When I dabbled in freelance work back in high school, I had no idea about passive income or what it was. I figured all income would be brought in from client projects alone… Figuring it out the hard way by not being able to save, I knew I needed alternative ways to make more.

I didn’t want to get a part-time job somewhere else doing absent-minded work; I want to put my skills to use and just make cool stuff!

This is when I started learning about this idea of passive income…

Getting paid by the hour or by the project is great, but it’s even better when you have money coming in again and again – even if you aren’t working!

Freelancing gives us the perfect opportunity to create these sources of passive income, while still earning our main source of income with client projects.

It certainly takes time, but having a steady flow of income is useful – as it lessens the risk of going completely broke!

Below I’d like to share with you some of the most popular opportunities for freelancers to generate passive income:

Sell digital goods

Selling stock is probably the number one way for a freelancer to generate passive income, because it’s something you can easily fit in-between projects.

I personally have had minor success in selling stock graphics on the very well known, Graphic River.

‍Graphic River is only one of the many stock sites Envato offers in their marketplace. Check out every site Envato has to offer for stock resources, it’s amazing!

‍UPDATE:Creative Market is also a great platform for selling digital goods, and I personally have had some decent success as a seller.

‍Examples of stock products you can sell: Flash elements, audio, website templates, motion graphics, web graphics – vectors, 3d models, code, tutorials, and photography

‍[Tip: A great idea can be to extract parts of a project and repackage it for sale!]

Create a product

As Freelancers, we’re constantly creating new things. Why not use your skills and expertise on creating something to sell?

You could sell your products through your own website accepting payment through PayPal, or set up a shop page on an online service.

Here are only three of many great online sites you can "set up shop" at:

• Etsy - Your place to buy and sell all things handmade, vintage, and supplies
• Big Cartel - A simple shopping cart for clothing and tee designers, bands, record labels, jewelry makers, crafters, and other artists
• Lulu - Self publishing, book printing and publishing online

So whether it’s custom icons, a book, or some sort of merchandise – the web makes a perfect tool for distribution.

‍Examples of products you can create and sell: Books/Ebooks, plugins, software, icons, fonts, art (photography & illustration prints), apparel, or other merchandise

[Tip: Solve a problem (if applicable), make sure the price is right, and build a blog or brand around the product.]

Sell a subscription-based service

Selling a subscription-based service would best suite a freelancer working in web design or development.

Typically a subscription-based service would include web hosting, domain name registration, or SEO and CMS maintenance.

These types of services can be billed monthly or annually – which can easily add up to become a great source of income.

Services like this can be difficult to sell to potential clients and customers though; not to mention the amount of support you’re going to be doing.

[Tip: Mark-up your prices! You’ll need to make enough to cover the stress and time that goes into the support, because it can and will take up a lot of time.]

Build a web business

Building a web business sounds a bit vague, but that’s because there are so many different businesses you could build!

You can work with a team and develop a web-based app, or maybe just a blog with some advertisements and affiliate promotions.

Since this is a vague topic, I’ll go into more detail on three popular online web business ideas:

‍Blogging: Nowadays, anyone and everyone can create a blog, but to actually turn a blog into a business will take a lot of time and work!

Choose a topic that you love and start! Focus on creating an attractive design, as well as awesome content.[An extremely popular (and one of my favorite) blogs that has a plethora of information about how you can make money blogging is http://problogger.net]

‍Subscription-based content site: If you specialize in a field such as graphic design – you could run a blog full of useful content, tutorials, and offer special “membership only” content.

Offer free content to the public, and give subscribed users full access to exclusive content like downloadable resources, specials offers, etc.

[A perfect example is Chris Spooner’s “Access All Areas”  club — Chris offers a lot of amazing graphic design content and tutorials on his website http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk, but also offers premium content through his “Access All Areas” subscribers.]

‍Web-based app: If you have an idea to solve a problem and can get a strong team of designers and developers together, then creating a web-based app would be perfect for you!

With a web app, you can sell subscription accounts – which would easily become your main source of income.

[A perfect example of a successful web-based app is Basecamp by 37signals.]

How will you start generating passive income?

Think about how you’d like to make more by generating passive income today! You know what they say, “a year from now you’ll wish you started today!”

Whatever it is you plan on doing, I want to hear about it. Share your plans or experiences with passive income in the comments below!