Are you looking for profitable side hustle ideas?
It’s not a good idea to depend on one income source. If you’re working a full-time job, you could lose it and find yourself scrambling to pay the bills.
That happened to me back in 2008 when I was a freelance journalist dependent on one client. It happened again in 2012 when a charity I was working for let me go.
Even if you don’t depend on your employer, profitable creatives avoid trading all their time for money. They create assets that help them focus on what they love making without worrying about paying the bills.
You can too.
Writers Work contains freelance writing opportunities for writers who want to start their career
Contents
- What Side Hustle Skills Should You Learn?
- 1. Writing On Medium
- 2. Freelance Writing
- 3. Self-Publishing
- 4. Creating an Online Course
- 5. Starting a Newsletter
- 6. Producing and Selling an Audiobook
- 7. Becoming an Affiliate Marketer
- 8. Building an Authority or Niche Website
- 9. Building Your Personal Brand
- Picking the Best Side Hustle for Creatives
- Resources
- Author
What Side Hustle Skills Should You Learn?
Several side hustle skills are important, including:
- Building and maintaining a website: Learn WordPress…
- Outsourcing and collaboration: …or hire someone who knows WordPress.
- Marketing: Combine marketing with writing, and you’ll be one step ahead of many creatives.
- Copywriting: Write words that sell your services or products.
- Validating business ideas: Avoid spending time or money creating products people don’t want.
- Personal productivity: The responsibility to get stuff done lies with you.
- Metrics and analytics: What gets measured gets managed.
You’ll need to become more comfortable asking hard, qualitative questions about your business or side hustle too, like:
- What should I do more or less?
- What’s working right now?
- What’s not working?
You can start a side hustle relatively quickly, but scaling into a highly profitable business takes time. Don’t worry if you lack these skills today. Acquire them by doing.
In this guide, I’ll cover nine types of easy side hustle ideas for introverts and creatives.
1. Writing On Medium
If you write nonfiction, Medium is the ideal place to start a side gig. Between 85 and 100 million members or readers interested in topics like entrepreneurship, writing, creativity, artificial intelligence, and personal development read Medium articles.
Writing on Medium is a way of finding, refining, and testing your writing in front of an audience without the technical parts of running a website. To get paid, join the Medium Partner Program.
Medium Partner Program members typically earn over a hundred dollars a month, minimum. Top Medium writers earn five figures a month.
Services to try:
If you want to sound like a top-level writer on Medium … you don’t need to try anything! Simply read a few great books about writing.
If you still need help, invest in a premium grammar checker like Grammarly.
It will help you find and fix errors in your writing and check for matters of style in a way that traditional spelling or grammar checkers can’t.
Resources and further reading
Earning potential
Three to five figures a month
Difficulty rating
1/5
2. Freelance Writing
Freelance writing is a good side hustle idea because you can work on freelance articles and projects in the morning, evening or at the weekend.
I’ve worked on and off as a freelance writer over the years writing for magazines, websites and more, recently Forbes.
I’d encourage picking one or two areas to specialize in. I usually write about creativity, leadership, and productivity. Business-to-business freelance copywriters are always in demand. They earn six figures a year easily, with the caveat that the subject matter is often bland.
This focus will help you build authority in a particular area and find more clients for your side gig.
Services to try
If you want to become a freelance writer, consider trying FlexJobs, SolidGigs, or Bonsai. All of these feature freelance writing jobs. Alternatively, sell freelance writing services on UpWork.
Resources and further reading
Flexjobs Review: Is It Worth It?
Earning potential
A freelance writer can easily earn an extra $500 each month without a lot of effort. A good writer could earn $3,000 – $5,000 per month.
Difficulty rating
2/5
3. Self-Publishing
I’ve always gotten a kick out of self-publishing. I love that authors today don’t have to ask for permission to press publish. It’s a great side hustle-from-home idea. Within a few months, you can write, edit and sell a professional book that builds your name and authority as a writer.
