Location Free Lifestyle

With the power of the internet you can make money with even the craziest topics, like video game tips, how to make a parrot talk, or even about looking after one species of tropical fish.   It’s like when you were back in High School and you had all that career advice about the jobs that you could do.  Only this time the jobs are a lot more fun, you get to choose and you get to live in funky locations.  But it is probably the toughest thing to decide, because there are so many options now open to you.

So how to choose choose what subject you want to work with. …

Help me!

It’s all about supply and demand. What can you supply that other people demand?

Does anyone ever come to you with any questions or problems they have?  Maybe something to do with work?  Do any of  your friends ask you about soccer strips or how to break up with their girlfriends?  Or people ask you about how to decorate Christmas trees?  How to dress well?  How to mow a lawn properly?   Bang, that could be your new online business.  You don’t know how big it will be yet, but if at least one person has asked you about it (and assuming you could give them a good answer!) then that’s one sign that people have this need and you could help fill it!

Magazines & Bookstores

Or try  looking  offline.  For example pop along to your local newsagent, which magazines do you regularly buy? Take a look at what other magazines are available for different hobbies.  If there are magazines available it means people are buying them i.e. there’s a demand.  And it also means there are sponsors willing to pay for advertising.  If there’s a demand offline then there certainly will be a demand for the same type of information online.  This means it’s possibly (see later!)  a topic where you could make a living.

For example some of the popular magazines in the UK are:

• Vogue
• Hello
• Ok
• Stuff
• What car?
• Men’s health
• PC Pro
• Cycling magazine
• Living abroad
• Amateur Gardening
• Playstation Magazine
• Future Music
• Family Tree
• Beautiful Homes
• etc. etc.

Now some of these topics will be ruled out because of all the online competition and we’ll take about that next time. But your mission for today is to write down the names and topics of as many magazines (or even non-fiction books) that you are interested in and you think you could write material online in a blog or ebook that would interest readers of those magazines.  It’s even better if you could narrow it down to specific parts or niches of the magazine.

Some things to consider when making the list:

• Could you write about this for ever and ever without getting bored?
• Could you write about this even if you never got paid for it?
• Could you write about this in a way that other people don’t?
• Could you make the topic seem more fun or exciting?
• Do you have a unique way of thinking about this topic?
• What experiences do you have in the topic that you could write about?
• Would you like to be famous for this topic?
• Is this the topic you want writing on your tombstone (or Nobel prize!)

If you’ve answered yes to all those then you might have just found your niche.

Then next time we’ll look at the supply side of things….