What is passive income?
Passive income is when you do some work, in this example, work related to writing and marketing your writing, then you do not have to do any more work, yet you keep earning!
It can be a slow process, and, obviously, the more you do, the more your passive income earnings increase. Earnings may be very little at first, but if you stick to it, you can continue reaping the rewards for everything you've already done. Do more work, and you earn more money.
Passive income from writing is different from writing articles or web content for clients or as a freelancer. Passive income from writing is also different from writing articles to sell them on an online writing site or to a magazine.
You submit your articles to online writing sites, or add them to one of your own blogs or websites.
You market them a bit (or a lot) by linking to them from other articles you've already written, or will write in the future, or by linking to them from social and bookmarking sites you belong to. Some bookmarking sites also have earnings opportunities for you.
If you do a bit of keyword research, you may also learn how to repeat important words in your articles that people are searching for on the Internet, and, if done correctly, your articles stand a good chance of also being found on the Internet by people searching for topics you write about.
Other members of the online writing sites you join also view the articles you write. You go view or rate a few of their articles; comment on their articles, and depending on how nice a comment you left for them, they may come and view your articles too.
The more views your articles get, the more you can earn.
How do you earn passive income?
Some writing sites pay you small amounts merely because the pages your articles are on are getting views. Why? Their adverts that they themselves earn from are on the same pages as your articles. You're helping them earn money, so they reward you.
Of course, if the site or blog is your own, there are no real rules that many writing sites have, and you can always include Adsense ads on your pages (and get full ad revenue share instead of having the site owner get some of it), always include affiliate banners and links, link to more than just 2 or 3 other articles, and write about virtually any topic you want. On the pages of your own site or blog you can also freely advertise a product you sell, or a service you offer. If your site or blog gets a lot of traffic, you can also sell or rent advertising space on it.
Sometimes you can include your Google Adsense publisher id when you sign up to some writing sites (you must have a Google Adsense account) and then some or all of the Adsense ads on the pages of these writing sites, where your articles are displayed, have your Adsense publisher id in them, and if somebody viewing your article clicks a Google Adsense ad on the page, you earn some money.
Never click your own Adsense ads. Google will penalise you for this, possibly closing your Adsense account.
Some of the online writing sites also allow you to add your Amazon or other affiliate program id when you sign up, so that when a person clicks an ad on the page, visits the affiliate site, and buys a product or uses a service, you earn a commission.
Some of the online writing sites allow you to link to articles you have elsewhere. Sometimes they allow you to do this linking to your other articles in the articles you write for their writing site, or on your profile of the writing site.
There's still more! Some of the online writing sites allow you to earn from referring people to join the site. You can earn small amounts of what other people are earning for their writing. They do not lose any of their earnings. The site just pays you because you referred somebody to submit articles to their site, and the site earns from people writing on their site! Earnings from referrals can be quite small, and it would be best to concentrate mostly on your writing, submitting, and marketing your articles, but, if you're good at getting people to join programs or sites beneath you, and if you spend a lot of time on it, earning from what other people write is another easy way to earn passive income.
Some of the online writing sites also accept previously published articles, so just one article of yours could be earning you money on different sites!
You also earn in similar ways on some bookmarking sites.
If you've published some great articles that people can find easily when they search for something on the Internet, and also if you make friends on the writing sites, social sites and bookmarking sites you join, as well as if you link to your articles from many online places, especially from busy places that have good reputations or high page ranks, your articles may get quite a bit of traffic (visitors.)
The more visitors you get the more your earnings can be. When you feel you've done enough work, you can stop working, but you continue to earn. Sometimes these passive income earnings will increase, and sometimes they will decrease, but, generally, you've created a source of income that is passive. You continue earning for work you've finished doing. How cool is that?
If you've done your work well, it is unlikely that the passive income earnings could decrease all the way down to nothing, but should this happen, just take the time to go through your articles to see where you could improve them, or market your articles a little more.
Google Adsense is free to join. Just about all of the writing sites I have joined are also free to join.
© copyright Teresa Schultz 2010
