   your affiliate products. Here are some others to consider:
   ■ Twitter is still very popular and its 140-character limit makes it a good
   choices for sending out quick facts and promotions. At present, the only
   way to advertise on Twitter is with a sponsored Tweet. Sponsoring
   increases the chances that your Tweet will be seen by all of your
   followers.
   ■ Pinterest is a hugely effective tool for marketing affiliate products,
   especially if the product you are selling is aspirational or appeals strongly
   to women. Pinterest users tend to be fairly affluent and are far more likely
   to make purchases based on what they see on the site than people on other
   social media sites. Pinterest recently opened up its advertising options to
   all businesses.
   ■ Snapchat is a relatively new social media site and one that appeals
   strongly to young people. If you have a following on Snapchat, you can
   use it to send out quick announcements and things of that nature as a way
   of informing people about your product.
   ■ Instagram is highly visual and now offers paid advertising. If the
   product you are selling lends itself to being photographed, it can be very
   effective as a way of spreading the word about your product.
   If you decide to use social media to market your product, you should
   remember to adhere to the 4-to-1 rule. For every one piece of content you post
   that is directly related to the product you are marketing, you should post four
   that are related to your niche and provide value to your followers without
   mentioning your product. Remember, people do not follow businesses on
   social media because they want to be bombarded with an endless string of sales
   pitches. They want to be informed and entertained.
   Creating Backlinks for Better SEO
   The final topic I want to mention relates to SEO. When we discussed SEO
   earlier, we focused on on-site SEO – the things you can do on your website that
   will help it achieve a high rank on Google when people search your chosen
   keywords. However, there is another element to SEO, and that has to do with
   getting other websites to link back to your site.
   The best backlinks to get are from high-quality, authority sites in your chosen
   niche. It is possible to buy backlinks, but that is considered a “black hat” SEO
   tactic and I don’t recommend it. If you get caught, Google can penalize you.
   Instead, focus on contacting bloggers and publications in your niche. Write
   guest blogs and articles, list your site in niche directories, and make sure to
   encourage friends and other people who have websites to link to your site
   whenever possible.
   It takes time to accumulate quality backlinks, but it’s worth the time and effort.
   The more links you have, the higher the volume of traffic you will get to your
   landing page.
   One final note regarding affiliate marketing. If you are marketing affiliate
   products on your blog, you don’t want your blog to appear overly cluttered or
   spammy, either to your visitors or to Google. One way to keep things under
   control is to do some of your affiliate marketing via email. If you get people to
   sign up for your email list, you can market individual products to them in an
   email without including a link on your site. The same is true of short, free
   eBooks. The benefit of both methods is that you are providing your
   subscribers and visitors with something free (an informative email or book)
   and that means they are far more likely to buy what you suggest than they
   would be if you simply presented them with a hard sales pitch.
   Chapter 5: Other Passive Income Methods
   While writing eBooks and marketing affiliate products are my two favorite
   methods of earning passive income, they are certainly not the only methods to
   use. In this chapter, I will cover several other methods that you may want to
   consider, and give you an overview of each. I recommend that you read
   through the chapter and see which ideas appeal to you the most. You can then
   move forward with your chosen ideas and work toward setting them up so they
   generate passive income.
   How to Create and Market a Mobile App
   It used to be that creating an app to sell was considered overly risky. For
   marketers who lacked programming experience, it meant hiring a
   programmer to design and create the app, and that usually translated to
   prohibitive up-front costs. However, that’s changed now – and if you do it
   right, creating and selling an app can be a good way to earn passive income.
   Creating an App Concept
   If you already have a great idea for an app and you have the wherewithal to
   create it, then I encourage you to do it. It’s always going to be a bit of a
   crapshoot, but if you take the time to market it on your blog or on social
   media, you might be able to sell enough copies to earn a steady stream of
   income. You probably already know that places like the Apple Store and the
   Google Store sell apps, and you can now buy apps on the Amazon App Store
   as well.