13 Streams of Income Which Earned Me Over $400,000 in 2021

 

 

As an entrepreneur, the most important lesson that the pandemic taught me about running a business was how essential it is to diversify your streams of income and not put all your eggs in to one basket.

I have been an entrepreneur for over ten years, and in the last two years I have developed 13 streams of income earned me over $400,000 in revenue in 2021.

Many may give you hypothetical situations of ways that you could potentially earn money, but I want to break down exactly what I have done to earn that income, in a hope that it inspires you to add at least one stream of income to your business. (First — I want to note that there are a few affiliate links shared in the information below).

These are ranked starting from LEAST profitable at number 13, working their way up to MOST profitable at number 1.

13. Selling Stock Photos

Cavan, Shutterstock, and Getty Images, are some of the sites that allow photographers to create an account and upload photos and videos to be sold as stock within their database. Each time a photo is purchased, you are paid of royalty.

12. Writing On Medium

Medium is a freelance writer platform where authors publish articles for readers. After you receive 100 subscribers and have 10 reads, you can join the Medium Partner program and receive royalties for your articles based on how many times they are read.

11. Kindle Direct Publishing

Creating low content books through KDP — Kindle Direct Publishing — is something that anyone can do. A low content book is a book with notebook like pages, such as a journal, planner, or meal planner.

You can create the cover in a free design in a program like Canva, and add blank or minimal content pages to be filled in as a journal. You then upload a PDF of your book to KDP, and Amazon will print and ship the book automatically when someone purchases it.

10. Selling Digital Products on Etsy

Using Canva to create templates, PDF, guides, and printables is hugely profitable, and there is a variety of digital products that can be made. This can include invoice and resume templates, social media templates, or even printable quotes and artwork.

9. Selling Lightroom Presets

As a photographer, I utilize Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos. The settings that I use in order to achieve a certain look to my photos can be saved as presets, and I then sell those in packs to photographers who want to achieve a similar look in their editing.

8. Publishing a Children’s Book

I hired an illustrator from Fiverr to bring my writing to life and published the book using a distributor called Ingram Spark, who distributes and prints it whenever it is purchased. My children’s book is now available online through major distributors as well as in bookstores.

7. Studio Rental Space for Photographers

Anyone who has an aesthetically pleasing space can list that space to be rented by professional photographers, videographers or as a meeting space by listing it on websites such as Peerspace.

This is essentially the AirBnB of creatives, and you can charge by the hour or by the day. This allows creatives to rent your space to do things such as shoot portraits, film a commercial or hold a meeting.

6. Creating E-Courses

I use Canva to create slide presentations paired with voice overs and video content in order to teach concepts and how-to guides to photographers and business owners. Once lessons are created, I then upload the course to a platform called Kajabi where the course lives and can be purchased and viewed. I absolutely love Kajabi and it is one of my favorite tools in my business — Get a 30 day free trial of Kajabi by clicking this link.

5. Business Coaching

One-on-one and small group business coaching allows me to help businesses with specific needs and problems that may need some support or guidance in order to help them grow.

4. Photography

Though I’m doing this less these days, I am still a wedding photographer who travels anywhere in the world to photograph love stories.

3. Sponsorships

Because I have built up my brand, companies often want to partner with me to have their product or service shared with my audience. If the product and brand is a fit for me, I’ll share the brand’s information about a particular product to my viewers or create a tutorial video.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you share a company’s product or service using a unique link. That link tracks which sales are made as a result of your viewer clicking on the link, and then pays you commission for each sale you helped them to make.

1. YouTube

Having a successful YouTube channel is the reason why affiliate marketing and sponsorships have been effective streams of income for me.

In addition to earning income through affiliate marketing and sponsorships, YouTube ad revenue has also been quite lucrative. YouTube ad revenue is the money that YouTube pays you as a result of your viewers seeing ads placed in your videos. Once your channel reaches 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, your channel can be monetized and you can start earning ad revenue on your videos.

For those of you who are interested in starting or growing a YouTube channel, I have an extremely comprehensive course called my 30 Day YouTube Kickstarter Course that is set to go live soon. If you are someone who wants to start a YouTube channel or you have a YouTube channel and you want to grow it towards monetization, you can click here to receive email updates for when my YouTube 30 Day Kickstarter E-Course goes online.

Want to learn more about my 13 streams of income? Watch the video here!