eBooks have become wildly popular in the past few years, especially with the affordability of eBook readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Instead of working your butt off to find a publisher who will enjoy your book enough to endorse it, people are taking matters into their own hands and self publishing their books in eBook format. In reality, you’re actually making your writing more accessible to the masses by going this route, and you get more money in your pocket when you self publish an electronic version of your story. So how can you make your dreams of being an author come true? Here are some steps to publish an eBook:

• Write a compelling book: First and foremost, the book has to be something that people want to read. Give it your all, and have someone proof read it. You can either hire an editor or just give some advance copies to friends and family and see what they think. The hardest part about publishing an eBook is writing it. So stop with your excuses, and start typing away.
• Start designing: Although eBooks are much more about the text than the design, you’ll still need an attractive cover and have your text organized well. Pick an easy to read font, arrange your paragraphs and page breaks, and maybe include a nice design for chapter pages. You can either design your own cover using a program like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, or you can hire a graphic designer to do it for you.
• Decide on a format: eBooks come in different formats for different eReaders. Do you want it universally available? Choose PDF, one of the easiest versions to publish. Amazon has their own format for Kindles, Barnes & Noble has their own format for Nook, Apple has their own format for iBooks and more. It’s up to you which format or formats you want your book to be available in.
• Choose a price: Now how much is your ebook worth? Decide on a price that works for you. eBook prices range from less than $1 to about $15, but don’t go straight for the cheapest or straight to the most expensive. Really consider how much you think your book is worth, what you’re giving your readers, and how much profit you’re comfortable with.
• Decide on marketing: What good is a self published eBook if it has no readers? People have to know about your book. They’re not just going to find it by chance. Depending on the topic of your book, reach out to media in that niche. Offering a free copy for review for bloggers is a great way to let people know you have an eBook coming out. You can set off on a blogger book tour, and get the word out to the masses. Don’t forget to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to reach out to potential readers. Set up a website just for the book, which includes a description, brief synopsis, and maybe even a sneak peek. Marketing your eBook will certainly decide your success.

Next week, we’ll discuss multiple resources for self publishing your eBook. In the mean time, come up with your plan and start writing!

Passive Income Now is straight and to the point. We explain methods of passive income, what to do, how to be successful, tips and tricks. Real estate is known as a great passive income technique, and we’ve covered a few different ways like investing in real estate and flipping houses. So we know that those ways yield passive income, so the question is: is buying a rental property considered passive income? The answer: yes and no. You have to go through a few steps before it can become passive income, and even after achieving these steps, it still may not be a completely hands off approach.

Own the Property

First, you have to own the property, which is an expenditure rather than income. Some people choose to rent out homes that they no longer live in. Others choose new purchases specifically for becoming landlords. Whatever your case may be, you’re going to be coming out of pocket in the beginning.

Ensure Proper Living Conditions

Is the rental property in good shape? If you want people to rent your property, you have to make sure it’s livable. Make sure all the utilities are able to work. Is it enough space for a family or only room for one person? Are there things that need to be replaced, like the water heater or the carpet? When you’re checking to see things are up to code, you may have to pay for a few things you weren’t expecting. When my husband and I moved into the townhouse we’re renting, we found a few things weren’t working, like a few outlets, our shower, and our garage opener. Instead of the landlord paying for those things, we made an agreement that the costs would be discounted off our rent.

Check Out the Comps

What are other rental properties going for in the surrounding area? You don’t want to price your rental too high and scare off potential customers, or too low and not get the money you deserve. You can usually do your research online and look for places with the same amount of bedrooms, bathrooms, and similar square footage. If you believe you offer more amenities such as free utilities or a pet friendly home, you can price a bit higher. If you don’t have the same freebies to give, price more competitively.

Determine Your Profit Line

The point of passive income is to increase the amount of money you have. So far, we’ve listed things that you’ll have to pay for, but you have to consider where your profit line is. A profit will be anything over what you’re currently paying. If you completely own the property, meaning you don’t have a mortgage, any additional money will be a profit. If you’re still paying a mortgage, you’ll want to charge more than you’re paying monthly.

Find Suitable Renters

Since this is your property, it’s completely up to you who you want to rent to. Many properties that are operated by property management companies ask for an application, a credit check, and proof of income. If you’d like, you can just list the rental on Craigslist, wait for people to contact you, and sift through those of interest as you please. Finding a suitable renter could be free if you know someone who’s interested, or it can cost some money to post the rental in classifieds.

