Sometimes I feel like a hermit coming out of his cave when I write on here. It’s been a while since I’ve written regularly and it’s because of having so much going on.
I’ve had a few big jobs that took up a lot of time. One sculpting job in particular that I hope to show images of sometime in the near future. That one has a non-disclosure agreement attached, so let’s cross our fingers that it isn’t too long until I can show the work.
The other big thing that I have been working on is trying to come up with some passive income. I work in a business that is feast or famine. As a freelance artist, many times work comes in bunches. You could be without a job for a while and then, BOOM, tons of work from one or more clients. Mind you, in the off-time you’re hustling to find new clients, update and upgrade your portfolio and use social media to get your name out there. But, there always seem to be times of famine. When that phone won’t ring, clients don’t have new work, and new clients aren’t biting. In those times, I want to have money still coming in. And that’s where passive income would fit perfectly.
Passive income? If you don’t know what that is, passive income would be money that works for you. Basically you don’t need to work for it to come in. And I have been trying to come up with a number of ideas to create some. I literally have over a dozen ideas, but I decided to use the lowest hanging fruit – the one that needed the least amount of work and could be implemented the quickest. That was Etsy for me.
If you don’t know what Etsy is, Etsy is an online marketplace where handmade goods can be sold to anyone anywhere. Handmade? I know, sounds like work. But they have a digital-printable section. Basically, if you make something digitally and upload it to your shop on Etsy, it will be there forever, available for someone to download and print off themselves (hence the name ‘printable’).
I came up with some ideas that I thought would be both fun for me and also that I thought could sell. My shop presently has 90 items available:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DeepThoughtsByJosh
Another cool thing is that they just implemented a personalized business webpage for you if you want. It’s not expensive and it’s pretty slick:
http://www.deepthoughtsbyjosh.com
One thing to keep in mind about passive income – setting it up is a LOT of ACTIVE work! I’m talking full-time job and then some work.
In doing this, I’m starting up a new business. One that will eventually need far less active attention (except for social media and uploading new products). But eventually I’m hoping that this will be the first of my passive income revenue streams.
The next part of this will go over how I incorporated social media and physical products to my budding business.
Stay tuned!
Josh Hagen 
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