Money and work-life balance are key reasons people choose to freelance. By pursuing passive income, they can have better control over both.

Creating a work-life balance is a top reasons why people freelance.

Freelancing is generally associated with billing per hour or payment on a per project basis. While this enables you to earn more and gives you more control over your working hours, you are still exchanging valuable time for money.

Enter passive income. Popularised by bestselling author Tim Ferriss’ book, ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’, this term describes a source of income that, once established, continues to generate money with minimal extra effort.

That’s right: while you’re sat on the beach drinking a piña colada, the money keeps rolling in. And you don’t have to raise a finger.

So what options are there for someone looking to improve their work-life balance via passive income?

Photo by Form and blog by Lauren Stevens

Get your work-life balance!

If you have a popular blog, website or social media profile, advertising affiliate products is a quick way to monetise pre-existing resources.

Simply ask contacts if they’d be willing to pay for a banner on your website, a feature on your blog, social media coverage or otherwise. Not only will you make money from initiating the deal, but you will also get a commission on every item sold through you.

And to make it even more comfortable, websites like Buy Sell Ads can automate the process.

Putting together a guide or eBook using PDF software is an easy and popular method to secure passive income. Some even make $3000 each month selling eBooks!

You don’t even have to be good at writing - you can hire a ghostwriter if necessary. The most important thing is to know a niche that people want to learn about.

Once the work is done, the money will keep coming in every time someone downloads the product without any further input from you. However, you will still have to market the eBook to secure sales and establish yourself as an authority in the subject.

Technological advances mean online learning is ever more accessible. The industry has boomed and offers a pretty much limitless source of earning potential as courses can be accessed by anyone, anywhere.

Creating an online course does require up-front time and investment, but once published it can become a reliable income stream with little extra effort.

Plus, by building an online community around the course, for instance, via a Facebook group, you can nurture a community of loyal online followers for your brand.

A membership site is when people pay a subscription to access a website, tools, information, a forum or otherwise.

Once your site is up and working there is little you have to do other than maintain the site and moderate the discussion, giving you more time to focus on family, friends, hobbies and other projects.

Those with a creative flair can make designs and sell them on third-party websites as a source of passive income. This could be anything including vectors, prints, shirts and WordPress templates.

Once uploaded, these will continue to generate income without any extra effort from your end. And to amplify earnings and avoid third-party fees, you can even create your website to market your products, but this will require more time and effort upfront.

Those with the gift of the gab can skyrocket earnings through vlogging and making their own YouTube channel.

With 2 billion monthly users across the world, YouTube is rich in potential for reaching a broad audience, accumulating a following and building a source of passive income.

Every 1000 views of a channel earn you money, and once a video is uploaded, it continues to accumulate views without you doing a thing.

It does, of course, take effort to build a following, but once you have the earning potential is vast. According to Forbes, the top 10 YouTube stars earned an aggregate $162 million between June 2018 and 2019, with the highest earner raking in $26 million!

 

Successful, passive income can multiply your income and improve your work-life balance. But, you will notice it still requires some effort: to make the content of value and to maintain and market your product.

That is, of course, unless you pay someone to do this.