The day before Thanksgiving my husband and I took pies to one of his closest friends.
I had met the friend many times but never his wife and she was absolutely enchanting. I fell in love with her immediately.
I knew this couple had not had an easy few years.
He had a stroke and lost his business.
She has suffered from debilitating illnesses for a long time.
Yet here she was, just this incredible, bubbling fountain of energy, smiles, and entertaining chatter.
I knew she had started some sort of online business to help bring in some money but I didn't know the details.
We started talking about her business and she took me back to her home office and showed me.
With no training or experience she had built up quite a following doing something she simply, truly enjoyed doing.
She had taken her passion and turned it into a regular, consistent income for her and her family.
And it was so easy for her because all she was doing was writing about what she enjoyed doing anyway.
It was an absolute example of why I encourage people to choose a niche about which they have a real interest.
The work doesn't feel like "work".
The participants are seeing that they can have a blog about their favorite topics - topics you might not even think of as a possible subject for a website - and still see traffic and success and multiple opportunities for income streams - not just Adsense.
And they get to enjoy themselves at the same time!
Years ago while doing some family tree research I'd come across a blog about a single US naval ship that participated in WWII.
The blog was created by two brothers whose father had served on that ship.
It was a small blog and not very fancy.
The ship was no longer in service. Most of the men who served on it had long since passed.
At the time, I couldn't see how they'd make any money from the site. The target audience had to be so small...
....but income was actually not their initial goal.
They were simply writing about something meaningful to them.
Yet, there was (and is) an audience - an ever-growing number of descendants of those who served. My grandfather served on that very ship.
I've kept tabs on that blog over the years. They're still growing and have since launched three books that they sell to their site audience.
The material for these books came from their audience - ship logs, images of personnel, images of ports, personal journals of the men on the ship.
I know because I contacted the brothers and put them in touch with my mother. She met with them in person and shared a number of my grandfather's items to include in their first book.
They've since made enough sales of these books that one of the brothers was able to take some time away from the site and away from his regular job to tackle a year-long project he never thought he'd have time to accomplish.
The technical stuff - WordPress, adding images, SEO, monetization - all of that can be learned.
The content is the hard stuff but when you write about what you enjoy most it's the easiest path to a new income stream.
Sincerely,
Erica Stone
erica@extremereviewer.com
