In keeping with the idea of increasing your income from a second or home based business, I’d like to touch on the idea of passive income. In other words, the kind where you wake up in the morning (or afternoon if you choose) and find out that you have had money added to your account.

There are lots of ways to do just that, but I want to write about just one of them today. It’s called Amazon Associates.

Amazon had this brilliant idea that they would “hire” thousands of external salespeople to help push their products. What they have done is give these salespeople an affiliate ID that is linked back to them. For instance, when you click on the link to Amazon Associates, you are taken to the Amazon website where that you can order items as you normally would. The only difference is that the referring person gets a small commission.

While you probably won’t get rich overnight, this idea combined with the affiliate programs of other companies can certainly add an extra source of income to your household. The nice thing about the Amazon program is that you are only limited by the amount of advertising that you choose to do.

Since the Amazon program is generally percentage based, the larger priced items will make you more money. Here’s a thought… suppose you take some of the information you have learned from me so far and set up a simple blog that talks about and compares certain products.

Say you are very versed on mp3 players. Why not talk about and compare brands and features of the players and the provide links for each product in the event that a customer wants to purchase the product now. Easy to do and you can make a few dollars each time someone buys. Add the different accessories and increase your income by upselling.

If you are interested in setting up your own program, just go to Amazon.com and click on the associates tab. If it doesn’t interest you, save this link and use it anytime you order from Amazon in the future. It might make me a couple extra bucks and encourage me to continue to add more useful information to this site. 

OK, more ideas on how to produce an extra income next time.