Is It Passive Income Yet?

After you find a suitable renter and you’ve signed the necessary documents like a rental agreement and possibly renter’s insurance, you’re now ready to start earning money by collecting rent monthly. However it’s still not passive income unless you choose a hands off approach to owning. This can be achieved by hiring a property management company, but this will cut your profit down. However, if you’re okay with interacting with your tenants and dealing with maintenance issues such as replacing things that break down, it’s still a great way to earn money. It’s certainly not a full time job, but it’s also not a get rich quick scheme.

The thing with creating passive income is, well, you have to create it. That’s the boring part. Putting in the man hours, earning no money, and hoping for money tomorrow, is pretty crappy. I won’t even try to sugar coat it. I’ve been going through this process for years with varying levels of success.

The only thing that pushes me to work harder towards my passive income goals is the fact that I’m working on projects that I love. Everything that I do I consider fun. Writing articles, chatting on Twitter, responding to comments, and so on is all fun to me. If you hate writing articles on a specific topic or interacting with readers, then you can consider one of the many other passive income sources (real estate, running a business, or writing a book). For me creating passive income online has been 100% deliberate.

Then there’s a totally different way to look at the idea of creating passive income and surviving. For some, they’ve created passive income online by accident or because they just sort of fell into it.

“Do not wait; the time will never be “just right’. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” – Napoleon Hill

Something serious like, having an accident at work, can force you to realize that you’re no longer able to generate money the same way you used to. Now you need to figure something new out. All of a sudden you can’t work a job that requires physical labor or you can’t perform at the level that you would like to. What do you do now? Do you feel sorry for yourself all day at home or do you try to figure out how to use the Internet to your advantage?

If you don’t have medical compensation, it’s going to hit you even harder that you need to bring some damn money home. You can check out how other bloggers made their first buck online or you can see how to start a business with no money. Either way, you’re going to go through plenty of trail-and-error to see what works for you and what doesn’t. I’m not here to judge. My goal is to help push you in the right direction.

At the end of the day, it’s totally possible to find passive income by accident. You never know when life will through you a curveball and you need to find another way to put money on the table.

You’ve probably heard of people who act a representative of a company without actually working for the company. You see it a lot in the blogging world, people who advocate heavily for a brand or organization in exchange for money or free swag. So how do they get these awesome opportunities? How do moms get free diapers just for talking about Huggies? How do students get further discounts on renting textbooks just for referring their classmates to use Chegg? It’s called being a brand ambassador.

What Does a Brand Ambassador Do?

A brand ambassador acts as a representative for a brand, explaining why the company is great and why others should use it. It’s a great way to earn passive income, especially if you love the brand. Other names for a brand ambassador are street team, sales representative, brand advocate or spokesperson. Your job is to answer any questions potential customers may have, and promote the brand as best you can. Some brand ambassadors are sent to represent the company at events where the target demographic will be, spread the word amongst friends and family, and also use their social network to explain how great the company is.

What’s the Difference Between a Brand Ambassador and a Brand Advocate?

Although the two sound the same, the difference between a brand ambassador and a brand advocate is that usually a brand ambassador gets paid money, while the brand advocate gets free products or services from the organization. Brand ambassadors have more of a sales role while the brand advocate promotes and the brand. There are also other roles that customers can take with brands, including spokesmodels, trade show models, and convention models, which draw in attendee interest at events and engage the audience. Usually the model positions are held by ladies.

How is Being a Brand Ambassador a Good Method of Passive Income?

If you already love a company and tell all your friends about it, why not get paid for it? It’s not much work if you truly enjoy and endorse the product. Think of the Apple FanBoys and FanGirls out there who are diehard Apple customers and encourage everyone around them to have an iPad or MacBook and they don’t get a piece of the sales. As a brand ambassador, you get a commission of the sales you refer. Many companies have brand ambassador positions available, and if they don’t advertise it, it doesn’t hurt to ask! Maybe you don’t necessarily want to be paid for your services, and you want free swag instead. Ask the organization about brand advocate positions.

Who Makes a Great Brand Ambassador?

• People who are very involved at their school, like leaders of student organizations, fraternities or sororities
• People with a lot of friends on Facebook or a lot of engaged followers on Twitter
• Bloggers with a decent sized following
• People who don’t mind talking to complete strangers about what they’re passionate about
• True FanBoys and FanGirls of products or services

While some may not think this position is completely passive, it can seem passive if you’re advocating for something you really use and truly support. Think about what you try to convince all your family and friends to get that you have and see if they have brand ambassador positions available.