Selling nonfiction books on Amazon is harder than genre fiction, but still, you can earn over a thousand dollars each month with some work.
Services to try
It’s hard to self-publish a professional book without help. Try 99designs or Logomaker for a book cover. Use Reedsy to find an editor and proofreader.
Resources and further reading
How to Make an Audiobook and Self Publish on Audible Today
The Real Cost of Self-Publishing a Book: What New Writers Need to Know
The Art of Writing a Non-Fiction Book
Earning potential
Writing a book isn’t the fastest route to earning more money. My first book earned less than $100 per month. After I published four books, I broke $1,000 per month.
Difficulty rating
4/5
4. Creating an Online Course
If you’ve written a nonfiction book or have an email list of readers, consider creating an online course. It’s relatively easy to transform individual book chapters into lessons that solve problems for paying students.
Although many popular online courses include videos and presentations, I’ve taken courses delivered over email or through audio.
Some writers feel like transforming their work into a course is derivative, but people like learning in different ways. Top creatives and authors currently teaching courses include James Patterson, David Mamet, Malcolm Gladwell, and Margaret Atwood.
Services to try
I create, host, and sell my online courses using Teachable. That service is affordable. Teachable takes care of everything from managing the tax to some customer support.
Resources and further reading
Teachable Review: Is It Worth It?
Earning potential
Three to four figures per course or launch.
Difficulty rating
3/5
5. Starting a Newsletter
A newsletter is a great way to build a relationship directly with readers. I recently subscribed to several newsletters via Substack. Hamish McKenzie, Christopher Best, and Jairaj Sethi set up Substack in 2017. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company raised $15.3 million in funding this past July.
You can create a free or paid newsletter about almost any topic.
I recently subscribed to the newsletter Flowstate for $39.99 annually. Each day they email music, tracks, and playlists that help cultivate a state of flow. Other Substack newsletters range between $5 and $15 a month.
Attract several hundred paying subscribers, and your newsletter will become a profitable side hustle. Substack cites the example of a newsletter writer with 800 paying subscribers. If subscribers paid just $7 each month, the newsletter writer could earn $4,400 per month.
McKenzie told me, “If you can get 10,000 people to pay you money for a subscription newsletter, then you can not only support yourself, but you can get pretty wealthy.”
Substack isn’t a requirement for starting a newsletter. A good email service provider like ConvertKit can work too.
Services to try
Substack or ConvertKit
Resources and further reading
How Newsletters Make Money for Writers with Hamish McKenzie of Substack
Is Starting a Newsletter Your Passport to Riches?
The Blank Page – my newsletter
Earning potential
Two-to-three figures per month, although those maths scale upwards if your newsletter takes off.
Difficulty rating
2/5
6. Producing and Selling an Audiobook
As good side hustle ideas go, selling audiobooks will help supplement your income. In 2019, audiobook sales increased by 43% in the United Kingdom alone.
I’ve produced and published several audiobooks over the past few years. I recorded one at home, and I hired narrators for others.
It’s easier to narrate nonfiction than fiction, as no voices or accents are required. You’ll need a good microphone, a quiet room, and patience. Hire a producer who can prepare the audio files for services like ACX.
If that sounds like too much work, outsource the creation of an audiobook via ACX; however, you’ll still need to review the audio and identify errors.
Resources and further reading
How to Make and Record an Audiobook
Earning potential
Three figures per month. Again, more books equal more opportunities to find paying readers.
Difficulty rating
3/5
7. Becoming an Affiliate Marketer
What products do you use, love or trust? Consider turning your answers into articles, guides, podcasts or videos. If you have a website or readers, you could write about these products and services and how you use them.
Many top influencers got their start through affiliate marketing. For example, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income earned five figures per month as an affiliate for web hosting company Bluehost and other services.
