How to Make Money as a Creator | Three Steps to Creating Passive Income Streams

I’ll discuss how to begin your creator journey without quitting your full-time work. I’ve been a full-time maker for almost a year and a half now, after quitting my job.

To be honest, it was difficult financially; in some months, I made around $7,000. Despite the financial uncertainty, there are many aspects of my profession that I enjoy. The nicest aspect is the freedom — you work for yourself, so you may choose your own hours and work with just people you prefer.

If you’re considering becoming a full-time or part-time creator, I’d like to provide you with a simple road map for getting started and eventually building online income streams.

1. Keep Your 9 To 5 Job

Something I’d want to emphasize straight away is that you don’t have to quit your 9–5 job if you don’t want to. Many creators, like myself, fantasize about being creative and having the freedom it entails, but we rarely discuss how difficult it can be.

There are many ups and downs, and I’ve had several nights where I couldn’t sleep because I was concerned about money. Having a 9–5 job, on the other hand, is a significant advantage because it provides you with a consistent paycheck.

It’s incredibly reassuring to know that you’ll receive a set amount of money each month.

So, keep your daily work and start your creator job as a side project for the nights and weekends.

That being said, let me discuss how you may get started.

It is simple to become a creator; simply write, film, or create something and submit it online. It can be completed in as little as a few hours. Building online income streams, on the other hand, is not easy and might require months or years of consistency.

The plan is to spend 1–3 years developing content and teaching what you know for free in order to build a following and gain trust and credibility.

During this period, you make almost little money because no one wants to give you their money if they don’t know or trust you. This is why it’s critical to keep your day job while starting your creator career as a side endeavor.

After a few years of giving free content, you can create your own items like an online course, ebook, or subscription that will be your primary source of online income.

2. Start Small

My second piece of advice is to start small. You don’t need expensive tools or equipment to start making content. Simply begin with what you currently have and free tools.

There are a plethora of free no-code tools accessible for developers these days. Substack and Revue are two tools for creating a newsletter. They are both free. You can use iMovie or Davinci Resolve to create a YouTube channel.

You may also grow your audience on Twitter, which is, of course, free, by tweeting what you’ve learned every day. You can easily create a website without writing any code by using tools such as Webflow and Notion.

There are hundreds of entirely free ways to create content. So, choose one or two things, to begin with. It may be YouTube and a newsletter, or it could be creating Notion templates and using Twitter.

Begin by doing it as a side project in the evenings and on weekends. After you’ve decided on a project, set aside sometime each week to write, film, tweet, or code on it.

You will not notice any results at first. Nobody will view your first YouTube video if you post it. Similarly, no one will see your first 100 tweets.

But that’s to be expected. It is expected to take a long time. If you’re going to become a full-time creative, I’d advocate saving 6–12 months’ worth of living expenses while you’re working on your side project.

Trying to create ‘perfect’ material, which is unattainable, is a typical issue for many people. You’ll never feel like what you’ve created is flawless, and that’s fine. Instead, strive for ‘good enough.’ When you’re satisfied that what you’ve created is ‘good enough,’ publish it. Because the more quickly you ship and iterate, the more quickly you learn.

“Real artists ship,” says Steve Jobs, and it’s one of my favorite statements. This means that all you have to do is get started and put your work out there. You’ll learn and improve as you go.

Also, you might not want to be ashamed if your friends or family find out, but in my experience, they don’t care about you. They might make a joke about it for a bit, but then they’ll go about their business.

Plus, how dreadful would it be if you couldn’t start doing what you wanted to do because you were too concerned with what other people thought?

3. Monetization

Finally, let us discuss monetization. It takes a long time to start generating money from your work, but once you have an audience, monetization is simple.

So, let’s imagine you’ve finished your task; you’ve spent a few months or a year delivering free content. Then you should have a following of people who appreciate your work. Once you’ve established an audience, begin creating tiny educational information goods such as Notion templates, ebooks, PDF tutorials, or online courses. For example, if you are familiar with marketing, you could create a PDF guide on pricing strategy.

If you enjoy Notion, you can create a plethora of templates. Then, sell these information items on Gumroad or LemonSqueezy for a nominal fee, such as $10 or more. It may appear insignificant, but I’ve seen several entrepreneurs earn a solid internet income from their information items.

Also, even if you don’t have a large audience, you can still make a lot of sales. So that’s how you may start earning money online as a creative. In summary, get started, make a video, tweet, blog article, app, podcast, or anything you want, and keep publishing even if you think it’s rubbish.

Simply assist folks for a few months or a year. Then create and sell a slew of little instructional information goods. That is a straightforward way to make a life as a creative.