This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
In today's episode, an Edinburgh tour guide wants to transform intimate in-person experiences into a captivating digital experience or at least anything else that provides passive income. This listener wants to go from working and trading time for money to creating an asset that will in fact allow him to make some money while he sleeps. That is the goal. It's not just work harder. The goal is to work smarter, to create a project that can earn for you so that you have set this thing up and then you're like, "Go and make some money for me.
Go and do your thing so that I can do the rest of my life," whatever that is. Now, of course, it's not always so simple and there's a lot of active work that goes into creating passive income. I always want to be clear about that just because I think there's a lot of people that promise like, "Here is the path to riches," and all you have to do is make this thing and then step away forever. That's not usually how it works, if ever. Nevertheless, it is a core principle to work smarter rather than harder and it is true that there are ways to earn royalties and other sorts of income, core sales, product sales that happen while you're doing other stuff.
That is a goal that is worth pursuing, I believe. Our listener, Luke, here, as he seeks to transition from the cobblestone streets to the digital landscape, let's consider how he can take his skill, his experience in storytelling, his knowledge of Scottish history, and share it with a more global audience, or at least some audience. Let's see what we can do. Let's just kind of see what we can do to help Luke. Let's hear his question and my answer after this quick shout out to our sponsor.
By the way, thanks so much listeners for being out there. You're amazing. All right. Stay tuned. Good day, Side Hustle School.
I'm Luke and I've been offering guided tours of the hidden historical sites around Edinburgh, Scotland for several years. My tours are known for their unique storytelling and the off the beaten path experiences I provide. I'd now like to go from in-person tours to some other revenue stream, perhaps sharing my knowledge and stories with those who can't visit in person. What would be the best approach to transition from physical to digital experiences and which platforms would be most effective for reaching an international audience interested in Scottish history and culture? Cheers.
Luke, thank you for the question, just to be direct up front. It can be difficult to translate a physical experience, especially an in-person tour to something digital. Like we have seen over the years that some people have been able to do that better than others. It's tricky because the target market of people who are coming to a specific city, they are interested in having an in-person tour experience. So it's almost like you are creating not only a different service or product, but also a different target market simultaneously.
And usually it's best to do one of those two things instead of two. So just be aware of that up front. But of course, I do love the approach of working towards passive income. So what can we do? Well, a couple of things here, Kindle Direct Publishing, crafting an ebook series, perhaps could be an interesting pursuit, you know, KDP offers a straightforward platform to publish these ebooks or guides.
You get up to 70% royalties on your sales. It's very, very different from traditional publishing. As an author, I get 6% to 14% royalties on the sales of my books. Well, if you just kind of do it yourself, you can actually get a lot more. Now there's also reasons why a lot of people choose traditional publishing, but without going into all those details, that's one option, Kindle Direct Publishing.
Another option would be some kind of documentary style video series. It's a format that allows you to kind of go deep into the stories and sites that make your tour special, providing an immersive experience, perhaps even from afar. So for something like that, maybe Vimeo, you know, Vimeo's on demand feature allows you to monetize your series directly by selling access to episodes or entire seasons. You know, that's one approach. And you could then of course cut little clips and trailers and, you know, anything to draw viewers to the series, you know, by posting on Instagram, TikTok, other networks and such.
You can collaborate with travel bloggers, history influencers, cultural institutions. You know, the list goes on. As I said, I don't want to oversimplify this and say it's, this is so easy. Anybody who has a tour business can be doing this. You know, there are things you can do.
It's a long-term game. It's something that's not going to make you rich in 30 days. But if you like the idea of applying a skill you already have, in this case, Luke's skill is in his skill and expertise and knowledge, you know, in Scottish history and culture, then those are a couple of avenues for you. So I'm always wishing you the best. Let us know how it goes over here.
We are almost at episode 2,700 today's 2,698, 2,698. What a long time it's been exactly 2,698 days. In fact, since we started, well, I am so excited to keep going. And I appreciate you, our listeners, new episode coming out tomorrow. Of course, that's all for today.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
