9 Ways to Make Money NOT Blogging

If you are trying to make money blogging then you have no doubt become well versed with the typical methods that bloggers use to try and make money online. The problem is that you and every other one of the 2 billion make money online bloggers are all trying to do it the same way.

I call this the John Chow Effect. Just because John makes money talking about making money does not mean that all of us are going to be able to do it. It’s a simple law of supply and demand. If you have become frustrated with lack of progress then there is another way to make money blogging.

Lessons of History

I am an advocate of learning lessons from the past as I think we would all agree that with age comes wisdom. If you extrapolate your field of view out to the last several hundreds of years, then a wealth of wisdom is yours for the taking.

This current internet age that we are in now is often described as a modern day gold rush. Thousands of would be fortune seekers are rushing onto the internet in the hopes of “striking it rich.”

This could be easily compared to the days of the 1850s when they flocked to the hills of California in search of fame, fortune and gold!!

This is certainly not a new phenomenon as you could pick out any age in history and find a similar example. Where opportunity exists, there will be opportunity seekers there to take advantage of it.

The Gold Rush

Let’s look at the Gold Rush of the 1800s. When gold was discovered at Sutters Mill in 1848 it triggered a massive influx of fortune seekers. Thousands and thousands of people flocked to California in search of wealth.

Day in and day out these fortune seekers toiled away at back breaking work all in the hope of striking it rich. Unfortunately, reality was that very few actually made all that much money.

A few select miners that were luckier, smarter or worked harder, enjoyed the bulk of the wealth while the majority were left to fight over the scraps.

Sound familiar? It should because the make money blogging niche is very similar in this regard. John Chow made 30k dollars last month with his blog, how did you do?

No need to worry though, because what most people don’t realize is that a large number of people made a fortune on the Gold Rush without ever mining a single nugget of gold.

Make Money Blogging

The little known group of people who made a fortune of the gold rush were the people who supplied the miners. Merchants, bar owners, shop keepers and traders of all kinds made a fortune selling products to those who were in search of gold.

They never so much as put a shovel in the ground but they sold the miner the shovel to do it. They also typically made far more money than the average miner too.

Many people don’t realize that Levi Strauss patented his copper riveted, denim jeans in order to meet the demands of these miners. He sold all that he could manufacture and very quietly developed the billion dollar empire that we know today, all without digging a single hole.

How does this apply to blogging? Simple. You can either make money trying to be a blogger or you can make money selling bloggers things that they need. I am not talking about a cheesy ebooks or anything that requires a 7000 word landing page.

I am talking about real products and services.

9 Ways to Make Money Without Blogging

What kinds of products could you sell to bloggers? You wouldn’t have to think real hard to come up with a few, basically what do you see bloggers willing to pay for everyday?

Templates - Wordpress templates are becoming big business. I see bloggers buying these daily with no slowdown in site, in fact it appears to be picking up steam as everyone tries to be different. Ben from Blogging Experiment was making about 1500 a month give or take with template sales being a large part of that.

If you can’t code one then find someone that can do it for you. Let’s say you invest 1000 dollars into a custom theme and sell it for say 50 dollars each, you only need to sell 20 copies to break even. That doesn’t sound all that tough to do.

PlugIns - Plugins are rapidly becoming a premium product that bloggers are willing to pay to acquire. They have to be unique and something that brings value but take something like the OIO Publisher Plugin. This thing is worth it’s weight in gold and well worth the money in my opinion. I wonder how many hundreds Simon has sold so far.

Graphics - Many bloggers would love to customize their templates with custom RSS buttons, banners, logos etc and they are willing to pay to get them. Jay from DatMoney does pretty nicely designing buttons and banners, why couldn’t you?

Content - Got a flair for writing? Why not provide freelance content for bloggers who are looking for a break. I know that both David and Myself both recently posted a request for paid writers to write content for us and we both received a luke warm response. A Demand with no Supply is a good thing if you can supply.

Consultation - Are you a Wordpress or blogging expert? Why not offer your services for hire? I know that when I was starting out I would have gladly paid someone to “fix” me from time to time. SEO or Programming services could fall under this category as well.

Hosting - Are you a tech geek? Are you the kind of dork that has computing power to spare? Why not put that extra power to good use and offer hosting services to your fellow bloggers?

Information Products - Yes I tried but I couldn’t get through the post without including ebooks. The problem with ebooks is that many of them are GREAT but they get overshadowed by the thousands that are awful. If you are going to go this route then make sure it isn’t just an affiliate link stuffed pile of crap. Be different, something like “How to Become a Video Blogger in 10 Easy Lessons” kind of thing.

Video blogging is the future and I for one want to know much more about it than I do. I’d buy an ebook like this if it came from a source I trusted. Don’t waste your time with yet another ebook on how to make money online, it’s done. Well done.

Widgets - Why not develop a widget that provides a service that bloggers would like to take advantage of? Something like Scratchback from Jim Kukral is what I am talking about. Bloggers don’t even have to fork out any money up front but rather they pay Jim a commission on every sale.

Granted this would also require a programmer to accomplish but if you have the talent or if you can hire the talent then why not? Win/Win for everyone as you see these things everywhere, including my sidebar. Why not buy a link today, only 5 bucks.

Scripts - Have a flair for designing scripts? A huge opportunity exists here if you do. I am currently looking at a YouTube video script that I am probably going to pay about 50 bucks to buy. Could you write this too? What if you paid someone to develop it and then marketed it?

How about installing scripts? I know me personally I would pay someone to do this depending on the situation. If you’re a big enough dork and understand all that mumbo jumbo why not charge for it?

Conclusion

I listed 9 Ways to Make Money Blogging without blogging but reality is there are probably hundreds and most of them don’t include blogging. If you take John Chow out of the mix then who else makes 30k dollars a month from their blog? Nobody, despite what some of them claim.

Your blog does have a place in your plan as what better platform to showcase your products from than your blog. You can market and promote your wares daily and probably still make a few bucks from the blog itself. Take a look at the first thing Max has done after buying Blogging Experiment. A perfect example of what I am talking about.

Being a supplier to those looking to make money offers a number of advantages, the biggest of which is that you have far less competition. Supply and demand rules the free market and right now we have an overabundance of bloggers and not enough people selling shovels.

Are you so intent on digging for gold that you fail to see the opportunity in front of you?