How I Created 12 NEW Passive Income Streams in 1 Year
Step-by-step breakdown and full income results!
In 2023 I took on my most difficult New Year’s resolution yet. I set out to build 12 passive income streams in one year via twelve 30-day passive income challenges.
I’m here to proudly say, I completed it.
For half of the challenges, I tried to recreate my past success but do it faster and better. For the other half, I took on brand new passive income stream opportunities I’ve always been interested in.
The only rule: I wouldn’t go back to any project once the month was up.
If you’re reading this because you’re also interested in generating passive income, you’re in the right place. Today I’ll share all to help you spark a passive income idea, hopefully inspire you, and teach you what not to do in some cases.
I’m going to cover:
- the 12 passive income streams I built
- exactly how I built each
- my wins you can replicate
- the lessons I learned the hard way (so you don’t have to!)
- 2 bonus passive income streams
- plus, full income results in the end
Spoiler: Some of my 30-day challenges weren’t successful. But there were also many big wins and plenty of learnings along the way.
Let’s get to the streams month by month… (watch this article via YouTube here)
JANUARY: A brand new YouTube channel “Passive Income Resolution”
The goal: Get monetized and earn at least $1 by the end of the year.
Since I have monetized a channel before with “The Money Resolution” (which took me 2.5 years) I wanted to take a new, different approach. I set out to get monetized by hopping on the YouTube Shorts bandwagon.
Since Shorts was relatively new, YouTube has been pushing Shorts videos quite a bit. Competing with TikTok has clearly become a priority for YouTube in recent years. I decided to make 4 YouTube Shorts a day for the month of January.
And I did! I made 125 Shorts videos in the end.
However, I made a big mistake. I failed to read the partner program requirements closely. To get monetized from YouTube Shorts alone you need 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days. Looking at my data two weeks in (30k views), I knew this would be near impossible without a mega-viral video.
I was forced to pivot and focus on long-form content. I tried to hack watch hours with two hour-long videos. I made weekly long-form updates. And I committed to documenting each challenge going forward.
At the end of the year, I unfortunately did not get my new channel monetized. I crushed the subscriber requirement and ended up with over 2,700 (you only need 1,000). However, I’m only about 70% of the way to the 4,000 watch-hour requirement. I’ll likely get there in another few months if I continue posting.
Only 4 of my 28 videos reached 1,000 views. My big win was one video that received over 20,000 views. Realistically, I needed one more video to pop to get monetized last year but alas, no dice. Yet!
FEBRUARY: Alternative Investing
The Goal: Double my investment
I took on alt investing because it’s something I’ve always been interested in but I wasn’t sure where to start. Plus, I know alts can be risky but I could finally fully focus on it.
I planned to invest $500 into one alt investment. However, during research, I got too excited about a dozen or so opportunities I found across many different sectors and investment types.
I pivoted and decided to invest $100 into 5 different alt investments. That removed several options because some required hundreds to get started. Here are the 5 alt investments I eventually chose:
- Mainvest. It allowed me to invest in a local business. I chose a new brewery restaurant north of Seattle.
- Rally. It allowed me to invest in collectibles. I loved navigating the app and looking at all the fun options, especially sports memorabilia.
- Vint. It allowed me to invest in a wine collection. Vint is a competitor to Vinovest with a much lower minimum to get started.
- Fundrise. It allowed me to invest in real estate.
- Prosper. It allowed me to invest via peer-to-peer lending.
As with most investments, it may take years to enjoy my returns. My goal is to double my $500 within 3 years. All of my money is still invested so I haven’t enjoyed any returns. As of now, I estimate my investments have grown by roughly $19. Some are up. Some are down.
MARCH: Online Courses
The Goal: Create a second course and earn $1,000 in course passive income in one year.
In 2020, I created my first online course Save Money Resolution, and decided to host it on my own website via Kajabi.
Since launch, I earned $451 in 3 years prior to this challenge. It’s not much because I rarely promoted it. I have always been happy with the course content but I wasn’t nearly as confident on camera. So, I first decided to refilm the entire 2.5-hour course and upload new and improved videos.
I also wanted to see how my course would do on a site dedicated to online courses. After research, I decided to post my new and improved Save Money Resolution course on Udemy. Two weeks into the month, both tasks were done.
In the final two weeks of March, I attempted a brand new mini-course. Choosing the topic was difficult. I remembered I had several videos about Medium that had a lot of views and interaction. So, a Medium mini-course is what I decided.
