Who doesn’t want to make money while they sleep? If you want to really make a lot of money, it’s easier if you can do it 24/7. Any stream of income you can create that doesn’t require your regular attention will take you a long way towards your goal.

Here are just a few ideas to get you thinking:

1.     Hire an assistant

The idea here is to get the contract for some work that pays reasonably well and then simply hire someone else to do the work. You pay them less than what you’re getting paid and keep the rest. If you can get enough work, you won’t have to do much and you can really make some money, all while you sleep.

For contracts involving offline work, bookkeeping, landscaping, and many other service businesses work well with this concept. Your work would be in meeting with current clients and getting new clients while your assistant does all the service work. Picking up ongoing, monthly contracts is where you make the most money.

For contracts involving online work, such as programming, design, or graphics for websites, the least expensive virtual assistants are typically found in foreign countries where a day’s pay is considerably less than it is here. There are many qualified and skilled people all over the world that would love to help you out.

Look at marketplaces like upwork.com to obtain your online contracts. There are also marketplaces specifically for workers in foreign countries. An Internet search will lead you to all the marketplaces you could use.

2.     Create a blog

If you can get readers, you can make money. With a high traffic site, you can make a lot of money from advertising revenue. Pay per click ads can really amount to a significant income on a popular site.

With that regular audience, you can also sell products and services to them and wake up to overnight profits.

3.     Buy a small business

Most people focus on the Internet when trying to make money while they sleep, but any small business where you can hire other people to run it will work. Do you think the owner of 10 McDonald’s franchises is in there flipping burgers? Your own bricks-and-mortar business might be the answer. Although this takes a fair amount of initial capital, you may be able to build up funds to work towards this if you can’t do it now.

4.     Create affiliate websites

This is similar to the blog idea, but an affiliate website is commonly dedicated to selling a single group of products in a particular niche. AT one point I had websites dedicated to lampshades, patio  furniture and kitchen mixers. By creating a website with worthwhile content, especially providing valuable reviews of the products in your niche, you can attract people looking to spend money on the type of product that you’re offering.

5.     Write a book

Specifically, write an eBook and sell it online. Amazon.com makes it extremely easy to sell your eBook and they take care of everything, including showing your book to the readers they think will be interested. The better your book and the more sales it makes, the more people get to see it.

I have made a good side income (and many months a full-time income) in this way for years with both fiction and non-fiction. I like to write under pen names to keep different genres separate, and it also saves embarrassment when your boss or granny decides to check out your super steamy romance novella!

If you have a hobby you’re passionate about, you can turn your hobby into a business, starting with a simple instructional book, to create a mini-empire.  For example, if you have an ebook on raising llamas, why not create a website all about llamas, too? You can establish yourself as an expert and have a lot of cross advertising going on. Sometimes 1+1+1 = 5.

If you choose a topic you like that a lot of people are willing to spend money on, you can make a good living. Things like money, love, and health are goldmines. Who isn’t interested in these things? There’s more competition for sure, but that’s where the big money is located.

There’s a lot of money in fiction, too. Most readers are not looking for highbrow literature but interesting stories that make them happy. So don’t feel you need to be a language genius to have your book selling while you sleep.

Can you come with more ideas for things you love to do? Making money while you sleep can create the additional income you crave. Imagine if you spent your spare time setting up a business to create passive income instead of watching TV every night. What a difference that could make to your financial future!