6 best ways to make money while you sleep (with copywriting)

I really don’t like the “make money while you sleep” conversation.

Passive income makes a really good sales pitch. The idea of “money for nothing” is perhaps one of the most alluring draws of anything out there.

The investment space is full of variations on the theme. One that worked particularly well for me was a promo about companies in a specific sector that have their stock price shoot up “overnight” when news of a takeover or buyout is announced.

It’s also common fare in the biz-opp market. In fact, the promise of passive income is one of the strongest, most consistent pitches in that market.

Although not strictly a biz-opp pitch (closer to The Secret), Robert Collier went heavy on this selling angle when selling his own metaphysical riches book set back in the 1920s.

From the letter he used to launch the book set back in 1926 (that ended up pulling up to 9% response rate from cold lists!)…

“Would you like to see $1.00 grow to $60.00 — $8.00 grow to $500.00 — by next April?… [These books] show you that you have been using but a small part of your real abilities — that back in your “subliminal mind,” as the scientists call it, is a sleeping Giant who, awakened, can carry you on to fame and fortune almost overnight!… They make your Day Dreams… come true!… If within six months these little books have not brought you the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow, then they are not for you.”

I chopped out this copy from the letter, and put in bold certain words that were meant to underscore the idea of making money while you sleep — although the promise was pulled back just a hair from saying it directly.

Here’s the thing…

If someone promises you that you can make money while you sleep with their system, they’re using one of the most effective, proven formulas for getting you to cough up dough.

And lest you think you’re above it, this pitch has been proven to work on CEOs, lawyers, doctors, the works.

(In fact, the “money for nothing” pitch is part of what draws humans to the ideals of communism and socialism over and over again. Not meaning to get too political here, but if you’re poor, the idea of getting taken care of by the government is quite appealing. If you’re rich and are the one feeding the system, it’s not nearly as appealing. On many levels, there is appeal to these approaches — the end of poverty, people not dying from treatable diseases, and so on. Yet both systems seem to go against some fundamental aspects of human nature — self-centered awareness and needs, the desire to be rewarded based on value given, etc. And as a result, neither seems to be sustainable on a broad basis, in a diverse culture, and over long periods of time. Anyway…)

Here’s where we get to my dilemma…

I don’t really have a problem using the “money while you sleep” pitch. Not when it’s true. But I feel like you and me have a unique relationship where I try to be as radically honest and transparent as possible with you, and act as I would want you to act if our roles were reversed.

And so when I got the hankering to write a “money while you sleep” article about direct response copywriting, I had to come at it from this same perspective.

The truth is, I’ve been making money while I slept since about 2007 — using proven-effective direct response copywriting…

If you want to generate passive income, copywriting is probably the single-best skill you can have.

Once you write a sales pitch and plug it into a mechanism to delivering it to your best prospects, your work is mostly done.

In fact, some sales pitches can endure for years and even decades, unchanged, bringing in huge amounts of money day and night. Although they are rare, they are certainly possible — and if you get good enough at this, they become probable.

This is why, for example, I can confidently tell you that if you attend my Advanced Direct Response Copywriting Workshop next month — and seriously set yourself to applying what you learn — you should be able to make back at least 100X what you spent on admission and travel.

It’s that powerful.

Personally, I started really using copywriting to generate passive income in about 2007. I set up a site to sell an information product online. I started doing copywriting work to earn me royalties. I was earning commissions on sales leads generated through my copywriting. These were all relatively “passive” approaches to earning income with copywriting.

I’ve also spent a ton of time in this space. I’ve looked at a ton of different opportunities for making money with your copywriting.

There are a bunch I don’t like. Almost any variation of network marketing turns me off — even though I’m sure there are folks who do okay at it. That’s just an example.

But there are six basic passive income models I like for copywriters, and I’ll run through them quickly here.

1. Earning royalties for copywriting work done once, but paid for as long as the copy is used.

This is the most common passive income model for direct response copywriters. Your active income is the fee you earn for doing the project. But as you get good, that fee is a mere fraction of what you will make in royalties. And the checks will continue to arrive for months and years into the future.

2. Selling published products where you create the content.

The publishing and information marketing fields are a heyday for direct marketers and copywriters. Perhaps because the margins are so great, and the barrier to entry so low. This is one of the most common ways copywriters make really good money — often while they sleep — from their copy. They create the content. They create the copy to sell it. They create a website or other mechanism for selling it. And they push traffic to the website. Done right, it can be a very low-work system that continues to generate cash for a long time.

3. Selling published products where others create the content.

Almost identical to the previous, except you’re selling someone else’s content. Most of the biggest publishers are operated this way — because the founder doesn’t have time to create enough content, and often their highest skill is marketing or copywriting. If you want to build a really big, really profitable publishing business that churns out money week in and week out, this is a great model.

4. Selling physical products that you source from wholesalers and drop shippers.

Physical products are in some regards easier to sell. They typically require less convincing to get someone to buy. Great copy can still generate great results, but you can get good results with a good product and mediocre copy. There’s an appeal to that. Even better, you don’t have to create, ship, fulfill, or even touch the products today. There are ways you can simply set up a website and collect a significant percentage of sales, all from home, and even while you sleep.

5. Creating an affiliate website to promote others’ products or services.

I have a love-hate relationship with affiliate marketing — and you should too, or you should hate it altogether. The big downside is you don’t own the customer. You do all the work of getting them (if you want to drive any real volume and make any real money) but you’re passing them off to someone else to enjoy the lifetime value. You also don’t control the customer experience — so if your partner flakes out and screws the customer, you look bad but you didn’t have control over it. That said, it can be a great way to make a lot of “hands off” money, and it’s one way to start making “money while you sleep” with copywriting quickly.

6. Creating marketing systems for companies in exchange for ownership stakes or ongoing revenue sharing.

This is a very advanced revenue strategy, but the richest copywriters I know seem to have all followed this model. They acknowledged that they had a very special skill that could be valuable in building a business. And they found a partner that they could team up with, on a great business concept (either a going business, or one in its infancy). And rather than getting money now for their copywriting, they got a stake in the business. This earned them a percentage of profits generated plus a growing equity stake they could later cash out — in some cases, for a very large amount of money.

These are probably the six best ways to make money while you sleep as a copywriter…

All require some work up front, but they have the potential to pay substantial dividends down the road, with a sizable passive income stream that just keeps flowing.

I can tell you from personal experience, there’s nothing like waking up to an email inbox that says you’ve actually made money while you slept.

There are very few skills that can be used to make this happen.

But it’s definitely something that you can do if you choose to get really good at copywriting.

Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr

Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets