Everybody has at least one hobby that really draws them in.
You’re probably thinking of yours now?
Maybe it’s quite general, like reading books?
Perhaps it’s more niche, such as performing in Civil War battle re-enactments.
Whatever your hobby, you could be missing out on making good money doing something you love!
Let’s take a look at how to monetize your hobby!
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Introduction To Monetizing Your Hobby
Whatever your hobby is, keep doing it!
Hobbies can often provide those rare moments in life where your problems simply fade away. Pure, focused, contentment.
Ever watched someone’s eyes light up when you ask them about your hobby? Beautiful isn’t it.
Hobbies are also often one of the key reasons our readers decide to pursue early retirement.
As if that’s not enough, hobbies can also be a great way to give your monthly income a little boost. You’re already super interested in your hobby and do it all the time, right? Then you might as well get paid for it!
In this article, we’ll discuss all of the ways that you can monetize your hobby. To start, we’ll assume that you already have a hobby in mind. You probably know what you’re interested in and are simply looking for information on to make money from it.
However, if you need a little help coming up with a profitable hobby then feel free to check out the final section on potential money-making hobbies. Just be sure to jump back to the beginning once you’ve got an idea in mind!
But Should You Monetize Your Hobby?
To paraphrase the great Jeff Goldblume, “You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.”
Before you immediately jump into trying to monetize your hobby, you should consider the fact that doing this could quickly turn into a job. Many professional athletes have spoken out about this. They play a sport their whole life simply for the love of the game. However, once they turn professional and rely on the sport to earn an income, that “love” quickly fades. Instead, it slowly morphs into a love for whoever is offering them the bigger contract. Sad isn’t it?
Consider all of the factors that change when an athlete goes pro:
- Their performance impacts their family and loved ones. If they don’t perform well, they risk getting cut. This adds another level of pressure to an already stressful profession.
- They are forced to move whenever a new team signs them. Most players have very little control over where they (and their families) live.
- Loyalty to a single team goes out the window. Instead, they’re motivated to play for whoever pays them the most.
The list goes on. Now, most people reading this article probably don’t have “professional athlete” in mind when thinking about monetizing their hobby. However, all of the takeaways are the same. For example, let’s say that you enjoy writing and are thinking of starting a side-gig as a writer. Here are a few things to consider:
- You will now be required to meet strict deadlines, formatting requirements, and client requests. For the most part, you will need to write about what other people want instead of what you’re interested in. Also, now that someone is paying for your work you’ll need to spend much more time outlining/editing/revising.
- Clients may be dissatisfied with your work and they sure will let you know if they are. This means you need to be able to accept criticism of your work. We’ve never been good at this one!
- Many writing gigs are on a project basis. This means that you will need to spend a lot of time applying to gigs to keep the money flowing.
Now, we’re definitely not trying to talk you out of monetizing your hobby. We just want to make sure that you know what you’re getting into. Some hobbies are better when they’re just for fun!
On the other hand, some hobbies are definitely better when they’re bringing in cash! Personally, earning money whilst pursuing my hobbies is an absolute life-goal (and this blog is certainly putting us on track). The easiest way to monetize your hobby is to ask yourself a simple question: will someone pay you money to do your hobby?
Ways To Monetize Your Hobbies
There are three different ways that you can monetize your hobby:
- Get hired to perform your hobby
- Create and sell products using your hobby
- Create a business around your hobby
The good part is that most hobbies can be monetized in all three ways. It just depends on what you’re looking for. For example, imagine that your hobby is playing the piano. Let’s take a look at all of the potential ways that you could monetize that:
- Get hired to perform your hobby
- You could play the piano at private events, coffee shops, bars, weddings, or even the street corner. You show up, perform your hobby, and collect a check. Super straightforward. Sounds good to me.
- Create and sell products using your hobby
- You could create and sell original sheet music or song adaptions for the piano. This is a way that you could take a common hobby (the piano) and make it unique (make your own adaptations). You could also record songs and stream them on Spotify or Apple music. Then you will get paid a very small amount whenever someone streams it (which counts as passive income, our favorite!)
- Create a business around your hobby
- You could start a piano school where you give lessons. You could also create your own events that are centered around your piano performances. Even something as simple as a YouTube channel can act a little bit like a business if you take the right approach.
There is no single best way to monetize your hobby. The best option for you is going to depend on your personal preferences, the type of hobby you have, and how much money you are trying to make.
Now, let’s touch on a few good tools that can help you get started.
Get Hired To Perform Your Hobby
If your main interest is in getting paid to perform your hobby then you’re in luck. This is probably the easiest way to monetize your hobby. However, it might also require you to think a little bit outside the box. For example, if your interest is in drawing then you might want to consider learning graphic design, which is a much more in-demand skill.
Fiverr* and Upwork are two of the best places to get started as a freelancer. They are very easy places to get started monetizing your hobby!
* As per our Fiverr review, we’d strongly recommend it as a great place to get started.
As you can see, Fiverr in particular has sections for graphics & design, digital marketing, writing & translation, video & animation, music & audio, programming & tech, etc. There’s no shortage of options when it comes to trying to monetize your hobbies on a platform like Fiverr.
