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Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#21

Post by luke_s »

atgm wrote: post #8

I published an ebook ( http://www.branchrock.com ) and it's been selling. Since I'll never run out of stock and it's priced as an impulse buy, I expect that it'll continue to earn passively. I got my first dollar on the first day I started selling. I plan to continue writing books, both non-fiction and fiction, and I expect that they'll all help bring in passive income.

Just a suggestion - perhaps you place a sample of the book on your page? A paragraph or two, just so people can see what they are getting. Also it would be good to know how long it is.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#22

Post by getsat »

zzeroparticle wrote: post #16
getsat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. If you're using Wordpress, try one of the Twitter integration plugins. You can choose hashtags when creating a new blog entry and it will be auto-posted to a Twitter account. You should see a bump in traffic after each post.

Thanks! I've actually been doing manual updates to my personal twitter account after each post with a blurb about the latest article. Each tweet is customized rather than a generic auto-update message. I'm just not sure whether this is the best way of going about it or if I should take your suggestion and completely automate it. Maybe create a separate twitter account and do both?

> Maybe create a separate twitter account and do both?

No reason not to. :)

I had a few blogs (well, "autoblogs") go from $5-6/day on 400-500 unique visitors to $10-12 after installing and configuring Twitter Tools. A human touch generally results in higher yield than automation with most marketing stuff, though.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#23

Post by rorrr »

SeoxyS wrote: post #17
phirephly wrote: post #10

I was surprised that just putting an adsense unit on the side of my personal blog (4k hits/month) manages to generate $25/month. It's a highly technical blog, mainly documenting my personal electronics projects, but covers pretty much anything I want it to, which rather limits my readership. Having a more cohesive, single subject would certainly raise the glass ceiling on readership.

I don't know about you, but I don't think $25/mo is worth cheapening my blog by plastering tasteless ads on it. I'd have to be pulling significant income from it before I would even consider putting ads on my blog.

That's $300/year. Why would you throw it away?

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#24

Post by swaits »

SeoxyS wrote: post #17
phirephly wrote: post #10

I was surprised that just putting an adsense unit on the side of my personal blog (4k hits/month) manages to generate $25/month. It's a highly technical blog, mainly documenting my personal electronics projects, but covers pretty much anything I want it to, which rather limits my readership. Having a more cohesive, single subject would certainly raise the glass ceiling on readership.

I don't know about you, but I don't think $25/mo is worth cheapening my blog by plastering tasteless ads on it. I'd have to be pulling significant income from it before I would even consider putting ads on my blog.

Umm, then don't put ads on your blog? Wow.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#25

Post by atgm »

luke_s wrote: post #21
atgm wrote: post #8

I published an ebook ( http://www.branchrock.com ) and it's been selling. Since I'll never run out of stock and it's priced as an impulse buy, I expect that it'll continue to earn passively. I got my first dollar on the first day I started selling. I plan to continue writing books, both non-fiction and fiction, and I expect that they'll all help bring in passive income.

Just a suggestion - perhaps you place a sample of the book on your page? A paragraph or two, just so people can see what they are getting. Also it would be good to know how long it is.

Thanks! I'll think about how to integrate everything nicely during the blackout. Not going to change anything now since I don't want to get caught with my pants down.

Edit: I put a one-page sample on Lulu if you're curious.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#26

Post by fooandbarify »

astrofinch wrote: post #14

In case anyone is reading this thread and becoming pessimistic about their chances of achieving passive income, I'd like to note that there is a clear sampling bias: folks that have found profitable niches are less likely to share their projects for fear of attracting competition. I suspect that choosing a good niche is pretty important when it comes to passive-income type projects. It looks like the most profitable…

My most profitable side project actually plays in an extremely competitive space but I usually stay quiet about it because it's boring, extremely uncool, and borders on sleazy. Anyways, I wrote it in a weekend and it makes me about $400/month.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#27

Post by dangero »

Like someone mentioned, I don't want to increase my competition, so I'm not going to get into the details, but I'll say that I started doing consulting after work in 2007 to bootstrap my own project. I had absolutely no business background.

In 2008 I spent $7000 that I had made off consulting and 8 months of my free time to build my first project. It was a miserable failure. I've made about $80 off of it, so I'm still down about $6920... 3 years later.

In 2009 I built my second attempt. This time I spent about $1000 building it and it took me about 4 months to build it. I've made about $150 off that one, so I still lost money, but much less than the first time.

In 2010 I made my third attempt. This one I built at no cost, and 2 weeks of my free time. To date this one has made over $20,000.

I'm now in the 5th year since I first started on this journey and for the first time, I wrote myself a profit check last month.

Hang in there. You'll figure it out if you keep trying.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#29

Post by zzleeper »

dangero wrote: post #27

Like someone mentioned, I don't want to increase my competition, so I'm not going to get into the details, but I'll say that I started doing consulting after work in 2007 to bootstrap my own project. I had absolutely no business background. In 2008 I spent $7000 that I had made off consulting and 8 months of my free time to build my first project. It was a miserable failure. I've made about $80 off of it, so I'm stil…

Any advice on what changed through time? More focused attempts, better grasp of the demand, or just more productive programming?

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on any side projects that make "small/passive" income?

#30

Post by getsat »

pathik wrote: post #28

If you consider blogging to be a side project, I do make a small amount as passive income. It definitely doesn't compare with web apps or services in terms of coolness, but money is money, right?

In addition to money, it's also likely a focused audience that could be diverted into other potential monetisation vectors you come up with. Ideas are the easy part, getting traffic to them is the hard part.
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