17 Genuine Ways to Make Passive Income While You Sleep

Do you want to escape your 9-5 job?

Maybe you want to achieve financial freedom!

Having passive income streams means true financial freedom.

If you generate passive income, you can enjoy more freedom; you can make money while you sleep or while you travel.

That’s great, but it takes time, lots of effort, some sleepless nights, and sometimes money to build a profitable online business that makes passive income.

But don’t worry,

If you are passionate about your work, you can easily achieve your goals.

You just have to work your ass off in the starting days, and after that, you earn in a way that requires little to no daily effort to maintain your passive income generating business.

What is Passive Income?

Passive income is where you earn over and over again for work that you did once.

The difference between active income and passive income is that in passive income, we don’t trade time for money; instead, we invest our time (or money) upfront.

17 Genuine Passive Income Ideas to Make Money While You Sleep

“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die” – Warren Buffett (Click To Tweet)

Today, I’m going to share 17 genuine passive income ideas that you can implement in 2023 to make money while you sleep.

Let’s dive right in.

Related post: 9 Ways to Make Money While Traveling [Travel 365 Days/Year]

1. Start a Blog

You can make passive income from blogging, but it requires a lot of hard work in the setup phase.

You have to invest some money and 3 to 6 months to set up your blog before you monetize your blog.

To generate passive income from your blog, you can use affiliate marketing, or you can make money by adding ads to your blog.

Now blogging is a competitive business. So, you have to choose a less competitive niche that you have some knowledge of, and you know how to write quality content to attract your target audience.

As a beginner blogger, it’s hard to drive targeted traffic to your baby blog, and we all know that more targeted traffic = more money!

The best part is,

You can use Pinterest to drive massive targeted traffic to your blog while optimizing your content for Google and other search engines.

If you’re interested in starting a passive income generating blog, read this article:

The Ultimate Guide on How To Start a Money Making Blog

Read more: How To Become a Digital Nomad and Travel The World

2. Write and Sell an E-book

Writing a best-selling E-book requires some knowledge and a bit of time investment up front, but it can be a great source of passive income month after month.

If you want to prove your authority while making some passive income, writing an E-book is the best option to do that.

With Amazon, you can self-publish your E-books or paperbacks easily. Just follow Amazon’s book writing guide and start writing your first book.

Make sure you pick a profitable niche, and don’t forget to promote your eBook through social media platforms, influencers, and bloggers in that niche.

If you can sell a few hundred copies the first week of launching your book, Amazon will take over and start promoting it for you. This way, you can make some real passive income from it.

3. Start a Podcast

Podcasts attract wealthier and educated people more. Also, 32% (Approx 90 Million people) American people listen to podcasts monthly.

So, Podcast is a huge opportunity to build a target audience, market your business, and share your knowledge while making some real money and passive income.

The best part is,

Now you can start a podcast for free.

Once your podcast gets some loyal and targeted listeners, you can make money using sponsorship, selling your services, or you can make passive income selling your digital products and affiliate products.

This post contains affiliate links (I don’t recommend anything that I don’t believe in), meaning at no extra cost to you, I might receive a small commission for purchases made through these links.

4. Make Passive Income with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money from home. All you need is a computer and a loyal audience.

In affiliate marketing, you have to promote someone else’s products to earn a commission.

Source – BigCommerce

To get affiliate products, you can join affiliate programs like ShareASale, CJ, etc. Also, like Amazon, every e-commerce website has its own affiliate program. You can join them too.

You can build your target audience using a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube channel. Also, you should focus on building an email list. After that, you can use these platforms and your email list to promote affiliate products.

To earn more passive income from affiliate marketing, always promote products that are valuable and helpful to your audience.

Related post: Top 29 Affiliate Programs You Must Join to Monetize Your Audience

5. Start a Dropshipping Store

The benefit of the Dropshipping business is you don’t have to worry about product manufacturing, stocking, and shipping.

All you need to do is to choose a profitable niche and set up a Dropshipping eCommerce store.

AliExpress is a marketplace where you can find out Dropshipping products.

You can use Amazon, eBay, etc. to sell products. But I suggest you create your own website using Shopify. Because it gives you complete control over branding and design that helps you attract your potential buyers.

Also, Instead of Dropshipping, you can sell your own downloadable digital products to generate passive income without working regularly.

6. Sell WordPress Themes and Plugins

A lot of people use premade WordPress themes and useful plugins to design and manage their WordPress blog or website.

If you’re a WordPress developer, you can design WordPress themes or plugins; otherwise, you can hire a professional designer or a developer to design a good looking theme or a helpful plugin.

You can sell your WordPress products on your own website, or you can use WordPress marketplace like Themeforest.

If you can design responsive, multipurpose, and professional WordPress themes like Avada or Soledad, you can easily make passive income selling your themes.

Read more: 7 Best WordPress Themes for Blogs

7. Start a YouTube Channel

Video marketing is the future of content marketing. Now video content gets more eyeballs than other content. So, I think it’s the best time to produce video content to market your business online.

The best part is,

By creating videos, you can build an engaged audience and easily monetize them to make a huge amount of passive income regularly.

So, if you love creating videos, if you want to share your knowledge and if you want to earn real passive income, you should definitely start a YouTube channel right now.

8. Create Online Courses

An online course is a passive and independent income source for niche experts and teachers.

People love online courses because online courses are organized, straightforward, and actionable.

So, if you are an expert, you can share your knowledge by creating online courses.

