So you want to make passive income. Let’s start out with the ugly truth: no business is 100% passive. I mean everything requires some amount of work. It’s just a matter of when you have to do the work relative to the sale and how much involvement you have in customer service.

That said, there are many businesses busy moms can start that are very passive and can add to the family finances. For example, my side hustle income helped us get our driveway paved this year.

Below we will discuss 3 different passive income businesses you can create and which one you would be best suited for.

Print on Demand

Print on Demand is a business where you create a design, upload it to a website and then insert them on various items. The website company then takes orders for your designs and has them printed to order.

The options of items to create designs for are endless. You can design t-shirts, leggings, face masks, invitations, pillows, signs, stickers, backpacks, posters, throws, and so much more.

There are a ton of sites out there for starting your print on demand business. They include Zazzle, Red Bubble, Merch by Amazon, Tee Spring, Tee Public, Cafepress, and more. Different sites have different products to put designs on and offer different commission rates. They also provide different options for placing a single design on multiple items.

It’s best to research the different sites and start with the one that fit you best. You can always branch out to other sites once you get comfortable with your first one.

This is a great business if you have an eye for design and are willing to experiment with design software. You can do some great things with Canva, but you may want to eventually move onto Affinity Designer or Adobe InDesign.

Another plus is that you don’t really have to deal with customer service. The website you upload to will handle the sales transaction, product shipment and most other customer service issues.

You just create the designs, upload them with a great description and utilizing keywords, and share them to you favorite social media channels like Pinterest and Instagram.

Etsy

On Etsy you can also do print on demand using sites that can be linked to you Etsy Shop. These sites include Printify and Printful among others. On Etsy however, you will have the responsibility of handling much of the customer service.

On the other hand, you can also make an income on Etsy selling a number of different digital downloads. These are files that you create that you upload to Etsy and they automatically deliver the file to a customer when they make a purchase.

You can sell any number of printable items like planners, invitations, wall art, lunch box notes, organizers, worksheets, checklists, e-books, coloring pages, etc. You can also sell items like logos, stock photos, design files, clipart, and spreadsheets. You can find more digital download ideas here.

While some of these require design skills, like invitations or wall art, not all of them do. Anything you have created or can create to make something easier for yourself can also be sold to someone else.

Have a great budget spreadsheet? Sell it. Have an awesome vacation packing checklist? Sell it. Know how to make embroidery or crochet patterns? You can sell that too!

Kindle Direct Publishing

If you have heard of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), you are probably in the minority. This is a platform through which you can publish books both for kindle devices and for paperback. You now might think, “but I don’t have the time nor the desire to write a book.”

Well, you don’t have to. KDP is not just for publishing novels or nonfiction. You can use KDP to publish low or no content books. For example you can create journals or planners or notebooks or diaries or coloring books or activity books or more.

All you have to do is create 2 files. One for the interior of your book, this is the pages of your journal or planner or coloring book. The second is the cover file. You can create your own file and upload it to KDP or you can use their cover designer to create your cover.

Armed with these two files, you upload them to KDP enter all the pertinent information including title description and keywords and in no time you will have a book available for print on the Amazon platform.

There is obviously a lot of competition on Amazon, your products will be competing with planners or coloring books from professional publishers. This shouldn’t scare you. However, you will want to find niches that are underserved and make products that are for a specific group of people not the public at large.

Instead of making a journal for moms, make a journal for Christian moms who love coffee and cats. Instead of making a planner for kids, make one for girls in competitive gymnastics. The more specific you make it, the less competition there will be and the easier it will be for your exact customer to find your book.

The great thing about all three of these businesses is that once your products are listed with great pictures, descriptions, and keywords, much of your work is done. People using these already existing marketplaces will be searching for the very thing you created and will make purchases without you lifting a finger.

Of course you can always promote your products on Pinterest or Instagram or Facebook. And you can even promote your listing on the different platforms. But you can still make an income without all that extra work.

Want to learn more about any one of these business ideas? Let me know in the comments and I will write more posts on that topic.

Cheers,

Emily