On Become a Writer Today, I offer discounts for writing services I trust, like Grammarly, and I earn a commission if a reader signs up.
Services to try
If you’re looking for products to promote, consider joining Amazon Associates, ShareASale, Rakuten Marketing, Impact Radius or Clickbank.
Affiliate marketers should also invest in email marketing software like ConvertKit. This type of software will help you follow up on informational articles with discounts and deals for your audience.
Resources and further reading
Earning potential
Four to five figures a month. Top affiliate marketers earn over seven figures a year.
Difficulty rating
4/5
8. Building an Authority or Niche Website
An authority website covers a broad topic like writing. For example, Become a Writer Today is an authority website that helps readers build authority and earn more money.
I started a technology blog back in 2008 and gave up. I started another productivity blog back in 2013 and gave up on that one as well.
I started Become a Writer Today in 2014, but it took another year before I earned an income from it and even longer to find an ideal audience.
A niche website covers a specific topic in detail. For example, Own The Yard reviews outdoor games, equipment, and tools. Niche site owners understand SEO deeply.
They often sell these sites on Australian sites Flippa or Empire Builders for four, or even five, figures. It’s a nice side-job-from-home idea, as niche sites don’t require a lot of work once they’ve attracted website traffic.
You can supplement earnings on an authority site via additional services like coaching, teaching, selling books and so on. A niche website typically monetises through ads and Amazon associates. It’s possible to combine elements of both sites.
Services to try
- Siteground web-hosting
- ConvertKit
- Astra web themes
- Ahrefs, which can help you grow traffic through SEO
Resources and further reading
Earning potential
Four-to-five figures a month. If you attract more qualified web traffic, earnings from ads or Amazon associates will increase.
Difficulty rating
4/5 for a niche site
5/5 for an authority site
9. Building Your Personal Brand
Personal branding is more important than ever. It reflects what you say and how you say it.
Mike Dillard, Ramit Sethi, and Marie Forleo are three examples of online influencers who get personal branding right.
Mike Dillard’s homepage explains,
“I help entrepreneurs start and grow the businesses of their dreams.” He even asks readers a series of questions like, “Do you struggle to make sales and get new customers?” and “Could you use a guide to show you the ropes?” These questions help readers establish if Dillard –– and his paid materials –– is for them.
On his site, Sethi promises to teach his followers to lead a rich life through entrepreneurship, finding a great job or changing their mindset. A while ago, I interviewed Sethi, and he told me:
“When it comes to starting an online business, there are so many things you could focus on –– a fancy-looking website, building Instagram followers, brainstorming the products you can sell, or the ultimate copy that can increase your conversion rate by 0.049% –– but all those don’t matter if no one is willing to pay you for your skills!”
Finally, Marie Forleo helps her followers become “the person you most want to be.” She targets mostly female entrepreneurs with videos on MarieTV.
You can monetize a personal brand by offering coaching, books, courses, and more.
Resources and further reading
What Most Writers Get Wrong About Personal Branding
Services to try
- Siteground web-hosting
- ConvertKit
Picking the Best Side Hustle for Creatives
You’re probably wondering what type of side hustle you should start to make money. The simple fact is many lucrative side hustle ideas are available for introverts and creatives.
Pick one that resonates with your area of expertise or interests. Set aside 5 or 10 hours a week to build, test and refine your side hustle idea.
Learning how to make money on the side isn’t something you can do alone. Take courses from others who’ve already achieved your goals. Study what works. Discard the rest.
Keep metrics to your side hustle in place so you can figure out what to spend more time on. When you start to earn a little money from it, invest that income back into the business so you can scale. For example, you could improve your branding or hire a contractor who takes care of technical headaches.
Ultimately, your side hustle could become a full-time gig or something you sell for profit.
The choice is yours.
Resources
- Where to find easy part-time jobs
- Where to find writing jobs
- Top freelance job ideas
- Writers Work review
- Best freelance writing websites