Using Debt For Your Business

Have you ever considered using debt as leverage for your new business? Have you thought about borrowing money to grow your business?

If you’re any kind of entrepreneur in the slightest you’ll eventually reach the point where you realize that you need to invest some capital into your business in order for it to grow. This investment can be something as simple as hiring much needed consulting services or as complex as trying to find a new office in town. Regardless of the situation, it’s never an easy decision to use debt to grow your business.

With that being said, let’s start the discussion surrounding the fear of using debt to grow your new business…

What are the other options for growing your business?

Is there any other way you can acquire this capital? There are times where all you really need to bring your business to the next level is more time/organic growth. Then there will be situations where you need to invest more man hours. And yes there will also be points where you need to invest money. I like to consider the option of more time and effort before I put money into something.

What’s the worst case scenario?

I always like to think about the worst case scenario when I feel stressed out about something. When it comes to borrowing money to grow you business this can be a bit scarier. The fear of losing your business completely or putting yourself into massive debt for your business can keep you up at night stressing. The thing is that stressing out won’t get you any where. You need to make a decision with all of the facts in mind. Going into debt sucks and so does putting your business entity out of commission. You must consider these thoughts, but you can’t let them consume you.

What’s the best case scenario?

We know that using debt to grow your business can ultimately put you into debt. What about the reverse? What if your decision to grow your business turns out to be a positive one? Your business can hit an all time record in profit and you could eventually quit your full-time job. I personally like to compare the best case to the worst case when it comes to investment decisions. Does the best case scenario far outweigh your fears?

How badly do you want to grow your business?

At the end of the day you must think about how badly you want to grow your business. Is it a side-business? Is this something you want to turn into a career down the road? When I first started blogging I really started to become addicted to it. I wanted to grow my blog so badly that I would do anything. I paid for blog consulting services and I took advice from anyone that was willing to share any tips with me. It all really depends on how badly you want to grow your side business. Some people either hate their current job so much or are so passionate about their business that they will do anything to make it grow. How bad do you want it?

Have you acquired debt to grow your business? Did it work out for you?

(photo credit: wisley)

Income diversification. You know the idea of having more than one source of income. A popular topic and an idea that’s heavily promoted. The phrase is commonly mentioned on personal finance sites, but why is income diversification so important?

Unemployment.

With high unemployment rates, gone are the days where you work for a  company for your entire life and retire happily. At any point in time you could lose your job. Even worse you could also struggle to find a new job. With all of this mentioned, it’s clear that having a few income sources will definitely get you through the lean times in life.

Recession.

The recession and high unemployment obviously go hand in hand. Suze Orman says, “the financial crisis is the greatest thing that has ever happened to our generation.” Whether you believe this or not, it does make sense in a way. What the recession of late-2008 showed us is that anything can happen. Your once “steady job” can go out the window. Your “recession-proof” investments could go down in value. Instead of complaining about it with your friends or watching the evening news, you need to accept reality and learn how to move on. One of the best ways to move on is to diversify your income. When you lose one source of income, the purpose of diversification should be to sustain you while you try to get back on your feet.

Risk tolerance.

How well do you handle risk? Does the thought of losing your job keep you up at night? Is your emergency fund low? Is your overhead high? These are all questions that you need to consider as you start to focus on diversifying your income. If you really can’t handle risk then you need to focus on diversifying your income ASAP.

How can I diversify my income?

• Get a part-time job.
• Start a side business.
• Invest in a rental property.
• Freelance your skills.
• Continually apply for new jobs.

Below is my income breakdown followed by some of my thoughts.

My Income Breakdown

These numbers are very rough as my income fluctuates on a monthly basis. As you can tell my current job is responsible for the vast majority of my current income. I’m not too thrilled about this. I would like to slowly decrease this figure until my current job is of course eliminated from my income breakdown. I would like to bring my online income to about 60% of my income because you really can’t trust online income too much. Also as I save more money over time I would like to invest more money. This would hopefully bring my income from investments up way past 10%. Finally, I plan on increasing my other income by selling more crap and finding unique ways to make a few extra bucks here and there.

How does passive income factor into this?

By creating passive income over time you’re able to alleviate some of the stress that comes with market fluctuations and an unexpected loss of work. Passive income allows you to diversify your income between your current job and any other sources of money that you have. You can also use your passive income to build up your savings/emergency fund to help you get through the lean times.