Most were interested in getting started and making money so I combined the two and called it Medium Income Quickstart Masterclass. It’s roughly an hour, 5 modules, and takes people from total Medium beginner to earning money in 30 days or less. It includes all my best tips, tricks, hacks, and resources throughout. I’m very proud of it. It’s on my site and Udemy.
So far I’ve earned $822 from my two courses on two sites.
Not too shabby, especially considering I wasn’t able to promote them much because I was very quickly onto…
APRIL: Stock Photography
The Goal: Make at least $1 from original stock photos online
I was most excited about this challenge and it turns out, others were too. My two stock photography video recaps were my most watched YouTube videos of the year.
I planned this challenge for April because we had a family vacation planned for Mexico. I loved the idea of documenting the trip so well with a ton of photos and videos. Plus, I thought beautiful scenic shots of Mexico could be a hit online.
Each morning I got up before sunrise and walked about the community. I also took my camera with me everywhere we went and made sure to get dozens of shots at every location. Back home, I went around my neighborhood and took another few hundred photos.
All told I ended up with nearly 1,000 photos and videos. I decided to upload 600 of my best photos onto two different sites: Adobe and Shutterstock. In the end, I got 392 photos accepted and uploaded onto the sites.
To date, I’ve earned a combined $12.71.
That’s 12x more than $1 so I call it a win as a total beginner. I learned a ton about taking photos and editing photos. Plus, I got outside and got some exercise so I had a blast.
It’s definitely a project I’ll come back to in the future. I didn’t end up uploading any videos so that would be next to learn about and focus on.
MAY: Audiobook
The goal: Produce the audiobook for my most recent book “Save Half, Retire Fast”
This challenge was all about tackling a tedious project I had been putting off for more than a year: finally recording my third audiobook. My two previous audiobooks taught me how difficult the process is, hence why I had been putting it off.
More difficult this time around: my third book is close to 300 pages. My first book was 150 pages. My second book was 200 pages. So 290 felt daunting. However, it was a great excuse to buy myself a nice new microphone as a business expense and off I went…
Instead of tackling the whole book in a one-weekend grind as I did before — I spread the work out. I put in one to two hours of work every few days. In the end, I regretted that decision because it felt like the project was always hanging over my head.
Needless to say, I got the job done. My audiobook was uploaded by the end of the month and live on Audible roughly a week later.
I was able to sell around 40 copies for $149 in passive income so far with little to no promotion.
JUNE: Low-Content Books
The goal: Produce 10 low-content books for sale on Amazon and sell at least 1 copy of each
I thought about making no-content books such as blank journals or planners but I realized the genre was very saturated on Amazon. It would be nearly impossible to stand out from the crowd.
I landed on low-content books instead because I wanted readers to learn something. I decided to post them under my name so they needed to be related to personal finance — the topic of my prior books.
I brainstormed a big list of ideas, ranked them, and got to work. Technically I outsourced the work using ChatGPT. Leveraging AI was a big reason I went the low-content book route. It was a good excuse to use ChatGPT for the first time and I had a ton of fun doing so.
If only there was a great free AI tool for making all the individual book covers… but I digress.
In the end, I made a handful of guides for my courses and books, a list of things to do in early retirement, a budget planner, a 30-day money guide, and more.
Sales-wise… they flopped. Again, I didn’t promote these at all and the sales reflect that.
I sold a total of 2 copies from 2 books and I earned $9.
JULY: Affiliate marketing
The goal: Get a channel sponsor and get approved as an affiliate partner with 10 brands.
This is a complex topic to cover quickly so definitely watch my video recap if this topic interests you.
Here’s the gist in five steps:
Step 1: I needed to get approved and accepted into as many affiliate programs as I could. I was accepted into Commission Junction, Awin, Impact, and Ascend. I was rejected by Share-a-Sale and FlexOffers.
Step 2: I created a list of roughly 100 dream partner brands — products I use and businesses I admire.
Step 3: I researched to figure out if these brands have an affiliate program and, if so, which affiliate platform they used.
Step 4: I applied to dozens of brands individually via these platforms.
Step 5: If accepted, I tried to figure out how to promote products and services to earn passive income.
In the end, I was accepted by 11 brands and I got two brands to formally sponsor a video (Vint and Unagi).
I’ve earned $260 in commissions to date, plus a free product.
