Use a “licensing” model for your creative work, not just selling one-off copies.
Sell the Recipe, Not Just the Cake.
Imagine you’re a baker who creates an amazing, one-of-a-kind cake. You could sell that single cake for a good price. The transaction is over. Or, you could license the recipe. You sell the right for a national supermarket chain to use your recipe to bake and sell thousands of cakes, and for every single one they sell, you get a small royalty payment. Licensing your creative work—a photo, a design, a piece of music—is selling the recipe. You create the asset once, and you get paid over and over as other people sell the “cakes.”
Stop just writing a book. Do retain the audio and foreign rights to create multiple royalty streams from one manuscript.
The Tree and Its Many Branches.
When you write a book, the manuscript is the strong, central trunk of a tree. A short-sighted author sells the entire tree for one price. A smart author sells the tree trunk (the print book rights) but keeps ownership of all the branches. They sell the audio rights as one branch, the German translation rights as another, and the movie rights as a third. Each of these is a separate royalty stream. By understanding and retaining your subsidiary rights, you can turn one single piece of creative work into a dozen different income-producing branches.
Stop just taking photos. Do upload your portfolio to stock photo sites like Adobe Stock or Shutterstock.
The Art Gallery for Your Hard Drive.
Imagine you are a brilliant painter, but you keep all your finished canvases stacked up in a dark closet. No one can see them, and you’ll never make a sale. Your photography portfolio sitting on your hard drive is that closet full of paintings. Stock photo sites are like a global art gallery that is open 24/7. By uploading your work, you are putting your “paintings” on display for millions of potential buyers—businesses, marketers, and designers—who need your exact image and are willing to pay you a royalty every time they use it.
The #1 secret to significant royalty income is creating a volume of quality work, not just one masterpiece.
The Orchard vs. The Single Apple Tree.
An artist can spend their entire life trying to grow one single, perfect, prize-winning apple tree. The chances of it succeeding are incredibly slim. A farmer, on the other hand, plants an entire orchard of a hundred good, healthy apple trees. Not every tree will be a star performer, but the combined, consistent harvest from the entire orchard will provide a reliable, significant income year after year. Don’t chase the single masterpiece. Build a portfolio. The cumulative royalties from a hundred “good enough” assets will almost always outperform the lottery ticket of one perfect creation.
I’m just going to say it: Self-publishing a book will make you more money per copy, but traditional publishing can give you more reach.
The Food Truck vs. The Supermarket.
Self-publishing is like owning a popular food truck. You have total control, you build a direct relationship with your customers, and you keep 70% of every sale. It can be very profitable. Traditional publishing is like getting your product onto the shelves of a national supermarket chain. Their massive distribution and marketing machine can get your food in front of millions of people, but they are going to keep 90% of the money. You have to decide if you want the higher margin of the food truck or the massive reach of the supermarket.
The reason your music royalties are so low is because you’re not registered with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) like ASCAP or BMI.
The Manager Who Collects Your Tips.
Imagine you are a musician whose song is being played in thousands of cafes, radio stations, and TV shows all over the world. You can’t possibly go to every single one of them to collect the small payment you’re owed. A Performing Rights Organization is your global manager. You register your songs with them, and their job is to track every single public performance and collect those royalties on your behalf. If you’re not registered, it’s like playing a global concert but leaving the tip jar at home. You’re leaving a huge pile of money on the table.
If you’re still creating “work for hire” without a royalty clause, you’re giving away your long-term income potential.
Building the House vs. Owning the House.
“Work for hire” is like being a carpenter who is paid a one-time fee to build a beautiful house. Once it’s built, you hand over the keys and your involvement is over. Including a royalty clause is like being a carpenter who says, “I’ll build you this house for a lower upfront fee, but in exchange, I want to receive 2% of the rent it generates, forever.” You are retaining a small piece of ownership in the asset you created. This transforms a one-time paycheck into a potential long-term, passive income stream.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about royalties is that they are only for famous artists and inventors.
The Local Restaurant’s Secret Sauce.
You don’t have to be a world-famous, Michelin-starred chef to make money from your recipes. A small local restaurant can bottle and sell its popular “secret sauce” and earn a nice side income. The same is true for royalties. You don’t have to be a rock star or a famous inventor. You can be a software developer who licenses a piece of code, a designer who sells a popular font, or a teacher who creates educational materials. If you create something that solves a problem for a specific group of people, you can earn royalties from it.
I wish I knew this about book royalties when I was starting out: The author gets a surprisingly small percentage of the cover price.
The Farmer’s Share of the Loaf of Bread.
A farmer grows and harvests the wheat—the most essential ingredient for a loaf of bread. But when that $5 loaf is sold at the supermarket, the farmer might only receive ten cents. The rest goes to the miller, the baker, the truck driver, the grocery store, and the marketer. As an author, you are the farmer. You create the essential ingredient. But in a traditional publishing deal, your royalty is often just 10% of the cover price. The vast majority of the money goes to the complex machinery of producing, distributing, and selling the final product.
99% of artists make this one mistake when licensing their work: they don’t have a clear contract that defines the scope of use.
Lending Your Car to a Friend.
Lending your car to a friend with a vague “you can borrow it” is a recipe for disaster. Do you mean they can borrow it for an hour to go to the store, or for a month to drive across the country? A licensing contract is the specific agreement for “borrowing” your art. It must clearly define the scope: where they can use it (web only?), for how long (one year?), and in what context (not for political ads!). Without a clear contract, you are handing over the keys to your most valuable asset with no rules.
This one small action of copyrighting your creative work will protect your ability to earn royalties from it forever.
The Deed to Your House.
You wouldn’t buy a house without getting the official, legal deed that proves you are the owner. A copyright is the official deed to your intellectual property. It’s the legal registration of your ownership of a song, a book, or a photograph. While you have some rights the moment you create something, formally registering the copyright is what gives you the legal firepower to go after someone who is trying to use your “property” without paying you for it. It’s the foundational step for protecting your future royalty streams.
Use a “print on demand” service like Merch by Amazon, not just holding inventory, to sell T-shirt designs for royalties.
The Magic T-Shirt Machine.