How diversified is your income at the moment?

The problem isn’t that you’re investing in the wrong stocks. There’s no issues with your investing strategy. Your lack of passive income isn’t a threat. The problem most of the time is that you don’t earn enough money in general.

It took me much longer than expected to get this blog off the ground. The reason being that my passive income wasn’t increasing to be honest. One day I finally stopped worrying about this and I began to focus on increasing my current income. I asked for more shifts at my current job, I started freelance writing, and I completed my college degree. All of these could help my financial situation much more than focusing on passive now right now.

My challenge to all of you out there that are searching for passive income help is to take an honest look at your current income. Are you really earning enough money? Is your lack of passive income really the problem?

A few quick tips to help you increase your income right now!

Ask for a raise.

A raise is not inherently passive income because you will still continue to work for your money. On the other hand you would of had this income if you didn’t ask for it. By asking for and getting a raise you will in turn have more money coming in. Allowing you to save more money.

Start a side gig.

A side gig can always lead to passive income down the road. The biggest myth is that we all want to start off earning passive income. It doesn’t work like that. Authors don’t generate any royalties until they actually write a book that sells copies. Passive income always comes after active income and effort. Never the other way around. We will tackle this topic in greater detail as time goes on here.

Sell your crap.

You can start getting rid of the every day stuff that you no longer need. Selling your old stuff on eBay or Craigslist can help you pick up a few extra bucks when you need some cash

These are not ground breaking tips but they can have more profound change on your life then complaining about your lack of passive income.

Try these above suggestions before you start stressing about your passive income situation.

Do You Want To Own Your Own Franchise?

A few years ago for the longest time I always saw myself being a franchise owner one day. It all started when I found out that a friend from the gym owned a highly profitable Subway restaurant in town. I only heard about the positive side of owning a franchise. Recently, I’ve started to hear about the negative side of buying a franchise. Today I wanted to share both sides.

Is owning a franchise worth the hassle?

Let’s start the discussion today by looking at the cons of buying a franchise:

You’re buying yourself a job.

You can feel good by telling yourself that you’re your own boss. You can feel proud for having direct  control of your career. At the end of the day all that you’re doing is buying yourself a job. At least that’s what a friend from school told me the other week as he planned the closure of his franchise restaurant. After running the calculations and looking into other job offers, he found out that he could make more money and have much less stress by working a normal job instead of owning his own franchise.

This all ties into the concept of what your goals are with your career plans. Do you want your franchise to be your primary job or do you want it to be a significant source of passive income?

No control.

You essentially have no control over much. Does your brother Steve import cheap cucumbers? That’s irrelevant to Subway because you have to order from their suppliers. You also have to abide by all construction and infrastructure policies. Some franchise businesses require that you remodel your unit ever few years. This can cause you problems with your bank because it’s not easy to acquire more debt when you already have debt outstanding. At the end of the day you really have very little control when you own a franchise.

Heavy capital investment.

You need lots of money for any decent franchise business that’s for sale out there. This means that you’re going to have to tie up lots of your money into this source of passive income. Are you ready for this? Are there any other ways out there that you could leverage to generate passive income with such a massive amount?

We got the negatives of owning your franchise out of the way, now we can look at the pros of buying a franchise for passive income:

Owning your own franchise be passive income.

If you buy the right franchise, find the ideal employees, and your business starts to turn solid revenue, then your franchise can become a steady source of passive income. Many franchise owners only stop by once in a while. They essentially delegate and disappear. If you have the capital to purchase a franchise, along with a strong team in place, your new franchise business could be just what you need to improve your bottom line.

Brand name.

If you buy an established franchise, then you’re buying yourself a piece of a well-established company. There’s only so far Jack’s Coffee Shop can go. Tim Horton’s on the other hand, that can go a long way (in Canada at least). When you buy a franchise you’re paying for an established company. You’re buying a piece of the years of marketing. You’re getting a piece of popular brand. The question is, are the franchise fees justified by the strong brand name?

Have you researched the possibility of buying a franchise?

(photo credit: mr t in dc)

Problems With Passive Income

We all want passive income. We all want to make money while we sleep. Yet none of us do this. None of us truly have “passive income” at its core definition. How many people do you that actually earn money 24/7? And no a couple of dollars off Adsense doesn’t count. I’m talking about sustainable passive income. The passive income that someone like Tim Ferriss is able to generate while traveling the world. Not many. In fact, those that do earn passive income, do so by telling others how to earn passive income. I wanted to discuss the fallacy of passive income…

A major fallacy with passive income.

