My Plan with Passive Income (...and Other Thoughts)

Tl;dr: Opinions on Passive Income & My plan on Hive with Articles, Delegation Rewards, NFTs.

This is my entry to the Silver Prompt & Dreemport Collab Challenge: Passive Income. I'm not someone in the silver years, (yet,) so I'm happy the chosen prompt topics are universal, and I wish I took part last week too.

I have a lot of thoughts about Passive Income. So many thoughts that I find it hard to organize them in an article. What to talk about? My history with online money making? My Passive Income Ideas? My plan on Hive/Cryptocurrency? I decided to start from the beginning:

The Quest: Money Without Work

I never wanted to work. I think I have a complex regarding Jobs. I also have anxiety when meeting new people face to face. I'm also always interest hopping and can't keep doing the same thing for long periods without suffering mentally. That's why, a way to earn money without having to do that always interested me. The variations of "How to Earn Money Online" might be my 3rd most searched topic on Google.

My ideal source of income would be one I should (A) I'm good at, (B) Provides Value, (C) Doesn't need my presence most of the time, and (D) Minimal Interactions with People. If you noticed, that's the perfect description of Passive Income.

My financial situation right now is basically a functional NEET. Half of my expenses are provided by the household. Most of the time, I don't need to pay for my food, water, or electricity. While I earn money online to pay for my personal expenses: Internet, clothes ...etc. Libya is a cheap country, and I thank God for that. ^{(الحمد لله)}

Since I wanted to get money without feeling like I'm working, I went to things I like: Art and Gaming. I could write and draw stories and people pay me for them, or I could record my gaming playthroughs or write reviews and earn money. Soon, I realized a fact that should've been obvious: Making Art or Playing Games for money feels like an actual job!

When other people pay you for content, you're not doing the hobby for yourself anymore. You're either making what sells or you don't get paid. If you don't market yourself, you wouldn't even be found. (Luckily, I learned a lot about marketing this way.)

I needed something that I enjoy, that I can earn money from, but also allows me to switch niches whenever I feel like it without leaving people who pay me unsatisfied. Blogging is a good solution, but it requires a lot of time to reach a starting point if the blog doesn't have a strong "marketing message" which is something I desperately lack.

My $HIVE Plan

^{I'll refer to Steem & Hive interchangeably. They're essentially the same blockchain.}

A while after I discovered Steem, I realized this type of blogging can solve my problem. A few years later, before and after the community moved to Hive, the system kept changing but only in ways that could realize my vision better.

Hive has the HP System ^{(Hive Power)} and with the way the rewards work, HP basically serves as a Passive Income that pays streams of money similar to the Stock Investments. So my current plan goes like this:

• Earn Hive Power by doing Things I Like

  • Since I don't have a dedicated niche, I'm writing everything I like on Hive, whenever I can. Choosing the best Tags & Communities for each content, and making my personality the selling point instead of one niche.

• Steadily Accumulate Hive Power

  • Earning $1 per post doesn't sound like much, but I keep reminding myself that the earned HP will keep on giving for years to come. With every $1, the next one should come faster.

• Make use of Microblogging

  • Long-form content takes a lot of time/effort. ^{(I spent 3 days on some posts.)} So I dedicated my other account @ahmadmangazap to Microblogs. I can write good ones in less than 10 minutes. Engaging with other microbloggers on Hive is also rewarding.

• Curation & Delegation Rewards

  • The main component of the plan: Earned HP will be delegated to some Curation Groups I like. These delegation rewards would become my Passive Income. I'll consider this a success when I get enough daily rewards for all of my expenses. I'm far from achieving that, however.

I don't only depend on the HP delegation in my Hive Plan. Post-rewards are the main way I earn Hive and HP. Relationship building is an important aspect I need to work on, as the more people you know, the more help you can provide and receive.

While I mainly write about what I like at the time. Contests & Challenges are good places to get my motivation especially when there are prizes. I'm writing this post as an entry to a Dreemport Challenge, after all.

Another aspect is NFTs. I'm thinking of selling some as a way to earn money, but since I hate what the NFT space has done to the art world, I don't want to make "useless" NFTs just (like I used to.) I'd like NFTs with an actual use-case more.

I started minting my DFT series, which should reward their owners to the extent of my ability, but I haven't finalized their use-case yet. Check them out if you're interested: @ahmadmanga's Digital Funding Token ^{(More info: here.)}

Overall, I see a lot of potential in Hive so I'm working on Having a Passive Income on it. I don't need to be a Whale, just a mid-sized Dolphin freely swimming in the ocean. ~

I realize that my plan is flawed. No one knows the future, and even if everything else went smoothly, the plan still depends on $Hive's price increasing 10x times in 5 years while keeping stability at +$1 for at least half of that time. This is a gamble, but not one that would ruin my life if failed, I hope.

Even if I have this vision on Hive, I'll still need other sources of Income, but my hands are too full with Hive, (and life,) for me to establish myself elsewhere. I'm exploring other Web 3 social media, and I'm making my own website: ahmadmanga.net, but it's a slow process that will take months and/or years to reach the vision I want, so I'm playing the slow-steady game.

"Free Money" Doesn't Exist

Passive Income is a paradox in my opinion. It requires a lot of work for the results to start showing and even more work to maintain. It's true that most of the work is front-loaded at the start, but as the economy is always evolving, our Passive Income source should evolve with it.

One of the ways I wanted to earn Passive Income is by making and selling Digital Content, (eBooks, Art Designs, Games ...etc.) Then I realized there's nothing passive about selling Digital Content.

After I turn the Fiction content I've been posting on Hive into ebooks, I'll need to market it, and I'll also need to continue publishing new ones to never get off the radar.

If you're an ebook publisher/editor reading this tell me in the comments. My content and your experience could help each other.

Thinking about all that work, I feel funny when I call it "Passive Income" even if it is.

As for the art, I got a brilliant idea a few months ago: Instead of selling my Art Designs, why not make them for people to use on HIVE? I already made some of these for Hive Stock Images Community. I'm confident the uniqueness of my art. You saw this post's cover, didn't you?

The Silver Road ​

Writing this post for the Silver Bloggers community, made me think about old age. The future terrifies me, so I don't think about it often. I realize that doesn't make me the best at planning for the future, (to the point suicide doesn't sound bad sometimes,) but I'm managing, I guess.

If I'm going to live only depending on the delegation rewards on Hive, I'll need to have at least $200,000 of value in HP, more after taking X-years of inflation in mind. I'm only at 2% of that level at the current Hive price. A depressing thought, but it's not impossible to achieve if I worked a bit harder.

Getting Rich was never one of my goals. If at any point, I'm able to earn the next thing I want in a timely manner, I'm satisfied.

If you want to help... Read My Stories & Leave a Comment. Buy My DFTs (Digital Funding Tokens) or Suggest Ideas for them, and above all: Be a Friend~

What do you think?

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• The cover image is drawn by me using iBisPaint. The second image is taken from Unsplash.

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