Imagine you want to sell T-shirts. The old way was to guess which designs would be popular, spend thousands of dollars printing a hundred of each, and then store the unsold boxes in your garage forever. A print-on-demand service is like a magic T-shirt machine. You simply upload your design. When a customer orders one, the machine instantly prints and ships that single shirt. You hold no inventory and have no upfront cost. It’s a zero-risk way to turn your creative designs into a royalty check.
Stop just being a YouTuber. Do license your viral videos to media companies for a fee.
The Home Run Ball.
When a baseball player hits a home run, the fan who catches the ball in the stands owns it. If that ball was a historic, record-breaking one, they could sell it for a huge amount of money. A viral video is that home run ball. You created it, and you own the copyright. When news outlets, TV shows, and marketing agencies want to use your clip, they can’t just take it. You can, and should, license it to them for a fee. That funny cat video is not just a video; it’s a valuable asset.
Stop just writing blog posts. Do bundle them into an e-book and sell it for royalties on Amazon KDP.
The Chef’s Cookbook.
A chef can give out individual recipes for free on napkins every single day. This is great for building an audience. But a smart chef will also take their ten best recipes, organize them, add some beautiful photos, and compile them into a beautiful cookbook that they can sell. Your blog is the collection of free recipes. By bundling your best posts on a single topic into a cohesive e-book, you are creating a premium, valuable product that your most loyal fans will happily pay for.
The #1 hack for a songwriter is to get your music into a production music library.
The “Stock Photo” Site for Music.
A movie director doesn’t have time to call a thousand individual musicians to find the perfect song for their commercial. They go to a “one-stop-shop”—a production music library—that has thousands of pre-cleared songs organized by mood and genre. Getting your music into one of these libraries is like putting your songs on a giant, global shelf right at the eye level of the people who are actively shopping for music. It’s the single most effective way to get your music discovered and licensed for use in TV, film, and advertising.
I’m just going to say it: Patent royalties are extremely difficult to get and are not a realistic passive income source for most people.
The Quest for the Holy Grail.
The idea of sketching an invention on a napkin and then collecting millions in patent royalties is the “holy grail” of passive income. It’s a beautiful, inspiring story. But the reality is that it’s a long, perilous, and incredibly expensive quest. The process of getting a patent can take years and cost tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, with an extremely low probability of ever finding a company willing to license it. For 99.9% of people, there are far more realistic and accessible paths to passive income.
The reason your stock photos aren’t selling is because they are too generic and don’t cater to a specific commercial need.
The “Food” Aisle vs. The “Organic Gluten-Free Pasta Sauce” Aisle.
A grocery store doesn’t just have an aisle called “Food.” That’s too generic. It has a specific aisle for “Cereal” and an even more specific shelf for “Organic Gluten-Free Pasta Sauce.” A generic photo of a “flower” or a “sunset” is the “Food” aisle. There are millions of them. A photo of “a cheerful senior woman doing yoga on the beach at sunrise” is the specific pasta sauce. It’s created for a specific commercial need, which makes it much more likely to be discovered and purchased by a buyer with that exact need.
If you’re still not creating digital assets like fonts, presets, or graphic templates, you’re missing out on a huge royalty market.
Selling the Paintbrushes, Not Just the Painting.
As an artist, you can sell your finished paintings. Or, you can take your expertise and create a unique set of custom paintbrushes that helps other artists create their own work. Digital assets like a custom font, a Lightroom photo preset, or a Canva template are those paintbrushes. You are packaging your unique skill and style into a tool that other people can use. These are incredibly valuable, high-leverage assets that you can create once and sell a million times to a global audience of fellow creators.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need an agent to get a publishing deal.
The VIP Pass to the Concert.
An agent is like a VIP pass. They can definitely get you past the security guards and directly into the backstage area to meet the rock stars (the big publishers). This is a huge advantage. However, it is still possible to get noticed by playing amazing music on the small stage just outside the arena. If you build a large, engaged audience on your own through a blog or an email list, the rock stars will eventually hear the noise and come outside to find you. An agent is helpful, but a proven audience is even more powerful.
I wish I knew the difference between mechanical royalties, performance royalties, and sync licensing in music.
The Three Paychecks for One Song.
Imagine your song is a physical product, like a can of soda. A mechanical royalty is what you get paid every time someone manufactures a new can (a CD, a vinyl record, or a digital stream). A performance royalty is what you get paid every time someone opens and enjoys that soda in public (played on the radio or in a restaurant). A sync license is a special, one-time fee you get when someone wants to feature your specific can of soda in their movie or TV commercial. Each one is a different income stream, generated by a different use of your one song.
99% of authors make this one mistake: they don’t have a plan to market their book after it’s published.
Building the Car and Forgetting the Gas.
Writing a book is like spending a year meticulously building a beautiful, high-performance car. The moment you finish, you feel like the work is done. But a car without any gasoline is just a heavy, stationary sculpture. Marketing is the gasoline for your book. It is the fuel that will actually get it into the hands of readers. Without a clear plan to promote your book, you have built a wonderful vehicle that will forever sit in your garage. The writing is just the first half of the journey.
This one small action of creating a simple “licensing” page on your portfolio website will open up new income opportunities.
The “For Rent” Sign on Your House.
If you want to rent out a house, you put a “For Rent” sign in the yard. It’s a clear, simple signal that you are open for business. A “Licensing” page on your website is that sign. It tells potential clients—like ad agencies, magazines, and brands—that your beautiful images or designs are not just for looking at; they are commercial assets that are available for hire. This one simple page can turn your online portfolio from a simple gallery into a real, lead-generating business.
Use an “open source” model with a commercial license, not just giving away your code for free.
The Free Samples with a Catering Menu.
Imagine a caterer who gives out delicious, free samples at a food festival. The samples are free for anyone to enjoy (the open-source code). However, if a large corporation wants to have that same food at their 500-person corporate event, they have to buy a commercial catering package (the commercial license). You can give away your code for free to the community for personal and educational use, while still requiring large companies that use your code to make a profit to pay for a commercial license.
Stop just creating. Do look into buying existing royalty streams from marketplaces like Royalty Exchange.
Buying the Apple Orchard Instead of Planting It.
