4 Passive Income Ideas: Artists, Investors, Side Hustlers and Creatives

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Passive income or residual income streams for beginners, artists and creatives that are not too difficult to set up.

Passive income is money you make from a product or investment after you have done the initial work. It’s not easy money. It’s passive income derived from your work, which was mainly done previously.

Some passive income sources take more work and time than others. Some of these sources may require more initial money outlays than others.

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Are you a photographer looking to make passive income? Here is a list of 5 ways to make passive income with a photography blog.

4 Passive Income Ideas for artists, side hustlers, creatives and investors

The one thing that all these passive income sources have in common is a technology platform allowing things to happen. Therefore, you need to be comfortable and trust the platform you chose.

Patreon – Online residual income for creatives, artists and side hustlers

Patreon is a platform that allows artists and creators to earn money via membership style business. The platform provides the technology and the meeting place between artists and the public.

Are you looking for: Passive income for illustrators? Revenue streams for visual artists? or Passive income streams for creative artists? Patreon may be a platform to consider.

Also, podcasters, video creators, musicians, visual artists, gaming creators, education and tutorials creators and writers can all participate in Patreon income plans.

You create and grow an audience. The patrons in the audience pay for membership to your creations’ page. The larger your patrons base, the more money you will make.

The site Patreon retains a percentage fee for using its platform. This fee depends on the level you have signed up for. There are three levels ; Lite, Pro and Premium. The fees are; 5%, 8% and 12% respectively.

Important – -By selecting to upload your creative work to a platform, you are giving up some control over it. It’s important to understand your rights and the platform’s rights as well. Read the Terms of Use carefully.

In a way Patreon is similar to crowdsourcing. Since a crowd or audience funds the works of artists and creators. It’s a way of funding small to large creative works with small payments. This is why the larger the audience, the more income you can earn.

For example, at an average of $2.00 a contribution with an audience size of 7,000, a creative can gross $14,000 per month. This is before the fees charged by Patreon.

P2P lending – Passive income for Investors

P2P or peer-to-peer lending has been around for a while and has become very popular. Students loans, business loans and personal loans are some of the lending happening at P2P platforms.

In this arrangement, there is a platform facilitating the meeting between borrowers and lenders (investors). P2P has grown considerably since its beginnings.

People in need of loans are bypassing the banks and going directly to investors/lenders. Cutting the middleman, the bank, may give borrowers access to money with less restrictions. Typically, banks have to be restrictive due to regulations, whereas P2P lenders have more freedom.

Making passive income with P2P involves opening an investing account in one of the lending platforms. As an investor, you essentially become the bank and earn a fixed rate on your money. You also bear the risk of capital loss.

P2P platforms include; the Lending Club, Prosper Marketplace, Funding Circle and Peerform. There are many other P2P networks you can join as an investor.

Each P2P platform offers different types of loans, some are specialized. The platforms also do the background investigations on the borrowers. As an investor, you decide which borrowers to do business with.

Self Publishing – Online passive income for writers and creatives

Passive income is earned from selling your ebooks or hard copy books. Before the internet it was difficult to publish your own books. The internet has democratice the process of publishing.

As a writer or creative, you can self publish a book without having a platform, like a blog. This, however, means that you need other form of marketing for your book. A social media following will help, specially if your followers are interested in the book’s topic.

You can create your own blog or landing page for your publishing, here I show you how to in 8 easy steps.

Some of the popular self-publishing platforms include; Amazon, Smashwords, Lulu, Barnes&Noble, CreateSpace, Kobo. There are other self-publishing platforms for your books.

Bonus: Blogging is a way to start your own business and to earn passive income. Also, blogging offers the flexibility of working from home that many look for.

If creating your blog is something you want to try, here I show you how to create your own blog in 8 steps

Real Estate Crowdsourcing – Passive income for investors

A real estate crowdfunding platform works with projects sponsors to offer investors the opportunity to invest directly in new developments. These platforms provide the technology and accessibility to the crowdfunding market.

Related Content: How to do crowdfunding real estate

The number of platforms have been increasing in the last few years. Fundrise, Rich Uncle and Realty Mogul, PeerStreet are some of the platforms to invest in Real Estate Crowdfunding.

Real Estate Crowdfunding provides equity and debt direct investments. You can start investing in RE crowdfunding with as little as $1,000. These platforms claim that on average the rate of return to the investor is around 5% to 15%.

Always do your research on the company you plan to do business with. Understand that these investments carry risks and are not as liquid as investing in the Stock Market.

Real Estate crowdfunding is an option for investors who want to diversify away from the Stock Market and also want some passive income as returns, without owning physical properties.

Above you have 4 unique ways to make passive income as a creative, writer, side hustler or investor. You have to do the work or put up the capital upfront, in order to make passive income later.

Passive income is not the same as easy money. However, some passive income sources are not difficult to set up. You have to evaluate your strengths and your goals before deciding where to put your efforts and your capital.

If you’re interested in a passive income source, the key is to start somewhere. If you don’t start, you’ll always be at 0 passive income dollars. Mark a date on your calendar, cancel everything else on your to-do-list and begin work on your passive income or business idea.