5 Uber-Popular Passive Income Streams That Aren’t Worth the Hassle
How many people will waste time — and money — trying to make these work?
Everyone is looking for easy income. A button to press that allows regular cash to drop into your hands with just a bit of up-front work. I understand the appeal.
The problem is that if you believe such a passive income stream exists, then you’re easy prey for side-hustle scams and snake-oil salespeople.
I’ve built my career as a full-time content creator by trying out as many potential different income streams as possible and sticking with the ones that work. I do only work between 10–15 hours per week, earning around $8k/month. But none of what I do is passive.
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Don’t waste your time on these five passive income streams if you want true financial freedom.
1. Don’t sell an e-book.
“[W]riting a book or eBook is an even better example of passive income [than a blog], as you only need to write it once!” writes a blog post about some passive income ideas that will allegedly make you rich.
It’s true that you’ll make money every time someone buys a copy. And it’s true you only need to write it once. But if you treat that as your business model, you’ll never earn any actual money. You’ll spend a ton of time writing an e-book and then you’ll sit on zero sales. It’s demoralizing.
And lord, do you have to sell a lot of books to make it worth your while. One expert advises you to price your ebook at $2.99, which means you take home $2.09 per book under Amazon’s program. In order to make just the federal minimum wage every month, you’d have to sell over six hundred copies of your book per month.
My conclusion? Not a great passive income idea, despite being on every single “best passive income idea” list.
2. Don’t sell stock content like photos or music.
“If you regularly upload high-quality photos for popular topics, then you could easily start earning $300 — $500 per month or more,” claims one dubious blog post about this very subject.
But the author gets right down to the truth near the end of his article: “To make money consistently you will need to upload lots of high-quality images, research what photos sell, and concentrate on creating the content people want to buy.”
Does that sound passive to you? How many hours of work would you have to put into this scheme to actually make minimum wage? He even specifies that you should upload regularly in order to stay relevant. None of this is passive!
Furthermore, the same author also advises you to drop a cool grand on a good camera to ensure you’re not outcompeted. He also recommends software, lenses, and even courses to take better photos to sell.
You may make some money. Eventually. But despite its popularity, this is just not a good passive income stream and will cost you money in the meantime.
3. Don’t sell a digital course.
I know what you’re thinking. “Zulie, you sell digital courses! More than one!”
I do. But it’s not a passive income stream. I have tried to do it the “passive” way and make very little money from that.
Similar to ebooks, courses can be great because you make them once and sell them potentially unlimited times. But unless you know of a way to magically and effortlessly bring potential customers to your sales page, this is not a passive income idea.
The best “passive” approximation would be to create a course, and then upload it to a platform like Udemy, allowing students to find it through search results. But even so, you still have to ensure the information is current, your keywords are optimized, and your sales page is convincing.
If not? Then you’ve just wasted a lot of time on a passive income stream that will never pay off.
4. Don’t invest in real estate.
As a renter myself, I find it ridiculous that people consider this a good passive income stream. I have to call my landlord just about every week with some kind of issue with the apartment — a heater breaks, the washing machine stops working, water streams in my office from a leaky ceiling.
And I think every person recommending you real estate as a “passive” income source knows the truth, too. One article about the topic suggests that you buy something locally. Why? “You don’t want your first rental to be out-of-state in a place where you can’t regularly check on the condition of the property.” (Emphasis mine.)
It’s also worth mentioning that you need a fair amount of money up front to make this work.
5. Don’t bother with affiliate marketing.
So many people hate sales. (Honestly, you’ll probably never make real money unless you get comfortable with the idea.) Many turn to affiliate links as an alternative. Why create and sell your own products when you can earn money doing it for someone else? Affiliate links allow you to make money when you recommend someone else’s link.
The issue is, again, the top of your funnel. Let’s say you want to make money as an affiliate of books, perhaps with Bookshop.org’s program. If you recommend a book, and someone buys it after they click on your link, you take home a nifty 10% of that sale. Books run from $10–$20, so you’ll earn $1-$2 per sale.
But how do you get enough traffic to get enough clicks to earn enough money? To earn even a hundred dollars from this per month, you’d need 50 people to click and buy a book based on your recommendation. Unless you’re an SEO wiz, or you have a huge pre-existing audience, this won’t happen.
The only actual passive income I’ve ever made is by investing in the S&P500. And even then, it’s not truly passive because, in order for my money to make money, I first have to make money — AKA work.
Every other so-called “passive” income stream will never earn you actual money if you truly treat it as passive.
For instance, I sell a course on-demand. I earn regular income from it, even though I made it nearly a year ago. However, it’s not passive. I create blog posts (active), build my mailing list (active) and market it to that list (active). A lot of this is automated, but it still takes a lot of work to keep running.
Instead of looking for shortcuts, I advise you to pick one stream you think you’ll at least semi-enjoy, and then research the heck out of it. Be prepared to do the work upfront, in the middle, and at the end. Figure out who’s gonna buy from you, and how you can make that number grow.
Any of these streams can be a great source of income, but only if you go through with the effort to make it active. As a passive income stream, they’re worthless to you.
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