You can spend a decade of your life learning how to plant, grow, and manage a productive apple orchard. Or, you can go to a marketplace and just buy a fully mature, professionally managed orchard that is already producing a steady, predictable harvest. Marketplaces like Royalty Exchange allow you to buy a fractional share of the future royalties from a hit song or a popular book. It’s a way to invest in proven, cash-flowing creative assets without having to be the creative genius yourself.
Stop just having a great idea. Do learn about trade secrets and how to protect them.
The Secret Recipe for Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola’s most valuable asset is not its factories or its trucks. It’s the secret recipe, which is protected as a “trade secret.” It’s a piece of information that has immense commercial value precisely because it is not widely known. If you have a unique process, a special formula, or a proprietary method that gives you a competitive advantage, you must treat it like a secret recipe. Learning how to protect it with contracts and non-disclosure agreements is the key to preserving the value of your most important asset.
The #1 secret to a long-lasting royalty stream is to create something evergreen, not trendy.
The Classic Novel vs. The Fidget Spinner.
The fidget spinner was a massive, trendy sensation. For one year, the royalties from that design were incredible. The next year, they were zero. A classic novel like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” on the other hand, sells a consistent, reliable number of copies, year after year, decade after decade. It is evergreen. When you create your work, ask yourself: will this still be relevant and useful in ten years? By focusing on timeless topics and universal themes, you are building an asset that can pay you for a lifetime, not just for a season.
I’m just going to say it: The vast majority of self-published books on Amazon sell fewer than 100 copies.
The Garage Band’s Demo Tape.
The dream of uploading a book to Amazon and waking up a millionaire is the modern version of a garage band sending their demo tape to a record label and hoping to become rock stars. While it’s technically possible, the statistical reality is that it almost never happens. The platform is flooded with millions of other “bands.” Success in self-publishing is not a lottery ticket. It’s a real business that requires a high-quality product, a deep understanding of your niche audience, and a relentless marketing effort.
The reason your designs aren’t selling on merch sites is because you’re not researching popular niches and trends.
The T-Shirt Shop in a Ghost Town.
You could design the most beautiful, clever T-shirt in the world. But if you set up your shop in a ghost town where no one ever visits, you will never make a sale. Niche and trend research is the act of finding the bustling city where your ideal customers are already hanging out. Instead of just designing what you like, you must use the platform’s own data to see what is already popular and then create a unique, high-quality design that serves that proven, existing demand.
If you’re still not negotiating for a percentage of the gross revenue, you’re getting a bad royalty deal.
A Cut of the Ticket Sales vs. a Cut of the “Profit.”
Imagine a movie studio offers you a percentage of the movie’s “profit.” They will then use creative Hollywood accounting to make sure there are so many “expenses” that the movie never officially makes a profit, and you get nothing. A smart actor negotiates for a percentage of the “gross”—the total ticket sales before any expenses are deducted. When you are negotiating a royalty, always fight to have it based on the gross revenue, not the net profit. It’s a much cleaner, more transparent, and more favorable number.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you can just upload something once and earn royalties forever without any promotion.
The Seed in the Desert.
You can plant a seed in the desert, but if you just walk away and never give it any water, it will not grow. Your creative work is that seed. Uploading it to a platform is just the first step. You must continue to “water” it by promoting it on social media, telling your email list about it, and finding new ways to get it in front of the right audience. Passive income from royalties is the harvest you get after a long and consistent season of active watering.
I wish I knew that a strong personal brand was the best marketing tool for my book.
The Chef’s Signature on the Cookbook.
You can buy a generic, anonymous cookbook about Italian food. Or, you can buy the new Italian cookbook from your favorite celebrity chef. You’ll likely buy the second one, because you already know, like, and trust the chef. A personal brand is that signature on the cover. It’s the trust and authority you build with an audience before you ever ask them to buy something. A strong brand is the most powerful marketing engine for any creative work. People buy the person first, then the product.
99% of photographers make this one mistake: they don’t get model releases for the people in their photos.
The Signed Permission Slip.
Taking a beautiful photo of a person for your personal art collection is one thing. But using that same person’s face to sell a product in a global advertising campaign is a completely different legal matter. A model release is the signed, written permission slip from the person in your photo that gives you the right to use their image for commercial purposes. Without that document, you cannot legally license or sell that photo for most uses, and you are opening yourself up to a massive lawsuit.
This one small action of creating a series of books or creative works will create a much more stable royalty income.
The Beloved TV Show.
A standalone movie is a one-time event. A beloved TV show with seven seasons creates a loyal, binge-watching fan base. When a reader discovers a new author and loves the first book in their series, they don’t just buy that one book; they immediately buy the next five. A series is the most powerful tool for an author. It creates a “read-through” effect that dramatically increases the lifetime value of every reader and builds a much more stable and predictable foundation of royalty income than a collection of unrelated, standalone works.
Use a “course creation” platform to turn your book into a video course, not just relying on book sales.
The Book and the Movie Adaptation.
A non-fiction book is a fantastic way to transfer information. But many people are visual or auditory learners. They would rather watch the “movie” than read the book. Turning your book into a video course is creating the movie adaptation of your intellectual property. You can take the same core concepts and frameworks and present them in a different, often more valuable, format. This allows you to serve a different type of customer and create a new, high-ticket royalty stream from the exact same ideas.
Stop just making music. Do learn how to create sound effects and jingles for commercial use.
The Movie Star vs. The Character Actor.
Being a rock star is like being a movie star. It’s glamorous, but the competition is insane. Creating sound effects and jingles is like being a character actor. It’s not as glamorous, but there is a constant, steady demand for skilled professionals who can do the job well. The world needs thousands of “whoosh” sounds for app transitions and 15-second jingles for local commercials. This “blue-collar” creative work is a massive, underserved market that can provide a much more stable income than chasing a record deal.
Stop just thinking about your own work. Do consider franchising or licensing your business model or brand.
The McDonald’s Blueprint.
Ray Kroc didn’t just own one successful hamburger stand. He created a brilliant, repeatable system—a blueprint—and then licensed that blueprint to thousands of other people. This is franchising. If you have created a successful business model, a unique brand, or a proprietary system, you don’t just have to operate it yourself. You can license your “secret sauce” to others, allowing them to use your brand and your playbook in exchange for an ongoing royalty payment. It’s the ultimate way to scale your intellectual property.
The #1 hack for a new author is to build an email list before your book is even written.
