Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I'm thinking of things like landlording, small businesses, blogging, websites, freelancing, book-writing, etc. What's brought you the most income, aside from 9-5 or part time jobs, cutting expenses, DIY projects, and investing?
For me, last year I made around 5k from freelance writing and around 5k from our wedding photography business. We've since shut down the business, and I only write these days for a bit of extra cash now and then. My free time these days goes to learning Spanish.
What about you?

Renting out a spare room was pretty good, I got £375 a month tax free. Though you have to be careful to find the right tennant. I also did some tutoring a few years ago, made about £60 a week but it eat up my saturdays and I did'nt really enjoy it.

I bought a second condo unit in the building where I already live, in the summer of 2011. It was foreclosed on and bank owned. I had been following it on the county records website, and I made a lowball cash offer for it, on the very day it went on the market. Bought the 1 BR condo with private garage parking included, for under $70k. Currently renting it for $1170/month. It has been a fantastic investment and ROI, and is easy to manage because I live right in the same building.

Inherited a large sum from a deceased relative and bought Apple in 2010, yielding a 4-5% dividend on top of the large capital gains (even with the 40% decline) and growing. I was thinking of getting into real estate but maybe later.
I got lucky and was a lil risky betting the farm on one stock, but it paid off.

Test proctor for various standardized testing agencies. If you know any teachers they may be able to get you started. A little bit of administrative and paper work and the test time plus about an hour or two for setup/prep work is about all that is involved.

Self-published fiction writing. I made $3,700 yesterday.

Most profitable: making erotic hypnosis videos.

Most passive and fun: self published two books, have been making around $1k/m.

Most profitable: making erotic hypnosis videos.

Most passive and fun: self published two books, have been making around $1k/m.

What kind of books are they riparian?

Yes. In a single day. I have a book in the top 50 on Amazon's Kindle right now (paid, not free) and I'm earning 70% on it in royalties.

Wow!

For the ebook writers: was the effort worth it financially? Would you do it again? I get the impression that the effort generally doesn't generate even a $1000 a year.

I'm thinking prosaic is the exception that proves the rule: "Stop the press: half of self-published authors earn less than $500"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/ma ... r-earnings
BTW...congrats prosaic!

Probably depressed property real estate... But when you're digging around in a crawlspace during July suffocating in your respirator you wont feel much satisfaction.

My books (4 of them) earn me year in year out (for last 5 years) approx 1k per month or 12 k per year (i get 97 pct of the revenue as paypal and ejunkie get a slice). Thats just the books. The only other books written on my subject are 50 odd years old and they still sell for crazy amounts.

So, what`s the secret in writing a popular book in short?

Definitely. Please?

So it sounds like writing books can be lucrative!
Alternatively you could try to write something like a blog and monetize it using a product such as Google Adsense. If you can find a subject and build an audience on a topic that interests you (investing, fugally, traveling, etc.) it could become profitable.
My wife reads a couple blogs by women who make more-than-fulltime incomes off just writing about their kids and stuff they do around the house.

I think a good writer or a blogger needs to be a natural story teller. Someone who likes a chat, can see stories or anecdotes where others cannot. That's just my personal opinion. Some people are just able to engage others with interesting conversation. Its a way of thinking and also a way of communicating. For me Writing comes easily. I don't mean grammatically I just mean that I feel I can put clear thought into clear words written or verbally fairly quickly compared to others. Plenty of stuff im crap at though.
Next important thing is to find a niche or some topic that will interest people. I happen to have a lucrative niche that I know the ins and out of - intimately. I read a book called make money while you sleep. that with the 4 hour working week were enuf incentive for me to get cracking. I wrote all my books in 3 months (like a madman) and haven't written one now for 4 years.
They keep selling and in fact show slight growth month on month.
I use a pen name and not many people know its me. I prefer it that way.
Aussie

I'm not a writer, but I know there are other ways to "make money online" legitimately. Of course, they're not going to be advertised.
For example:
https://flippa.com/buy?revenue_min=1000 ... age_min=12
A list of websites for sale that claim to make over $1,000/month. Of course, this is more risky than real estate and a lot of due diligence must be done, combined with technical know-how for managing things if you did take the plunge and invest/risk the money. Or you could use the websites for ideas on how to build a website of your own from scratch.