All advice much appreciated

I guess the obvious choice may be to create your own info product on web design or some aspect of running a Wordpress website, which is the most popular choice of content system for IMers. Just a thought.

Create a freebie PDF as a giveaway on a squeeze page, and drive traffic to it, and upsell them a web design course maybe geared towards IMers.

It's all about leveraging what you know and packaging it up. Your past experience gives you a huge advantage already.

Hi dianemk, the first thing is to ask yourself "self ... what do I like doing? Am I good at it? Can I offer my knowledge to the public? Is it of value? Doe sit satisfy a Want? Is the market for what I am offering big enough to support me?" And so on...

Then create a product and sell it to the public. Being a producer of products and not necessary a consumer of them is a sure fire way to make money off the internet.

I would also suggest getting a coach to guide you. Once that is done and you are making some headway and making money, just scale it up.

You'll hear this over and over again, but I would get hosting, a domain name and sign up for either GetResponse or AWeber and start building a list right away.

Nor with mine. I don't touch any MMO-related niches at all (or diets!).

But what about making affiliate commissions from products you don't think are a scam? (I do that in 9 different, unrelated niches.)

It's not intrinsically niches that are "money-making": it's marketers. For any one out of hundreds of different niches you or I can name, there'll be a majority not making much at all, a minority making some steady income and a smaller minority making a full-time living. Almost regardless of the niche. Don't imagine that "income-producing" is a characteristic of the niche: it typically isn't, at all. The income is about your skills.

I make most of my living from promoting ClickBank products (here's what I do, myself, if it helps/interests you - though of course I have no idea whether or not it's suitable for you). There are over 15,000 products and a huge number of different niches represented on ClickBank (and a few thousand more "niches" on Amazon, from which many members here also make their livings).

Make sure you set out in the right direction, and know what you need to know about the routes that actually lead to where you want to go, before you do that. There are so many people here taking all sorts of "action" but not really earning anything at all, because they don't yet have the right skills but other people have told them that "taking action" is what it's all about, when it typically isn't at all ...

Good luck!

.

It would be a huge mistake to let someone you don't know choose a money making method for you. This is business. This is warfare!

If you can't make a simple decision about your own business, you really don't belong in business as an owner. You have to take full responsibility for every aspect of your money making venture.

There is money to be made in most every market if you will first find where the demand for products and services lies.

Start by inventorying your own skills, education, previous training, knowledge, passions, desires, etc to come up with an "advantage" - something you know or do well. Everyone has something that they excel at doing.

Then do some market research to find out if there is demand in your specialty. What do you know that others would also like to know? What have you done that others would like to experience? What can you teach others that would be of benefit to them?

Start where you have advantage. Find demand for something in that market. You will be able to put yourself across as "the expert" that knows about the niche. Even if you're a student in the niche, you can position yourself in a deep vertical market as the expert at "something."

Don't try to compete with thousands of others in the most competitive markets. Find some unmet demand and create your own "positioning" so that you have a unique space where you can develop your own business system. It's actually pretty easy to do unless you're simply a sheep that has to follow others and can't lead out. You don't sound like that type of a person to me.

Steve

If you want to do something that is not scammy, I would develop a product you believe, in and has value to solving a problem to a particular niche, and begin a blog, build a reputation and a list

No one here knows you at all so suggesting where to start in this jungle would not be beneficial nor in your best interest. What do you have experience in? What are you good at? Around these forums it's primarily MMO online but if the diet niche makes you uncomfortable then so should MMO because most of it is crap.

All answers are good but here are my recommendations.....

1. Get food first.... that means create a sustainable income for you. Go to hire for section and enlist your services there and start generation some small income

2. Now after sustenance comes growth.....as all said above building a list is ultimate goal.... so start doing that...

3. Scalability.... ones you know your numbers and income level.... now you can scale all your efforts to another level...

Their are all together huge courses out there for each step....but some how you have to start some where and move forward...

I see several people have already mentioned creating your own product which is a great idea. If you have issues you could always use information from another existing product and integrate it into your own.

Then from there you could build your own list and either promote other products you approve of to your list or keep expanding on your product or make a new one.

Best of all you could probably easily build a relationship with your list being the mom of a toddler! So many great stories to share with people.

You're at the wrong corner since the very first beginning. "passive income", that's something actually exist but very hard to find without years of experiences. Forget about passive, work hard & go ahead.

Funny thing is that from one marketer's perspective, one marketer's niche is judged as scammy but yet it is succeeding. From that person's perspective, another niche is scammy too but yet its lucrative.

Its all about perceived value. If you can provide that to your target market demand, you will be successful any whatever niche you are on, whether weight loss, mmo, network mlm, affiliate, cpa etc.

If you are not comfortable with selling perceived value, i suggest not quoting your day job.

Joe

Thank you all so much for your replies and PMs (except the pyramid scheme scam!) - they have all really been of use and have helped me make a decision finally. Hurray!

@ Joe, many thanks for taking the time to reply. However, we'll have to agree to disagree about perceived value. A scam is a scam is a scam. There is no miracle weight loss tablet. A pyramid scheme is a pyramid scheme etc etc. I don't see any perceived value in preying on desperation - that's what I mean by a scam. Yes, marketers do indeed succeed in these niches, but I'm guessing that the person who bought the tablets/signed up for the pyramid scheme etc etc probably wished that they hadn't wasted their money....

Find something what you are good at, pack that, maybe an online ebook or some PDF which people wants, attract people with it, make a mailing list and then use those emails to make yourself profit. Sell something( item or your knowledge). The most important is that people start trusting you, that way many more will buy and want the things you offer.