It’s many people’s dream to become a millionaire but not many know that can be a real possibility IF you do the right things. In today’s digital age, anyone can become rich on the internet. Everything you need to know to grow wealth and become rich is within a few clicks away.
Before we start, let’s talk about some stats.
- 1700 millionaires are created each day
- The average age of a millionaire is between 57–62 years old
- Only 1% of millionaires are below the age of 35
A lot of people become millionaires by working their asses off for 40 years to get there. But can you get there faster? You certainly can! No one wants to work 40 years to get to millionaire status and time is different now. The internet makes it so much easier to acquire wealth compared to 40 years ago or even just 10 years ago. We have technology at our disposal available to anyone with the internet to use it to their advantage.
If you’re smart, you won’t let these figures discourage you, instead, these would be the numbers that motivate you.
Using the information available on the internet to one’s advantage will create a lot of millionaires. You may be just a few choices away from becoming a millionaire. Those choices will be what you’ll focus the next 1–3 years of your life building, choosing when you’ll dedicate the time in your day to work on your dream, and whether to persist in your pursuit of wealth every day.
With that said, want to learn how to make one million dollars in one year (or two to three years if you want to give yourself more time)? Check out these 10 realistic ways to make a million dollars!
Read: How much do YouTubers make? How you can do it too
Table of Contents
1. Make a million by self-publishing many books
I always recommend people to self-publish on Amazon’s KDP program (Kindle Direct Publishing).
They give you a 70% royalty if you price your ebook between $2.99 — $9.99. There’s also an option to create a physical copy of the book instead of an ebook, or you can always choose both options if you wish.
Now, most people who write books don’t make a lot of money. In fact, the average yearly income for a novelist (those who write novels) is <$500. The reason this number is so low is that most people who write novels only publish 1 or 2 books only. If you only have 1–2 books out the chances of either doing well is low.
Typically, the more books you have out, the more you earn. Your income grows exponentially with each book that you put out.
For full-time novelists, their average income is roughly $100,000. Now that’s a more comfortable figure. It’s not one million dollars but still.
Here’s the general rule of thumb, “20 to 50k”. What does that mean? It means that if you want to make 50k per year selling your novels, you should put out 20 full-length (more than 50k words each)books first. It’s a general rule so it doesn’t mean that if you put out 20 books, you’ll for sure make 50k and it doesn’t mean that you can’t make more than 50k per year once you have 20 books out.
With roughly 36 books out, novelists earn an average of more than $100,000.
Obviously, the more books you write, the more money you’d earn. The more books you have out, the more chance you have of one of them doing tremendously well and with it brings more money than $100,000.
You should stick to one genre and one pen name. Publish all your books under one name and one genre so you can be known as the author who writes in such genre.
Some people love writing and some don’t but the thought that you could make a living writing novel may be highly appealing to some people. Let alone the possibility of making it big (think a million or more) with their books.
Amanda Hocking was one such woman who made millions selling ebooks. She is an avid writer and has written many books but no publisher thought her books were good enough. She was broke at one point and she needed to make $300 to go to a muppet’s convention so she put the books she wrote on KDP where she made 20k in just a month. Seeing her success, she decided to put all her books on KDP which it quickly made her 2.2 million dollars in just 20 months.
If you have written books that are just lying around gathering dust, you should do something about it. Put it up on Amazon’s KDP where you can publish for FREE and see where it takes you.
Don’t just stop at one or two books, keep on writing until you have 20 books out and then 36, don’t stop there either. If it’s your passion, just think about the possibility of you making a living out of it and maybe even a million.
Want to learn how to make money self-publishing books? Click here.
2. Make a million by inventing something and then patenting it
There are many stories of ordinary individuals who become rich because they invented something or solved a problem that everyone was facing.
Now, your invention doesn’t have to be high-tech or complicated. It could be something simple.
You don’t need an engineering degree to invent something that the world is lacking but doesn’t know it.
If you’re a woman (or anybody who carries a handbag), think about how many times you lost your keys in your purse? I bet it happened so many times you couldn’t remember how many times it happened. Well, one such woman realized this common problem people had and invented a hook that grabs onto the side of your purse and daggles your keys on the inside of your purse. It prevents your keys from tumbling around in your purse so you can quickly find your keys when you need to. Look at the image below to get an idea of what it looks like.
Do you realize how simple the design is and how easy it is to make it? You can make it with many materials, plastic, glass, metal, etc. It’s lightweight, you can carry it with you everywhere you go. It can also be stylish. You can find a style that matches your taste.
Ladies and gentlemen, this simple design and product made a woman 2 million dollars within just 13 months of launching this key purse hanger.
