what is passive income?
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says passive income can come from two sources: rental property or a business in which one does not actively participate, such as being paid book royalties or stock dividends. It's income that takes little or no effort to bring in. There are many different ways to accomplish this and I’m going to give you some great options if you are an artist/creative.
Make money while you sleep!
This doesn’t mean you won’t have to do any work for it at all.
Initially you will need to spend some time getting it set up and often it helps to invest some time into marketing it once in a while. It just means you put in most of the work upfront (with some possible maintenance and refreshing in the future) and then let it make you money.
Top three easy passive income ideas for artists
Prints
Scan or photograph your work and post it as a digital product somewhere like your website. Ensure you have stellar photos and high quality scans. To learn more about how, check out the blog post: Digitizing Your Wood Slice for Extra Revenue.
For a really hands-off approach, another platform like Artsy, Saatchi, Artpal, Society 6, Etsy, Singulart, VISUAL. They do the printing and shipping for you. Often, their audience can find you through the platform itself.
The larger your audience, outside of the platform, the better your prints will do. It will help to talk about them on social media or on your website if you are getting traffic there.
This is a great supplement to your art sales, and provides your audience with a more affordable option for becoming a collector of yours.
Consider selling your art as an NFT if you understand that world!
Teach Online
Make an online course. Record it once and upload it online.
There are many options here. You can upload it to your website (directly on your site or via platforms like teachery) and sell it yourself. This way is not as hands-off, because you will need to market it and talk about it for people to know it exists and thus purchase it.
The second option is to upload it to a third party platform that includes an audience like skilllshare, domestika, etc. They do the marketing for you and already have a client-base. You can (and should) boost the exposure and market it yourself on your site and socials. These platforms do not require you to have anything else, but a good high quality and informative video.
A third option is YouTube. You need to meet some criteria and be active on the platform to start making money, so if you are already rocking it on YouTube, perhaps this is the place you want your lessons to live.
Any of these options can bring in more clientele and provide you with more steady passive income.
Affiliate links
Affiliate marketing is selling another businesses products or services to earn a commission on their sales that used your link.
Link to all the supplies you use, all the tools you own, and materials you love! Make friends with the companies that you know and love and get links directly from them or use affiliate links through amazon.
You still have to put in the effort to talk about it, but once it is setup in the right places, it should do the work for you to give you steady passive income.
REMEMBER to only share links to things that make sense for your business, that you like/use, and/or that your audience will like. You want to be creating that win/win/win situation for your audience, the company you are sending your audience to, and yourself. Don’t share items/businesses that you don’t believe in or don’t make sense for your brand!
You can also check out the 5 Revenue Streams for your Wood Burning Business blog post for some opportunities to make your hobby into a thriving business!