AUGUST: Cashback Credit Cards
The goal: Open 2 or more new credit cards and start earning cash back
The first 7 months of very hard challenges were starting to take a toll on me so I needed something much easier for August. Plus, it was my birthday month and I wanted to enjoy the last bit of sunshine of the year in the Seattle area as much as possible!
I’m big into travel credit cards but I don’t have any cashback credit cards. So, I reflected on my biggest spending categories and the stores I shop at the most. This led me to two cashback cards to apply for:
Both cards come with zero annual fee, which was a requirement for me.
We spend a decent amount at Amazon and a good amount at Costco already. With a baby on the way, we figured spending at both of these stores would increase in the years to come.
With the Costco card I now earn 4% back on all Costco purchases (it’s 2% for the card and 2% for being an Executive Member). With Prime Visa, I earn 5% back on Amazon and earn slightly less elsewhere.
The point is, don’t overlook credit cards as an easy way to earn passive income with regular spending annually — as long as you are very responsible with them.
In 6 months I have earned $110 from these two new cashback credit cards.
SEPTEMBER: Self-publishing via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing
The goal: Write my 4th book in less than 30 days and get it up for preorder
I always planned to write this book in 2023 so I made it a challenge. I wanted to take it on in November because that’s NaNoWriMo month which stands for National Novel Writing Month. I pivoted to September for reasons I’ll explain soon…
I had been sitting on a book outline for over a year. It wasn’t a “how to money” book. It was a “money mindset book”. I eventually landed on the title “Ready, Money Mindset, GO!”
Luckily, I spent most of 2022 making money mindset videos so I had plenty of content already written. In fact, I turned dozens of those YouTube videos into articles here on Medium so I had polished chapters ready to go!
I decided to create my book without help from others for the first time. I organized my chapter ideas, wrote my introduction and conclusion, and I spent two weeks editing. Editing is a grind so I pretty quickly regretted not hiring help! I also took on the book cover design and here is how it turned out.
I’m super proud of this book and although I created it in 30 days, it was a year and a half of work in the making. I hope you’ll check it out on Amazon! (*results coming soon below)
OCTOBER: Promote my new book without spending money
The Goal: Get 25 reviews in the first 90 days.
You may have heard me say a couple of times that I wasn’t as successful as I hoped to be because I didn’t promote my work.
I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
This is why I decided to write my book in September — I wanted it done before October so I could spend two months promoting it until the release date: December 1st.
In October I took on organic, meaning free, marketing. (Yes, it might be questionable to call marketing passive income but it’s my project so I make the rules!)
Starting October I made a list of 30 ideas for ways I could promote my book for free. From experience, I knew it was most important to focus on getting quality book reviews. This gives the book more legitimacy and helps boost overall book sales over time.
To earn reviews, I created a book launch team. This is getting a group of people excited to read my book early and for free in exchange for a review the week of launch on Amazon.
I set an ambitious goal to get 30 people to join. I ended up with 45! I found these people via friends and family on social media, my email list of 2,500 subscribers, and posting on Medium asking for help.
In the end, I earned 15 book reviews the week of launch and it’s currently at 20 with a 4.9 star rating. I didn’t get to 25 as I hoped but I’m well on my way.
The book launch team was a lot of work to grow and manage. I also took on 18 free strategies you see below so it was an exhausting but exciting month!
NOVEMBER: Promote my new book with a $1,000 marketing budget
Sell 1,000 copies in the first 90 days — very ambitious!
Before I could get started promoting my book with paid strategies and a $1,000 budget, we welcomed our first son Wesley into the world in the afternoon of November 1st. I was elated, consumed by him, and losing sleep daily but it was easily the best moment of the year (and my life). I worked on paid marketing when I could but I was obviously distracted — and still am — for good reason!
In the end, I promoted my book via a promo site Bargain Booksy, via Amazon advertising, via NetGalley, and crucially on BookBub. My book actually selected by BookBub editors to be featured as a New Release for Less. That’s the top book site for book deals so that was a thrill!
Was all this organic and paid marketing worth it? Was I successful? Again, I got to 20+ reviews much faster than ever. My book was featured on BookBub. I did earn the coveted #1 new release badge on Amazon. I peaked at #2 in my category behind The Psychology of Money, the book that inspired mine. And I love what I created. It’s my favorite book to date.
However, I’m sitting right at 100 sales 55 days in equalling a total of $272 in income.
Since I spent roughly $1,000 to promote it I’m in the red by $718. I’ll get it back eventually but… ouch.