The Guest List for Your Book’s Birthday Party.
A book launch is like a giant birthday party for your book. If you wait until the day of the party to start sending out invitations, no one will show up. A smart author starts building their “guest list” a year in advance. An email list is that guest list. It’s a direct, personal line of communication to a group of people who are already excited about your work. When you finally send the invitation on launch day, you are guaranteed to have a packed house.
I’m just going to say it: Royalty income is the “lump-sum” lottery of passive income; it’s often inconsistent and unpredictable.
The Farmer’s Harvest, Not the Salaried Job.
A salaried employee gets a steady, predictable paycheck every two weeks. A farmer gets paid once a year, when the harvest comes in. And the size of that harvest is dependent on the weather, the market, and a dozen other factors outside of their control. Royalty income is the farmer’s harvest. It often comes in large, infrequent, and unpredictable lump sums. It is not a replacement for a steady paycheck. You must be prepared for the “off-season” and learn to budget for the inevitable volatility.
The reason your royalties are declining is because you’re not creating new work to keep your audience engaged.
The Rock Band’s New Album.
A legendary rock band can earn a steady income from their classic hits. But if they don’t release a new album for twenty years, the excitement fades and they fall out of the public consciousness. Your creative portfolio is the same. Your “backlist” of older work provides a great foundation. But you must consistently release new work to re-engage your existing fans, attract new ones, and remind the world that you are still a relevant, active creator. New releases are the engine that pulls the entire train.
If you’re still not creating your own assets, you’re building someone else’s IP portfolio.
The Carpenter Building a Landlord’s House.
If you are a talented carpenter who spends your entire career working for a landlord, you can make a good living. But at the end of thirty years, the landlord owns a portfolio of twenty valuable houses, and you own only your tools. When you create “work for hire,” you are the carpenter. When you create your own intellectual property—your own book, your own song, your own design—you are not just working; you are building your own “house.” You are creating a valuable asset that you own and can generate wealth for you in the future.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to be a creative genius. You need to be a prolific and consistent creator.
The Potter’s Two Groups.
A ceramics teacher divided his class into two groups. He told the first group they would be graded only on the quantity of pots they produced. He told the second group they would be graded only on the quality of the single, perfect pot they made. At the end of the semester, the highest quality pots all came from the “quantity” group. They had spent the whole semester practicing, experimenting, and learning. The “quality” group had spent the whole time theorizing. Genius is a byproduct of consistent, prolific work, not the other way around.
I wish I knew about the power of a “perma-free” first book in a series to drive sales of the other books.
The Free Sample That Gets You Hooked.
The most effective marketing strategy in the world is the free sample. A company will give you one delicious cookie for free, because they know that once you taste how good it is, you’ll come back and buy the whole box. A “perma-free” first book in a series is that free sample. You are giving the reader the first “taste” of your world with zero risk. If they love it, they become a hungry fan who will happily pay for the rest of the series.
99% of designers make this one mistake: they sell their source files without charging a premium.
The Secret Recipe with the Cake.
When you buy a cake from a baker, you get the cake. You don’t get the secret recipe and the right to open your own bakery using their name. The finished design file (like a JPG or a PDF) is the cake. The editable source file (like a Photoshop or Illustrator file) is the secret recipe. It gives the client the power to make their own changes and use your design in unlimited ways. This is a far more valuable asset, and you must charge a significant premium for it.
This one small action of registering all your song titles with your PRO will ensure you get paid when they are played.
The Inventory List for Your Musical Store.
Imagine you own a store, but you don’t keep an inventory list. You would have no way of knowing what was sold or what you were owed. Registering your songs with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) like BMI or ASCAP is creating the official inventory list for your musical store. This is how they know what “products” you own, so that when one of them gets “sold” (played on the radio), they can accurately track it and send you the money you are owed.
Use an audiobook narrator from a platform like ACX, not just trying to record it yourself in a closet.
The Hollywood Movie vs. The Home Video.
You could film a movie yourself with your phone’s camera and a cheap microphone. The story might be great, but the poor quality will make it unwatchable for most people. An audiobook is a performance. A professional narrator with a broadcast-quality microphone is a trained actor. They can bring your words to life in a way that you likely can’t. Investing in professional narration and production is the difference between a shaky home video and a polished, professional film that listeners will love.
Stop just selling on your own website. Do get your work into as many distribution channels as possible.
The Local Farm Stand vs. The National Supermarket Chain.
You can sell your amazing jam at your own little farm stand on a quiet country road. Or, you can partner with a distributor who can get your jam onto the shelves of every single grocery store in the country. To maximize your royalties, you need to be the national brand. You need to get your book, your music, or your art into as many “stores” as possible. Don’t just rely on your own website. Leverage the massive, built-in audiences of platforms like Amazon, Spotify, and YouTube.
Stop just thinking about US rights. Do explore the market for foreign language and international rights.
The Local Restaurant vs. The Global Franchise.
A successful restaurant in your hometown is a great business. But a global franchise with locations in a hundred different countries is an empire. Your book or creative work in English is the local restaurant. But there is a massive, untapped audience of billions of people who don’t speak English. By selling the foreign translation rights to your work, you are turning your local success into a global franchise, creating dozens of new royalty streams from countries you may have never even visited.
The #1 secret to getting a sync license (music in a movie or TV show) is to network with music supervisors.
The Sommelier at the Five-Star Restaurant.
A music supervisor is like the master sommelier at a five-star restaurant. Their entire job is to find the perfect, undiscovered “wine” (your song) to pair with a specific scene in a movie or a TV show. They don’t have time to visit a million tiny vineyards. They rely on their trusted relationships with a small group of wineries and distributors. To get your music placed, you must find a way to get your “wine” in front of the sommeliers. This means networking, building relationships, and working with a sync agent who already has them on speed dial.
I’m just going to say it: You’re more likely to build a stable income from a portfolio of 100 decent stock photos than from one best-selling novel.
The Vending Machine Empire vs. The Lottery Ticket.
Writing a best-selling novel is like trying to win the lottery. It’s a life-changing prize, but the odds are astronomically against you. Building a portfolio of high-quality stock photos is like buying a hundred vending machines and placing them in good locations. No single machine will make you a millionaire. But the combined, steady, and predictable income from the entire portfolio can provide a very real and stable living. One is a game of chance; the other is a numbers game.