The course can include videos, e-books, and emails with valuable information. When a customer purchases the course, they receive emails with everything they need to access the course.

You can host your online course on your WordPress blog using LearnDash, or you can use Teachable to host and sell your online course.

Also, you can use Udemy or Skillshare to host and sell your online course with their existing audience.

Related post: 9 Websites to Download Free and Copyright-Free Music for YouTube Videos

9. Invest in Real Estate

Investment is the only form of passive income that doesn’t require much day-to-day effort, and real estate investment can be a great way to make passive income while you sleep.

Fundrise is one of the best crowdfunding real estate investing platforms on the market. With only $500, you can get started and invest in real estate products through eREITs.

Also, you can invest in the stock market or a struggling business and become a silent partner to earn more passive income.

10. Create a SaaS

Canva, Slack, Google Apps, Shopify, and Dropbox are the well known SaaS companies and products.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which software is accessed online via a subscription, rather than bought and installed on computers.

If you have an idea of creating a SaaS product, and you don’t know how to design a SaaS product, hire a designer, Invest some money, and convert your idea into reality.

11. Buy a blog

You can buy an existing blog that is already making passive income.

Some people sell their blog because they’re tired of doing it, it’s not making enough money, or they have no time to write content and maintain it.

You can buy an existing blog from Flippa, or you can personally approach a blog owner and ask whether he is willing to sell.

To find a blog worth buying, take a look at some criteria, such as the age of the blog, the number of traffic it’s getting, and the amount of money the blog is making.

The blog should be monetized, SEO optimized, and get at least 10,000 visits a month.

12.License and Sell Your Photos

If you enjoy snapping pictures of the world around you and you know that you’re an excellent photographer, then you can license and sell your photos online to earn passive income.

Most websites pay you based on the number of downloads. Once the photos are uploaded, you will be earning passive income every time someone purchases them.

Here are the best websites to sell your photos online:

• Shutterstock
• Envato Marketplace
• Adobe Stock
• 123RF
• Getty Images and iStock

Also, you can license and sell your video footage, illustrations, and music to generate passive income.

Read more: 17 Amazing Free Websites to Download Copyright Free Stock Images

13. Buy an Existing Online Business

The benefits of having an online business is that it allows you to work from anywhere, and it can generate passive income.

Starting an online business from scratch can take a lot of time, money, and other resources.

So, why not buy an already established online business?

You can easily buy a successful online business from websites such as BizBuySell. It has hundreds of online business listings that are for sale.

Always consider buying an online business that you’re passionate about, and you have some experience with the industry.

For some online business, to make passive income, you’ll need to hire someone to manage the business.

14. Peer-to-Peer Lending

Peer-to-peer lending, also known as P2P lending, is the system of lending money to individuals or businesses who don’t qualify for traditional financing.

Companies like LendingClub, Prosper, and Upstart offer returns in the range of 4-7%, which are passive income and great alternatives to saving accounts.

15. Develop Smartphone Application

Smartphone users are using countless apps every day for entertainment purposes and to make their daily lives more comfortable.

The app market is huge. It’s growing more than ever before, and that’s why apps like TikTok gets a vast engaged audience.

If you have required coding skills, you can easily create a viral app using your skills and creativity.

If you have a valid idea, but you don’t know how to develop an app, you can hire an app developer from Fiverr or other freelance marketplace to help you design your app.

You can distribute your app to your target audience using the Google Play Store and the iPhone App Store.

To generate passive income, you can monetize your app using ads, sponsorship, and in-app purchases.

16. Rent Out a Room

Do you have an extra room in your house that you rarely use?

You can rent it out to travelers looking for a short-term rental on Airbnb. Millions of people, frequent travelers, and digital nomads prefer Airbnb to find a place to stay instead of staying at a hotel.

No matter what kind of room you have to share, Airbnb makes it simple and secure to host travelers.

So, if you live in a desirable place, a big city, or a vacation spot, you can rent out a room on Airbnb and make passive from home.

17. Sell an Audiobook

Recording an audiobook is more complicated than writing an eBook because it requires good speaking skills and some specialized equipment to record a professional audiobook.

If you are not able to do it yourself, you can easily outsource it to professionals on a site like Fiverr or Upwork.

You can use AudioBook Creation Exchange to distribute and sell your audiobook on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.

Final Thoughts – 17 Genuine Ways to Make Passive Income While You Sleep

Patience is a key element of success.

The line is so true!

Time is the most crucial factor when it comes to building a source of passive income. All passive income source takes their time to become an actual source of passive income.

For example,

Blogging or YouTube may take six months to 1 year to be a stable source of passive income.

Also, investing in the stock market or real estate, too, take colossal time to show you the results, but it gives you more returns without working hard.

So, keep patience, work smart, and hustle hard to build a source of passive income to make money while you sleep.

Also, If you are a true hustler, I recommend (from the bottom of my heart) you two of my favorite book, ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad‘ by Robert Kiyosaki and ‘Crushing It‘ by Gary Vaynerchuk, to learn more about income streams, new age business strategies and to achieve financial independence.

Now It’s Your Turn!

Hey, I hope you enjoyed reading this genuine list of passive income ideas.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

What do you think about passive income?

Are you going to implement any of these passive income strategies?

Let me know in the comment section below right now.

Also, share this post with your friends and struggling hustlers who are looking for some genuine passive income ideas to make money while sleeping, traveling, or maybe working less!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I’m always available to help young hustlers like you.

Keep hustling!