While I think the content of the book is awesome, the problem might be that I didn’t have a real hook like “Save Half, Retire Fast”. Or people just don’t read books anymore…
DECEMBER: TikTok
The Goal: Have one video go viral that mentions my book so I could sell 1,000 copies
TikTok has been on my radar for years so I finally gave it a go. I wanted to end the year with something fun. I didn’t set my goal to get into the partner program because it sounded nearly impossible according to the terms.
Instead, I learned all about #BookTok and decided to leverage TikTok as another way to promote my new book for 30 more days. I created an author TikTok handle, committed to 3 videos a day, and got to work.
With 3 daily videos, I bit off more than I could chew with a newborn. A week in, I started reposting YouTube shorts just to get by. Before I knew it, my account became more about passive income via old Shorts than it was about my book and money mindset.
In the end, I ended up with 125 followers and close to 1,000 likes on my videos but I learned the hard way it’s not a great way to promote your own book.
The real trick is to get your book or product in the hands of TikTok influencers who often go viral because word of mouth is powerful on the platform. If I had focused on that strategy, instead of making my own content, I would have been better off.
BONUS STREAMS
In the beginning, I mentioned two bonus passive income streams I created.
The first was a Patreon I started back in January.
I peaked at 7 Patreon subscribers and earned $243 in 2023 total.
They got access to all kinds of things but most importantly they got access to my working passive income Google Sheet I’ve been showing throughout today’s article.
If you also want access to my document with all of my research notes, tips, thought processes, results, and more — you can subscribe HERE.
My 14th passive income stream was Medium. For years I have been turning each of my YouTube videos into polished articles over on Medium. 2023 was no exception.
I posted 33 articles in 2023 and earned $1,436 from those new articles on Medium.
That was almost double my best 30-day challenge so I’m glad I did that.
FINAL RESULTS
The big reveal is I earned a total of $3,333 from the passive income streams I was able to create.
My personal goal was $5,000 so I got 67% of the way there. Technically, I also spent money (around $1,300) but those are business expenses and money I typically spend on my projects.
$3,333 isn’t a ton of money but there are some positive caveats to call out: My YouTube channel could still get monetized. My investments will pay off down the line. And then the biggest caveat of all — most months I built an ongoing passive income stream.
The book, articles, photos, credit cards, courses, audiobook, partnerships, and more will continue to generate income for years to come. I did the work once, now I’ll continue to earn money with little to no effort going forward. It may not be a lot, but it’s something.
And I’m damn proud of it all.
FINAL THOUGHTS
That’s the main thing I want to say in the end… I’m proud that I actually completed my New Year’s resolution. I set a huge goal. I broke it down month by month. I remained organized and committed. And dammit, I freaking did it.
Yes, I failed some months and succeeded in others but I am proud of it all and most of all, I’m proud I pulled this massive article together and helped break it down for you so you know what mistakes to avoid and what successes you can replicate. I hope you feel motivated to build a passive income stream or two yourself.
Do you need 12 streams? Probably not. I don’t recommend the approach I took. Start with one and give it at least 90 days. But I’ll let you in on a little secret:
Earning passive income can become pretty addictive. Why? Because it can literally change your life.
If you do it right, building passive income streams can absolutely lead to financial freedom and even early retirement. It’s more possible than ever so I leave you with this:
What could you do in a year if you focused on it and committed? How much passive income could you earn? What would you learn and create or make to help others that would make YOU proud?
What are your thoughts? What would you have done differently? Have you had success building a passive income stream I should take on next? I’d love to hear from you!
Thank you for reading. Happy belated New Year — make it your best one yet!
Want to read more about each project? Click below!
JAN: YouTube | FEB: Alternative Investing | MAR: Online Courses | APR: Stock Photography | MAY: Audiobook | JUNE: Low-Content Books | JULY: Affiliate Partnerships | AUG: Cashback Credit Cards | SEPT: Self-Publish a Book | OCT: Organic Marketing | NOV: Paid Marketing | DEC: TikTok
This article contains Amazon affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase using these links.
Wait a second. If you want to start writing on Medium yourself and earn money passively you only need a membership for $5 a month. If you sign up with my link, you support me with a part of your fee without additional costs.
Frankie Calkins (M. Ed) is a Digital Marketing Director by day. On nights and weekends, he’s an author, YouTuber, and course creator. He lives in the Seattle, Washington area. Contact: [email protected]