The reason you’re not getting a book deal is because you haven’t built an audience or platform first.
The Chef with the Food Truck.
A traditional publisher is a business investor. They are not just buying a great book; they are investing in an author’s ability to sell that book. Imagine a chef is looking for an investor to fund a new restaurant. An investor is far more likely to fund the chef who already has a massively popular food truck with a line around the block every single day. That food truck is your “platform”—your blog, your email list, your social media following. It’s the proof that you have a built-in audience, ready to buy.
If you’re still not creating content in a niche with passionate fans, you’re making it hard to sell anything.
The Souvenir Shop at the Super Bowl.
It is incredibly easy to sell souvenirs at the Super Bowl. The crowd is packed with passionate, die-hard fans who are eager to buy anything that represents their team. It is incredibly difficult to sell those same souvenirs in a library. When you choose your creative niche, you must choose to set up your shop at the Super Bowl. You need to find a topic with a built-in audience of passionate, obsessive fans who are already predisposed to spending money on their hobby or interest.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you can’t make a living as an artist.
The Modern-Day Patronage System.
In the Renaissance, artists were funded by wealthy patrons. The lie is that this system is gone. The truth is, it’s been democratized. Today, your “patrons” are the thousand true fans who subscribe to your newsletter, the people who support you on Patreon, and the clients who license your work. You no longer need one wealthy duke to fund your career. The internet allows you to build your own global patronage system and make a very comfortable living from a small, dedicated audience that loves your work.
I wish I knew to get a professional cover designer for my book instead of trying to do it myself.
The Cover is the Movie Poster.
People absolutely judge a book by its cover. The cover is the movie poster. It’s the single most important piece of marketing material you have. It has to instantly communicate the genre, the tone, and the quality of the story inside. A cheap, amateurish cover is like a terrible movie poster that makes a great film look like a low-budget disaster. A professional designer understands the visual language of your genre and can create a cover that will make readers stop scrolling and click “buy.”
99% of inventors make this one mistake: they spend all their money on a patent for an idea they haven’t validated.
Building a Factory for a Product No One Wants.
A patent is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming legal process. Many inventors spend their life savings building a giant, state-of-the-art “factory” (the patent) for their brilliant new invention. Then, when it’s finally finished, they discover that no one actually wants to buy the product. Before you spend a single dollar on a patent, you must first validate the idea. Create a prototype, talk to potential customers, and prove that you have a product that the market is actually willing to pay for.
This one small action of creating a “style guide” for your designs will make them more appealing for commercial licensing.
The Brand Guidelines for Your Art.
A company like Coca-Cola has a very strict style guide that defines exactly how their logo can be used. This ensures their brand is consistent and professional. When you want to license your artwork, a potential partner will be much more confident if you have a simple style guide. This document shows that you are a professional and provides a clear “instruction manual” for how to use your collection of designs, fonts, and colors in a cohesive way. It turns your art into a licensable brand.
Use a “value-based” licensing fee, not just a flat rate, for your intellectual property.
The Billboard in Times Square vs. The Billboard in the Countryside.
You wouldn’t charge the same price for a billboard in the middle of Times Square as you would for one on a quiet country road. The value is completely different. The same is true for licensing your art. The fee for using your photo on a small, local blog should be much lower than the fee for using that same photo in a global Super Bowl commercial. A value-based fee structure ensures that the price of the license is directly tied to the immense value the client will receive from it.
Stop just creating one type of media. Do repurpose your IP into different formats (book, course, workshop, etc.).
The Movie, The Video Game, and The Lunchbox.
When a studio has a hit movie, they don’t just stop there. They repurpose that intellectual property (IP) into a video game, a soundtrack, a line of toys, and a theme park ride. You must think like a studio executive. Your non-fiction book can be repurposed into a video course, a live workshop, a series of blog posts, and a keynote speech. Each new format allows you to reach a new audience and create a new revenue stream from the exact same core set of ideas.
Stop just creating for humans. Do create assets like 3D models or game textures for virtual worlds.
The Digital Carpenter for the Metaverse.
A carpenter in the real world builds chairs and tables for people’s homes. A “digital carpenter” builds 3D models of chairs and tables for virtual worlds and video games. As more of our lives move online, the demand for high-quality digital assets—like textures for game environments, 3D models for architectural renderings, or outfits for avatars—is exploding. This is a massive, underserved market where skilled creators can earn significant royalties by building the essential “furniture” of the digital world.
The #1 hack for royalties is to create something that solves a recurring problem for a business.
Selling a Subscription to the Plumber.
You can sell a piece of art to a homeowner once. Or, you can create a piece of software that helps a plumber manage their invoices every single month. Businesses have recurring problems, and they are willing to pay recurring fees for the solutions. The most reliable and lucrative royalty streams come from creating intellectual property—a piece of software, a licensed framework, a data subscription—that becomes an essential, indispensable tool for another business. You are embedding yourself in their workflow.
I’m just going to say it: Your creative work has a “half-life,” and you need to plan for the decay of your royalty streams.
The Radioactive Isotope.
A radioactive element has a “half-life”—the time it takes for half of its energy to decay. Your creative work has a half-life too. A hit song might earn a huge amount of royalties in its first year, half as much the next, and so on, until it’s just a slow, steady trickle. You must understand that your income from a single asset will almost always decay over time. This is why you must consistently create new work to add new, “energetic” assets to your portfolio.
The reason your creative work isn’t generating passive income is because it’s a hobby, not a business.
The Weekend Painter vs. The Gallery Owner.
A hobbyist painter creates what they feel like, when they feel like it. Their goal is personal enjoyment. A professional gallery owner treats art as a business. They study the market, they understand what buyers are looking for, and they have a system for marketing and selling their work. If you want to earn royalties, you must shift your mindset from the hobbyist to the gallery owner. You must create with a specific audience and a commercial goal in mind.
If you’re still not tracking your royalty statements carefully, you’re probably leaving money on the table.
Auditing the Cash Register.
