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Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

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Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#81

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

Is this $3000 for one book or all four?

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#82

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

The big reason to get a ghost writer is because writing books is easy, editing them is hard. Amazon's search algorithm dings books for every little grammar, wording, and punctuation error. Unless you were an English major, you will spend 75% of your time getting every sentence perfect. Hiring someone to edit costs about the same as hiring someone to write.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#83

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

What kind of topics do you write about? Is it programming/reference material like "Mastering framework X in lang Y"?

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#84

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

The big reason to get a ghost writer is because writing books is easy, editing them is hard. Amazon's search algorithm dings books for every little grammar, wording, and punctuation error. Unless you were an English major, you will spend 75% of your time getting every sentence perfect. Hiring someone to edit costs about the same as hiring someone to write.

A simple line editor shouldn't run you more than $200 for a 30k book.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#85

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

What kind of topics do you write about? Is it programming/reference material like "Mastering framework X in lang Y"?

I won't say what category I focus on, but I will say that programming books don't sell well, in general. Some do quite well, but most don't.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#86
post #81

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

Is this $3000 for one book or all four?

All 4.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#87
post #80

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

There's something about this that just makes me really sad. I guess being in my late 30's I hold on to the flawed notion that there is sanctity in something that is 'published'. Does anyone here want to read a book that wasn't written by an expert on the topic? How upset or sad would you feel if you spend several hours reading a book only to discover it was produced by an opportunist who picked that keyword and asked…

Agreed. Not that Amazon is where I normally buy books anyway, but it makes me think twice baout doing so. Feels like a bit of a dilution of an otherwise well-regarded art form when someone can just be producing arbitrary books. That said, I suppose this isn't new, and has been happening with textbooks forever.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#88

Publish books on Amazon. I've published 4 and make about $3k in profit per month, after paying for ads on amazon. Don't write them yourself, that's a lot of work. Instead, do key word research about what books sell in non-fiction categories (fiction is a whole different ballgame). Look for keywords that 1) auto complete in the amazon search bar, and 2) have less than 4,000 matching books, and 3) have an average Amazo…

You are a Ferengi, we get it.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#89
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be correct if you were managing this property yourself. This would be incorrect if you have a property manager managing this property. You can work with your property manager to auto approve any house related work that is under a certain threshold. Otherwise, they will send you an invoice for you to pay at your convenience. With that said, depending on the property manager, they will do some of the followin…

Sure, but then the property manager charges so much that it's probably not a profitable investment, or at least a much less profitable one. They typically charge a % of the rent, plus another fee for whatever activity they do- x number of dollars to visit the site, x dollars to show the property, x dollars to go to court, manage the contractors, and so on. Now it's 'passive', sure, but no longer an 'investment'

> Now it's 'passive', sure, but no longer an 'investment'

...unless the math adds up and you're still making a profit.

Re: Ask HN: What passive income investments exist to supplement your salary?

#90
post #10

I’ve got a share portfolio that generates a couple bucks a day in short share lending. Literally just tick a box to give broker permission. Nothing is risky free but looked into it and as best as I can tell it’s a pretty good deal. No inconvenience, not much risk etc

I had always assumed they just did that already without permission
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