Earning money off Adsense, text links, or affiliates, while you sleep may seem like passive income but it really isn’t. Why is blog income usually not passive income? Think of all of the work that you had to do to get your blog off the ground. Also think about what would happen if you just stopped working on your blog? Would anyone show up? Would your supposed passive income remain the same? It would all change. We may think that we have passive income because we earn money while being idle, but this is just like getting your paycheck from work when you’re not actually on the job.

Passive income should be a distant goal.

You need to go through the steps. The income phases that is. If your first goal is passive income then good luck to you. That’s like walking into a gym on day one and saying that you want to be a bodybuilder. It doesn’t work like that. You next to go through the phases to see if you have what it takes to be successful.

I recommend that everyone should start with freelancing. Freelance work will allow you the opportunity to:

Expand your reach.

More eyeballs will start to notice you when you freelance. Whether you decide to become a freelance writer or a freelance photographer, you will get your name out there. By getting your name out there you’re slowly building your brand. When your brand is strong, you can begin to productize and release your own “passive income” products (eBook, courses, etc.). Without a reputable brand name, who will buy anything from you?

Improve your work.

You need to become the best in the world at what you do. An average writer will sell an average amount of products. Remember that average is just as close to the bottom as it is to the top.

Passive income myths.

If you want to lay on the beach all day then go for it. Just don’t expect to make $341.67 a day like they promise you in those commercials. You might make a few dollars.  The average person with no experience CAN NOT earn a fortune from passive income. If you wanted to get started with passive income tomorrow, with no capital upfront, then at the most you would make a few dollars a day. You need an established skill set. You need some capital. Passive income will never just appear. It doesn’t matter what your passive income source is. These rules apply to every form of passive income.

/end passive income rant.

Selling an eBook For Profit

The recent trend in the blogging world and passive income society is writing ebooks. It seems like more and more bloggers are putting together ebooks for distribution on their blogs. I myself have been working on an eBook forever but I just can’t focus enough to pump out something that will deliver extreme value to my readers. Until I do I won’t be releasing any products.

Before we dig any further on writing eBooks for profit, let’s look at why eBooks are so popular as a source of  (passive) income:

You control everything.

With an ebook you have full control over the content. Unlike with Google Adsense or affiliates, the buck stops with you. You can’t control Google ads and what type of ad will show up. You could write a post on how much you hate payday loans, and then to your surprise see a bunch of Google ads promoting payday loans. With affiliates you don’t have full control because you never know what a third-party will do. When you create your own product, you simply are in control of everything. From the content to the delivery. An eBook is your baby.

More value to your readers.

When you profit from an ebook you’re more likely to put all of your effort into it. When you put all of your effort into a project, the odds are that you’re going to want to over-deliver. Think of all of your school projects that you were passionate about. Think about those sports events you took extremely seriously. When you work hard at something, others will take notice and they’ll appreciate it. An eBook can add much more value to your readers then some SEO-optimized post on your blog.

Easy to distribute.

An ebook is much easier to distribute than a traditional book. With E-junkie and Paypal it has become ridiculously easy to distribute a digital product to your readers.

The money is yours.

Aside from a few fees for Paypal and E-junkie, the money is all yours. At the end of the day we all need to make money if we want to make a living off this.

Now that we understand the benefits of ebooks as a source of passive income, let’s decide whether the process of writing an ebook is worth it:

Unknown income.

The amount of ebooks you sell and the income you earn is completely unknown. Anything can happen. Your ebook can be a home run or a strike out. You could make $1,000 or zero dollars on the release date.

Plenty of effort upfront.

Writing an eBook takes a boatload of work. You have to spend countless amounts of hours on putting together content. Every time that I’ve attempted to put one together I start off strong and then slowly burn out because of the amount of work involved. All of this work does NOT come with any guarantees. You could work on a project for months and then still fall flat on your face.

Testing the grounds.

Maybe your blog sucks for Google Adsense. Maybe you can’t promote the products of others well enough to make any money. This is why writing an eBook is all about testing the grounds. It’s worth giving it a shot to see if you could make a living off creating digital products. You really have nothing to lose by trying.

What do you guys think about writing an eBook? Is it worth it? Have you tried it?