A smart store owner doesn’t just assume the cash register is correct at the end of the night. They count the drawer and audit the numbers to make sure nothing is missing. Your royalty statements are your cash register receipts. It is very common for them to contain errors, miscalculations, or underpayments. You must learn to read and carefully audit these statements to ensure you are being paid every single dollar you are rightfully owed. It’s your money; it’s your responsibility to track it.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that traditional gatekeepers are gone. They’ve just been replaced by algorithms.
The Castle’s Gatekeeper vs. The Giant Robot.
In the old world, the “gatekeepers” were the publishing editors and the record label executives who decided who got a chance. They were human. In the new world, anyone can publish a book or a song. But now, the “gatekeeper” is the giant, inscrutable robot—the algorithm of Amazon, Spotify, or YouTube. This robot decides who gets seen and who stays invisible. The gate hasn’t disappeared; it’s just being guarded by a machine now. Your job is to learn how to please the robot.
I wish I knew that a great title and subtitle were critical for a book’s success.
The Headline of Your Book’s “Ad.”
Your book’s title and subtitle are the headline and the first line of the most important advertisement you will ever write. In a crowded online bookstore, a potential reader will see your cover and your title for less than a second. In that split second, the title has to grab their attention, tell them the genre, and make a compelling promise. A boring or clever title is a failed ad. A clear, benefit-driven title is a powerful hook that can make the difference between a book that is ignored and a book that is a bestseller.
99% of YouTubers make this one mistake: they use copyrighted music and get their videos demonetized.
The Unlicensed Radio in Your Store.
Imagine you own a store and you’re playing the radio to create a nice atmosphere. If you’re a small shop, you might get away with it. But if you’re a large chain store, you have to pay a licensing fee to the PROs for that “public performance.” On YouTube, every single creator is a “large chain store.” If you use a copyrighted song without a license, the powerful YouTube “police” will find it, and they will either take your video down or, more likely, divert all of the ad revenue from your video to the original owner of the song.
This one small action of adding keywords to the metadata of your stock photos will dramatically increase their visibility.
The Card Catalog for Your Photos.
Imagine a giant library with a million books, but none of them are organized and there is no card catalog. It would be impossible to find anything. The metadata of your stock photo—the title, the description, and the keywords—is the card catalog entry for your image. It’s the information a buyer types into the search bar. A beautiful photo with no metadata is an invisible book. A good photo with rich, descriptive, and accurate keywords is a book that can be easily found by the exact person who is looking for it.
Use a literary agent, not just cold-submitting manuscripts, to get access to the best publishers.
The “No Unsolicited Mail” Policy.
Most major publishing houses are like exclusive, members-only clubs. They have a strict “no unsolicited manuscripts” policy. This is to avoid being buried in a mountain of slush. A literary agent is a trusted member of that club. When a manuscript comes from a reputable agent, the editors know it has already been vetted and is worth their time. An agent is the secret handshake that gets your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the hands of a decision-maker.
Stop just being an artist. Do become an entrepreneur who understands IP law.
The Master Chef Who Owns the Restaurant.
A great chef just knows how to cook. A great chef-entrepreneur knows how to cook, but also understands how to read a P&L statement, negotiate with suppliers, and market their business. To succeed as a creator today, you cannot just be the artist. You must be the entrepreneur. This means taking the time to learn the business side of your craft, especially the fundamentals of intellectual property (IP) law. Understanding your rights is the only way to protect your work and build a sustainable career.
Stop just creating what you love. Do research what is currently in demand in the licensing market.
The Painter of Portraits vs. The Painter of Fruit Bowls.
An artist can love painting beautiful bowls of fruit. But what if all the wealthy patrons in the city are only buying portraits of their families? The artist who is willing to paint portraits will make a living. The one who only paints fruit bowls will starve. As a commercial artist, you must balance your creative passion with market demand. By researching what types of images, designs, and music are currently being licensed for commercials and products, you can create art that you not only love, but that people will actually pay for.
The #1 secret to a long-term career as a creator is to own your intellectual property.
The Carpenter Who Owns the Forest.
A carpenter who just buys lumber can build a beautiful house. But a carpenter who owns the forest has true, long-term security and wealth. Your intellectual property—your songs, your designs, your characters—is your forest. When you own your IP, you are not just a freelance “carpenter” working on a single project. You are the owner of the entire, valuable resource. You can choose to build with it, sell parts of it, or just let it grow. Ownership is the foundation of a lasting creative empire.
I’m just going to say it: The legal fees associated with protecting your IP can be substantial.
The Guard Dogs for Your Mansion.
If you own a giant, valuable mansion, you need to hire security guards and install an alarm system to protect it. This is an expensive but necessary cost of ownership. Your intellectual property is your mansion. If someone infringes on your copyright or patent, the only way to stop them is to send a cease and desist letter or file a lawsuit. This requires hiring a lawyer, which can be very expensive. Protecting your IP is not free. It’s an active, and sometimes costly, responsibility.
The reason your royalties are so complex is because of the different collection societies and distributors involved.
The Long Bucket Brigade.
Imagine you are owed a bucket of water from a well on the other side of the world. That bucket has to pass through a long, complex brigade of different people to get to you. There’s the person who pulls it from the well, the person who puts it on a truck, the person who puts it on a boat, and so on. Each person takes a small sip of the water as their fee. Your royalty payment is that bucket. It passes through multiple hands—publishers, distributors, collection societies—and each one takes their small, contracted cut, making the final statement a complex accounting puzzle.
If you’re still not collaborating with other artists, you’re missing out on cross-promotion and shared royalty opportunities.
The Supergroup Rock Band.
When famous musicians from different, successful bands come together to form a “supergroup,” they are doing two things. They are creating a new, exciting piece of art, and they are cross-promoting to each other’s loyal fan bases. When you collaborate with another creator, you are forming a supergroup. You get to introduce your work to their entire audience, and they get to introduce their work to yours. It’s one of the fastest and most effective ways to grow your reach and find new fans.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that the best art always wins. The best-marketed art wins.
The Masterpiece in the Attic.
The world is full of artistic masterpieces that are sitting in an attic, covered in dust, completely unknown to the world. A mediocre painting that is hanging in a famous gallery and has a great publicist will always be more “successful” than the masterpiece in the attic. Creating great work is only the first, essential step. The second, equally important step is the marketing. The art that gets seen, shared, and talked about is the art that wins.