Simply create a gig and then wait for interested parties to reach out. On Upwork, companies will post gigs with their requirements that you can apply to. Both of these marketplaces are massive and will instantly put you in front of thousands of potential customers.
However, maybe you want to go local with your hobby. This may admittedly be more manageable.
Instead of Fiverr/Upwork, try reaching out to local small businesses to see if they’re interested in working with you.
Alternatively, is your hobby a job that would exist in the corporate world? Lots of people get started down a certain career path right after college. However, later in life, they develop new passions and it never occurs to them to look for employment for their newfound passion.
If so, traditional job boards like Glassdoor, Indeed, or even LinkedIn are good options. Even if your hobby isn’t a job, you could pivot your career to work in an industry related to your hobby. Again, if you are an avid piano player, you could try and get a job in the music industry. This way your daily schedule will still be related to your passion, even if it isn’t an exact match.
Now let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can create and sell products using your hobby.
Create And Sell Products Using Your Hobby
If you have no interest in leaving your current job, you can still make a side income creating and selling products using your hobby. This can be done fairly easily when you’re off the clock.
Additionally, if you are creating projects that are easily replicable then this could quickly turn into a big moneymaker. For example, you could create a unique design and post it on a T-Shirt that you plan to sell. From here, it’s just as easy to create and sell one hundred shirts as it is to create one. Again, this will depend on exactly what your hobby is.
Can you use your hobby to create physical products that are good enough to sell? If so, try creating a few products and listing them for sale. Here are a few good places to start:
- Etsy – This site is specifically for handmade goods. They also have an option for digital downloads. We’ve created a big article on how to start selling printables on etsy.
- Ebay
- Amazon
- Facebook Marketplace
- OfferUp
- Local craft shops
- Local farmers markets
Finally, we’ll touch on how you can turn your hobby into a business. This is a little bit similar to creating and selling products except it’s usually a little more in-depth.
Turn Your Hobby Into A Profitable Business
The first thing to note is that you can create either a product-based business or a service-based one.
If you create a product-based business, your business will be centered around creating and selling products. This process will actually be fairly similar to the previous section. However, you might want to take it one step further and create your own website. This can be done relatively easily using website creators like Shopify, WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix (we recommend WordPress, hosted by Bluehost)
Creating your own website will require a much bigger upfront commitment. However, it will also give you much more flexibility and control over the long run.
If you don’t have a product to sell then you’ll most likely be creating a service-based business. This is slightly different than getting hired to perform your passion. To create a service-based business, you will want to build up a portfolio of paying clients until you have too many to handle.
From here, you will need to hire employees to help you manage the workload.
Over time as you hire more employees, your role will slowly switch into that of a manager. You will spend your day-to-day delegating projects, managing your employee’s productivity, and trying to land new projects. Eventually, you would ideally be able to hire someone to manage your employees. This would essentially separate you from the business entirely and give you plenty of freedom with how you want to use your time. Passive income at it’s finest!
That’s pretty much it in terms of different ways to monetize your hobbies! It’s difficult to go too in-depth without knowing your specific hobby. However, we hope that you’ve taken away at least one starting point that will help you get started monetizing your hobby.
If you want any specific advice then drop us a note in the comments – we’ll do our best!
Finally, let’s look at a few ideas on how to find profitable hobbies that make money.
Profitable Hobbies That Make Money
If you don’t have a hobby in mind already, then it’s time to start brainstorming!
While you’re brainstorming, it might be a good idea to start with the end in mind. By this, we mean you should consider picking a hobby that’s fairly easy to monetize.
For example, writing is a very in-demand skill that lots of businesses will pay for. On the other hand, participating in Civil War reenactments is not (correct me below if i’m wrong).
One way to get a few ideas of potential hobbies you can start is to scan the categories on freelance marketplaces like Fiverr.
Here are just a few of the category options:
- Graphics & Design
- Digital Marketing
- Writing & Translation
- Video & Animation
- Music & Audio
- Programming & Tech
- Data
- Business
- Lifestyle
Has anything jumped out at you?
Not to worry, all of these categories are also broken down into different subcategories!
Nearly everything you find on a freelance platform is likely to be profitable (when done right). You do need to consider competition/saturation but for now, just have a think!
Still not inspired?
If you still don’t find anything that appeals to you then you can also try thinking of things that you already do. A lot of times, we don’t consider something as a “hobby” simply because it’s so ingrained in our daily lives. See if you can identify a few parts of your day-to-day that you really enjoy. These are all great options for developing a new hobby and, eventually, turning it into an income stream!
Keep it simple – do you love breakfast? Start a food blog!
Time For You To Monetise Your Own Hobby!
We hope you found this article valuable when it comes to learning how to monetize your hobby.
If you’re interested, we’ve successfully monetized a few of our own hobbies. This blog is a proud example, combining our loves for writing, finance and teaching. We’ve also run dog niche e-commerce stores, pet related clothing lines and a snowboard reselling business.
What’s your first hobby related side-hustle going to be?
Let us know below.
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