The Side Hustle Show

We've covered Kindle publishing in a variety of ways on The Side Hustle Show in the past, and it's one of my favorite side hustles. But one area of frustration, at least for me, is that for all the effort put into writing, editing, publishing, and launching the book, it's still tough to sustain sales for long periods of time. My guest this week has a way to keep moving units month after month, and it works for both books AND physical products (for all you FBA sellers out there).Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Amazon SEO Tips for Books and Physical Products

This is my attempt at a Q&A show, based on some questions of the interesting questions that have hit my inbox or the Facebook group over the past couple weeks. It actually stems from a new inbox "trick" I've been playing with lately. Maybe I'm a super-latecomer to this game, but I just created 2 new "labels" in Gmail: one for Questions and one for Testimonials.

If you've ever been frustrated with the products in your life, and thought "there's gotta be a better way!," this conversation is sure to hit home. Jeremy Michael Cohen and Fred Perrotta created Tortuga Backpacks after an awesome trip to Europe -- and a less-than-awesome experience with their luggage. They resolved to create a better travel backpack, and did it, starting as a side hustle of course.Full Show Notes: Building a Multi-Million Dollar Ecommerce Brand on the Side

Rosemarie Groner is a former state trooper turned blogger and stay at home mom. In the last 12 months, her site The Busy Budgeter has grown from zero to 400,000 page views per month.More importantly, Rosemarie earned $5000 from the site last month while working on it part-time.Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: $5k per Month Blogging Case StudyWant to start a blog of your own? My free video course shows you how.(For the sake of comparison, SHN was around 73,000 pageviews for the last 30 days at the time of recording.)I met Rosemarie (and several other members of her mastermind group) at FinCon in September, where she shared a surprising secret weapon to her success: Pinterest.

It's a special Friday-before-Halloween edition of The Side Hustle Show! Today we're diving into some of the scary moments in my business and some frightening tales from Side Hustle Show listeners. Even though we're told to "punch fear in the face," I think it's something that will be a constant in our lives. There's always something to be afraid of.

The self-publishing world has changed quite a bit in the last couple years. Amazon is constantly changing the rules and rewards for authors, and more and more writers are entering the fold. In today's show, I'm joined by Jyotsna Ramachandran, a "stay at home mom entrepreneur" and best-selling author. She shares candidly how she built her Kindle empire to more than 50 titles in less than 2 years, primarily with ghost-written content. As the game has changed, she's shifted her focus to produce more quality products and less quantity.

I'm excited to introduce you to John Rouda, an IT manager near Charlotte, North Carolina. He's built a variety of non-job income streams on the side, while still working full time. In fact, we recorded this session from his office at work! John calls his side businesses for-profit hobbies, which I think is a great attitude to take. He has a handful of books on Amazon, dozens of apps in the app store, is a part-time professor, and runs a local IT/computer maintenance service business.

I first met Ryan Gray at New Media Expo in 2014. He introduced himself and when I asked what he did, he said he was a doctor. Turns out that Dr. Gray, along with his wife (also a doctor), was building MedicalSchoolHQ.net, a resource for med school and premed students. It's another perfect example of building an authority site around a particular area of expertise.

Brian Clark has been content marketing since before the term even existed. In fact, he left a miserable corporate job and built several successful businesses using these effective new marketing techniques. Then he started this little side project called Copyblogger to share some his findings, tactics, and ideas with the rest of the world. Fast forward 10 years and Copyblogger is now Rainmaker Digital on track to do more than $10 million in sales this year.

I've had an idea for a new affiliate site kicking around in my head for a while now, so I thought I'd do a live walk-through of my thought-process and analysis of whether this is an opportunity I should pursue or not. The idea? A comparison and review site for meal delivery services like Blue Apron, Plated, Hello Fresh, Gobble, and others.