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You all may or may not know, there are two main ways to make money online. Either way needs lots of traffic to make the owner real money.

The first way is to charge money for your services. It sounds as simple as it is. An example of this is Carfax. They charge for their services.

The second and most relevant way to a hobbyist is offering free information on a personal website, and earning money on ads. You can get paid when people click ads on your website (google adsense), or you can get paid per unique visitor (mainly for high traffic sites).

Now, back to the subject of the article. Chances are that people will have the same hobbies as you do. If you know a lot about your hobby it makes perfect sense to make a website and tell people about your hobby. If there is a way, make it possible for your visitors to comment and start discussions on your site. Do regular updates. Give people a reason to come back often and tell their friends. Try to organize communities of hobbyists. If done right it can be lucrative.

The best way to turn a hobby into a home business is to start small. By this I mean focus on getting one customer at a time as cheaply as possible. And of course doing everything you can to make them happy with your service. If you were interested in gardening and landscaping, for example, put up fliers on mailboxes (very cheap). And buy a cheap landscaping software package at Target. Starting cheap and small means being creative. You won't go out and advertise on TV or radio, you will hope for word of mouth referrals.

Just for entertainment I want to pitch my own idea for a small home business.
My dad is a man who grew up in India where you barter for almost everything. He loves to negotiate. He's good too, he saves himself tons of money on cars and real estate. Not to mention any repairs on the house. I'm the opposite. If he told me he could negotiate a good deal and all I'd have to do is pay him 5% to 10% of the savings, I'd do it. It makes sense for both parties. He gets paid good money for not much work, and I would keep most of the savings. Win-Win. He'd make a ton if he helped people negotiate for real estate.

I hope this article helps out, if you have any questions or I am unclear about something feel free to email me. If anyone tries that negotiator business let me know about it, I'm curious. abilimor@ku.edu

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