Whatever it is that you are interested in, chances are you should be able to make money from it. This is different to how people usually think about these things, but it’s true – and you might be surprised at just how easily this can happen. If you can just open up your mind a little and think about things in a slightly more creative way, you’ll discover that you can generally monetize pretty much anything. There is always a market base for whatever you might be interested in or whatever you want to create – all you need to do is make it, find those people, and let them know why it’s worth having.
Of course, it can take time to build, and it is not always going to feel that simple in practice. Nonetheless, it is possible. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the interesting new ways you might be able to monetize your interests, whatever they might be, and however you might currently be thinking of them.
Think In Public
Whatever it might be that you are into or interested in, there is always going to be an audience for the process – not just the end result. If you are into woodworking, say, people are going to want to see your mistakes as well as your successes. If you are finding yourself always obsessing over planning vacations, people will want to see your itinerary hacks. These are the kinds of things that you should really make sure you are putting out there. However you do it, whether through platforms like TikTok or Instagram, there is something to be said for showing your whole process.
It humanises what you are doing, it helps to build trust and relatability, and sometimes even virality. You can then get a lot of opportunity for monetization through affiliate links, ad revenue, or selling guides and products based on the content. This is quite a simple approach to take, and one that can really work very well indeed.
Go Niche
This is always going to be good advice. For one thing, if you are going too broad, you’ll find that you are likely to be competing with huge numbers of people for your audience. That is unlikely to work quite as well, and it’s the kind of thing that you really need to be careful about. Instead, you should make sure that you are going niche – and this is something that can actually be quite tricky to get right at first. However, with the right approach you should be able to find a niche that works for you.
One approach is to go niche, and then go niche again – in other words, find the gap within the gap. If you can do that, you are much more likely to find your ‘thing’, and going really deep and hard into that thing is always going to be a strong way to be able to make money from it and gain an audience for it. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, figure out exactly who you are talking to and how you can solve a problem for them.
Try Low-Effort Monetization Methods
There are quite a few low-effort monetization methods out there these days, and you have probably seen a lot of them already. You may have even paid one or two people in these ways at some point. Before going all-in on some business plan, you can test some of these small things to see if you have an audience at all.
That can include a ‘buy me a coffee’ type donation button, or a digital download service for some digital product you have created – you could use something like Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy for this for instance. Or you might want to try a little bit of affiliate marketing instead. Any of these kinds of methods are likely to work to some degree, but most importantly they give you a chance too test what kind of audience you actually have.
Package Your Knowledge
Knowing a lot about something is often very powerful, and is the kind of thing you can utilize to make some more money. If you have spent many years really nerding out about something, you probably know more than most about it – and that means that you are holding a lot of value. So: you can think of all sorts of ways to package that knowledge and sell it to people. That could be in the form of ebooks, templates, courses, live workshops or whatever else. It could be as simple as starting to teach history online or start a course for newbies. Whatever it is, it can make money easily.
Just think about what would have helped you even a couple of years ago in your field. That is likely to be the answer to what will help newcomers now.
Build Slow & Honest
You really do need to be honest in all your dealings here. People can actually usually smell grift from a mile away, and they are not going to want to support it. You don’t need to fake being an expert or pretend you are doing better than you are. In fact, it’s the opposite: documenting your learning curve or sharing what didn’t work can resonate a lot more and help you gain even more of an audience.
Build a reputation for showing up consistently, being transparent, and offering something real. That’s much more sustainable than chasing trends or quick wins, and it’s going to mean you can get the audience who really care about you – which is a hugely important thing to consider as well.
As you can see, it’s plausible and perfectly possible to build a way to make money from whatever interests you. In fact, the more niche it is, the better, and you’ll likely be able to find your audience with a little self-belief and persistence.
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