I wish I knew that a “backlist” of older works could provide a stable foundation of royalty income.
The Old, Reliable Trees in the Orchard.
A farmer is always excited about the new, promising saplings they just planted. But the majority of their reliable, year-in-year-out income comes from the twenty mature, established trees at the back of the orchard that have been producing fruit for a decade. Your “backlist”—all the books, songs, or designs you created in the past—is that orchard of mature trees. While not as exciting as your new release, the small, combined, and consistent royalties from your entire backlist can form the stable, financial foundation of your creative career.
99% of creators make this one mistake: they sign away their rights without understanding the contract.
Signing the Deed to Your House Blindfolded.
A licensing agreement is a legal document that is just as important as the deed to your house. It defines who has control over your most valuable assets. Signing a contract that you don’t fully understand is like signing that deed while blindfolded and just trusting the other person’s verbal explanation of it. You must take off the blindfold. Read every line, question every clause, and if there is a significant amount of money or control at stake, have a lawyer review it.
This one small action of having a lawyer review any licensing agreement will be the best investment you make.
The Home Inspector for Your Contract.
Before you buy a house, you hire a home inspector to find the hidden cracks in the foundation and the faulty wiring that you would have never noticed. A lawyer is a home inspector for your contracts. They are trained to spot the ambiguous clauses, the unfair terms, and the hidden “cracks” that could cause your deal to fall apart in the future. The few hundred dollars you spend on a legal review is the cheapest insurance policy you can buy to protect you from a future that could cost you thousands.
Use a “royalty-free” license for your music, not just traditional licensing, to appeal to a broader market of creators.
The All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.
Traditional music licensing is like ordering from an expensive, à la carte menu. It’s complicated and costly. A “royalty-free” license is like a simple, one-time fee for an all-you-can-eat buffet. A YouTuber or a small business can pay one flat fee to get the right to use your song in their project forever, without having to worry about complex, recurring royalty payments. This simplicity makes your music much more accessible and appealing to the massive, growing market of content creators and small businesses.
Stop just creating what’s popular now. Do try to create a timeless piece of work instead.
The Pop Song vs. The National Anthem.
A hot, trendy pop song might be the biggest thing in the world for three months. It will generate a huge burst of royalties, and then it will be completely forgotten. A national anthem, on the other hand, is timeless. It will be played at sporting events and ceremonies, generating a small but incredibly consistent stream of royalties, for centuries. While it’s fun to chase trends, the most valuable intellectual property is the kind that is evergreen. Strive to create your own “national anthem.”
Stop just thinking about your own country. Do use a service like Draft2Digital to distribute your e-book worldwide.
The Global Shipping Company for Your Book.
You can publish your e-book on Amazon and reach a massive US audience. But what about readers in Australia, the UK, or Germany? Trying to navigate all the different international bookstores is a logistical nightmare. A service like Draft2Digital is the global shipping company for your book. You upload your manuscript once, and they automatically format it and distribute it to dozens of different online stores and library systems all over the world, dramatically expanding your reach and creating new international royalty streams with just a few clicks.
The #1 hack for a podcaster is to license their back catalog to a streaming service.
The TV Show’s Syndication Deal.
A TV show like “Friends” makes its initial money when it first airs. But the real, massive, long-term wealth comes from the “syndication” deal, where a streaming service like Netflix pays a huge fee to be able to air all the old episodes. As a podcaster, your back catalog of old episodes is a valuable asset. Instead of just letting it sit there, you can license it exclusively to a platform like Spotify or a private app, who will pay you a significant fee for the right to that library of content.
I’m just going to say it: Someone is probably already using your creative work without your permission.
The Unlocked Bike on a Busy Street.
If you leave a brand new, unlocked bicycle on a busy city street, the question is not if it will be stolen, but when. The internet is the busiest city street in the world. If you put your creative work—your photos, your articles, your music—online without any protection, it is almost certain that someone, somewhere, is using it without your permission. You must be proactive. Use tools to monitor for infringement and have a clear plan for how you will act when you inevitably find a “thief.”
The reason you’re not getting paid is because you don’t have a system for invoicing and tracking your licenses.
The Freelancer with No Books.
Imagine a freelance carpenter who does a dozen jobs but never sends an invoice or keeps a record of who owes him money. He would go out of business in a month. If you are licensing your creative work, you are a freelance business. You must have a professional, systematic way to invoice your clients, track who has paid, and follow up on late payments. A simple spreadsheet or accounting software is the essential tool that turns your creative talent into a real, cash-flowing business.
If you’re still not using watermarks on your preview images, you’re making it easy for people to steal your work.
The “Sample” Stamp on a Stock Photo.
Stock photo sites don’t just display their high-resolution images for free. They put a semi-transparent “watermark” over the top of the preview image. This makes the image unusable for a professional project and forces the user to buy a clean, licensed copy. A subtle watermark on the images in your online portfolio does the same thing. It’s a simple, effective deterrent that prevents a lazy thief from right-clicking and saving your work for their own commercial use.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to be a starving artist.
The Artist as the CEO.
The “starving artist” myth comes from an era where artists were completely dependent on the whims of a wealthy patron. The modern artist is a CEO. The internet has given them the tools to build their own global audience, create their own products, and control their own distribution. You are no longer just the painter; you are also the gallery owner, the marketer, and the accountant. By embracing this entrepreneurial mindset, you can build a thriving, profitable business around your creative talent.
I wish I knew that I could license my expertise and frameworks to other coaches or consultants.
The Certified Trainer Program.
A famous fitness guru can’t personally train every client in the world. So, they create a “certified trainer” program. They license their unique workout method and their brand to other trainers, who then pay them a royalty for the right to use that system with their own clients. If you have a unique coaching framework, a proprietary process, or a signature system, you can do the same. You can license your intellectual property to other professionals in your field, creating a scalable income stream and turning your expertise into a brand.
99% of writers make this one mistake: they don’t get professional editing for their book.
The Chef Who Doesn’t Taste His Own Food.
Imagine a chef who prepares a complex, multi-course meal but never once tastes any of the dishes before sending them out to the customers. The result would be a disaster. A professional editor is the person who “tastes” your book. They find the typos, the plot holes, and the confusing sentences that you, the chef, are too close to see. Skipping this step is serving an untested meal. A professionally edited book is a sign of quality that signals to the reader that you are a serious author.
