I had a birthday last month and I bought myself a present- a course to learn how to start a drop shipping business. I had published a blog back in January talking about how I was thinking about drop shipping as a possible side hustle and I was looking into some courses (see my blog … Continue reading I’m diving into drop shipping as a side hustle
I launched my ebook on Amazon ~6 months ago called Everything I learned about sales I learned from my dog (click here to see the book: https://thesidehustlejourney.com/in7d). It was the start of my journey to see if I could actually write and publish an ebook. After getting positive feedback from friends and family, I decided … Continue reading Continuing the journey of trying to get my ebook published– including consultation with Skeeter Buck of Night River Press and Inkstacks
I am so excited to report that in my journey of trying new things I wrote an ebook in my spare time (right!) of just 2-3 hours/week on nights and weekends over the last 3 months. It's called Everything I learned about sales I learned from my dog.
A year ago I had just turned 50 and decided that I wanted to shake up my life a bit. Not anything drastic like having another child, skydiving, getting a divorce or walking barefoot across hot coals but I just didn’t want to be remembered as someone who worked in sales her whole career, had kids, drove a minivan and was constantly tired. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and try new things without changing my whole life or having a mid life crisis (at this point in my life I’m more of a minivan than a sports car kind of person any way).
I was thinking about writing an eBook so I took Nick Loper’s course about selling non fiction ebooks on Amazon for $10 https://www.udemy.com/kindle-launch/?couponCode=HUSTLERSUNITE I would recommend taking Nick’s course-- I definitely got more than the $10 I spent out of it. The rest of this blog is a combination of what he said in his … Continue reading How to publish an eBook
I told my sister, who is a writer, that I was interested in writing an ebook and she told me I should go to the Library of Congress and trademark it. I followed her advice and documented all of the steps so that other Side Hustlers or writers could do it faster and easier.
About 5 months after starting my The Ordinary Parent Facebook group and deciding to brand myself as The Ordinary Mom for my side hustles, I decided that others might find value in going through this journey with me. I had the epiphany on one of my long drives for work that I wanted to publicly document this process. I will say that I’m an excellent documenter (I think it’s one of my special gifts) and realized I had tons of notes in Evernote and on Google Docs about my side hustle journey thus far.
I had been hearing on podcasts that Merch by Amazon is a great side hustle but that’s it’s hard to get approved by Amazon and the wait is long. That is why I tested the water on Teespring before jumping into the big leagues of Merch by Amazon with my https://teespring.com/stores/the-ordinary-mom site. After learning how to create on demand print t-shirts on Teespring, I decided I would attempt the big league of Merch by Amazon but I didn’t know how so I once again utilized podcasts for advice.
In the post, I am going to tell you how I did the few necessary steps to set up my business. I had an mentioned in an earlier post, I had used the free resources of a Small Business Development Center to help me come up with a business plan and get started on a side hustle. I didn’t ever start that original business but I learned how to set up a business in my state (California). FYI- Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) are funded by the government and offer free business consulting to anyone who wants to open a small business. It’s the best kept business secret out there.
So you want to start a side hustle but don’t have any extra time. As a mom of 3 elementary aged kids, 1 dog (we had 2 but, sadly, one died a few months ago), 2 hamsters, a full time job, tons of kids sports and other kid activities and a busy family life, if I can do it so can you. I set aside 2 hours a week to devote to it. That makes it a slow process but I look forward to that time every week and I have found it gives me more energy instead of taking it away. Part of my side hustle journey is that I want to share my learnings, successes and failures with others to help them on their own side hustle journeys. I want to help create a community of people who are passionate about what they do and have the freedom to follow their dreams.