This one small action of creating a body of work around a single, cohesive brand will make all your IP more valuable.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe.
An Iron Man movie on its own is valuable. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe—a collection of dozens of interconnected movies, characters, and stories—is exponentially more valuable. When you create your work, think like Marvel. Instead of creating a dozen random, unrelated pieces, try to build a cohesive body of work around a single, recognizable brand or world. This creates a powerful network effect where each new piece makes all the other pieces more valuable.
Use “micro-licensing” platform for your photos, not just trying to land big commercial gigs.
The Corner Store vs. The Supermarket.
Landing a big, exclusive commercial photoshoot is like getting your product into a single, high-end boutique. It’s a great payday, but it’s hard to get. Micro-licensing platforms are the giant supermarket chain. They sell your photos to thousands of smaller customers—like bloggers and small businesses—for a few dollars at a time. The individual sales are small, but the sheer volume can add up to a significant and very stable royalty income. It’s a numbers game that is much more accessible to the average photographer.
Stop just creating for consumers. Do create educational content for schools and universities that pays royalties.
The Textbook Author.
You can write a best-selling novel that is popular for a year. Or, you can write the definitive college textbook on a specific subject. That textbook will be adopted by universities and sold, year after year, to a new class of thousands of students. The educational market is a massive, often overlooked, source of consistent, long-term royalty income. Creating courses, videos, or lesson plans for this market can be an incredibly stable and rewarding niche for any expert.
Stop just being a musician. Do create sample packs and loops for other producers.
Selling the Bricks to Other Builders.
As a musician, you are using your skills to build your own “house” (your song). But you can also use those same skills to create the raw materials—the “bricks”—that other builders need. A “sample pack” is a collection of high-quality drum beats, bass lines, and melodic loops that other music producers can use in their own songs. By creating these essential building blocks, you are creating a valuable tool that can be sold thousands of time, generating royalties from the work of other creators.
The #1 secret to consistent royalties is to understand your audience and give them more of what they love.
The Beloved TV Show’s Second Season.
When a TV show becomes a hit, the creators don’t follow it up with a completely different show in a new genre. They listen to what the fans loved about the first season—the characters, the humor, the drama—and they give them more of that in season two. You must treat your audience like fans of a TV show. Pay attention to what resonates with them. Which of your creations gets the most engagement? Then, make more of that. The secret to consistent success is to find your hit and create a “sequel.”
I’m just going to say it: The passive income from royalties is a byproduct of a huge amount of active, creative work.
The Apple Orchard.
The income from an apple orchard is wonderfully passive. The owner can sit on his porch and collect the checks from the harvest. But that “passive” income is the direct result of a decade of very active, non-passive work: clearing the land, planting the trees, watering the saplings, and pruning the branches. The creative process is the same. The royalty check is the passive reward for the hundreds or thousands of active, focused, and often difficult hours you put into creating the work in the first place.
The reason your work isn’t licensable is because it’s too personal and not commercially viable.
The Family Photo Album vs. The Corporate Headshot.
A beautiful, emotional photo of your own child’s birthday party is a priceless personal memory. But it has almost no commercial value. A clean, professional, well-lit photo of a diverse group of “business people” smiling in a modern office, on the other hand, can be licensed a thousand times. To create licensable work, you must often remove the specific, personal elements and create something that is more universal and can be easily adapted to a commercial message. You have to think like a marketer, not just an artist.
If you’re still not using a service to track where your images are being used online, you’re missing out on potential licensing fees.
The Digital Private Investigator.
Imagine someone was using your house as an Airbnb without your permission and pocketing the money. You would want to know about it. An image tracking service is a digital private investigator for your photography. It constantly scours the internet to find where your images are being used. It can’t stop the theft, but it can give you a detailed report of every unauthorized use, which you can then use to either demand a takedown or, more profitably, send an invoice for a retroactive license fee.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that inspiration is how creative work gets done. It’s discipline.
The Bricklayer’s Muse.
A bricklayer does not sit by the side of the road, waiting for the “muse of bricklaying” to strike him before he starts his work. He shows up every single day, at the same time, and he lays bricks. He knows that the wall will not build itself. Creative work is a craft, just like bricklaying. The professional creator doesn’t wait for inspiration. They have a schedule, they show up, and they do the work. The inspiration doesn’t come before the work; it comes during the work.
I wish I knew that creating a successful piece of IP was like building any other business asset.
The Blueprint for the Factory.
I used to think that creative success was a magical, mysterious lightning strike. I wish I had known that it’s a construction project. A successful piece of intellectual property (IP) is a business asset, just like a factory. It requires a clear blueprint (a plan), high-quality raw materials (your skill), a disciplined construction process (consistent work), and a sales and marketing department to sell the widgets it produces. It’s not magic; it’s a business.
99% of creators make this one mistake: they don’t have a call to action in their work that leads back to their other offerings.
The Business Card at the End of the Meeting.
Imagine you have a great meeting with a potential client, but at the end, you just walk away without giving them your business card or telling them how to hire you. It’s a massive missed opportunity. Your book, your song, or your video is that meeting. At the end of your book, you must have a page that tells the reader where to find your other books or sign up for your email list. In the description of your YouTube video, you must have a link to your website. Always give your audience a clear path to the next step.
This one small action of building an email list of fans will be your most powerful tool for launching your next creative project.
The Rolodex of True Fans.
A record label’s most valuable asset is not its recording studio; it’s its giant list of radio stations and journalists to call when a new album comes out. An email list is your personal, direct-to-fan “rolodex.” It’s a list of people who have raised their hand and said, “Yes, please tell me the next time you create something.” When you are ready to launch your next project, you don’t have to shout into the void of social media. You can send a personal, direct message to your most loyal supporters.
Use your intellectual property as the foundation for a diverse passive income portfolio.
The Central Sun of Your Financial Solar System.
Your core intellectual property—your book, your brand, your signature framework—should be the hot, massive sun at the center of your financial solar system. Everything else should revolve around it. The book becomes a video course. The course becomes a coaching program. The brand becomes a series of licensed products. The IP is not the end product; it is the central, energy-giving asset that you can use to create an entire, diverse solar system of different, interconnected income streams.