You see, you don’t have to be a genius to make a million-dollar inventing something.
How about the patent? Filing an international patent can be expensive but there are ways around it. Write down in detail how your invention works on paper, burn that into a CD, and mail it to yourself in a sealed envelope. DO NOT open it. This is crucial. Once you open it, it could’ve been tampered with so never ever open your envelope. Your envelope should contain the date and stamp of a government institution after it arrives in your home. If there’s any legal dispute with who invented what, you can use it to your advantage in a lawsuit.
There is a lot of money to be made out there. Use your imagination.
Read: 16 Things to sell to make money as a teenager today
3. Make a million by starting a dropshipping business
What is a dropshipping business? Well, this business model is quite simple. You select a product from a manufacturer from sites like Alibaba and you let them handle the shipping and everything else. You don’t touch the package. All you do is market the product. You can market it on your site or you create ads to bring people to the product.
You can also add your own label on the product you’re dropshipping. This works best if you already have an established brand. People know who you are so your label means something. If no one knows who you are, your label has no meaning, you might as well just sell the product as is.
Even if you don’t have an established brand, it’s still possible to make a lot of money dropshipping. For example, you found cool yoga equipment that is brand new and unlike any other on the market. You think it has potential. You can create videos of people testing out the equipment, put the video on the internet to attract views, and sell the product. You can also create ads to attract people who may be interested in the product. Your ads can be placed on Facebook or any other marketplace. Another thing many drop shippers do is to ask existing Youtubers in the niche to market the product for them. The Youtubers will talk about the product, place the product link in the description. Anyone who buys it from the link may earn the Youtuber some money and of course, if someone buys it, you make money as well.
Say you source the yoga equipment for $5 and you sell it for $30. You’d make $25 per sale. You’d need to make 40,000 sales in order to make a million-dollar in one year. That’s 3333 sales a month or 111 sales a day. Of course, you may need to subtract any expense you incur in your business.
Dropshipping is what makes a lot of millionaires in recent years. It’s still not too late in 2022 or in 2023. You need to do your research, find the right product, understand how to market and sell, and the rest would follow.
It certainly wouldn’t be an easy thing, to make a million dropshipping within 1–3 years but the reward would be worth it.
There are certain things that you need to spend money to learn. You can watch everyone do it on Youtube and take all the courses you can on Dropshipping but true learning starts when you begin to do it on your own. There is a lot of great information out there for anyone who’s looking to start a dropshipping business.
Please don’t put your life saving into a dropshipping business because it may take you 1–3+ tries to succeed and each time you try, you’ll have to create a website for it which costs money not to mention all the time and money that you’d spend on creating ads and promoting the product.
You must decide for yourself whether this is something you want to pursue but it is an idea worth researching more about.
Read: 10 Easy items to make and sell on Etsy and make money
4. Make a million by going viral on social media
You can make a lot of money by going viral on social media for whatever niche you’re in. It doesn’t even have to be a lucrative niche such as personal finance.
If you can create content enough people want to watch, you can make a lot of money from ads, sponsorship deals, and affiliate marketing products.
We’re talking about 500 million to a billion views large. Of course, if you can’t create viral videos, you can always continually put out high-quality content that garners a good amount of interest over time in a niche that is lucrative. As time goes by, more and more people will start to watch your videos and subscribe to you or follow you. With a larger following, you can monetize your brand easier.
An example of someone who went viral on social media and become rich is Kabby Lame. Lame lost his job when the pandemic started and within 2 years he has made 2 million from his fame on social media. He makes videos pointing out useless gadgets and how pointless some lifehacks are.
There are also a lot of people making satisfying videos that blow up on social media. Even with just a little following, they can make quite a bit of money. I’m talking about Snapchat. This is something many people don’t know about. Snapchat pays people whose stories got featured. It’s not unheard of for people to get paid $30,000 for their featured story. To get featured, you need to create viral content. Unfortunately, many of these viral stories on Snapchat are stolen content. If you can create short videos to post on Snapchat you may be able to make a quick buck. You may not be able to consistently do this to make a million-dollar but with featured stories come more following which you can use to your advantage.
Opportunity is popping up everywhere on social media apps like Tiktok, Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube, etc. Try different kinds of niches and different ways of delivering your content to see what people click with.
Most videos that went viral have an element of surprise or unpredictability to them, something shocking even. It typically evokes emotion, good or bad. There’s a saying that all attention is good and those who are able to garner attention will be rewarded greatly.
Think about Donald Trump who constantly made news in the decades leading up to his election. By always appearing in the news he makes sure no one forgets about him even if the news is bad (I’m not here to bash anyone or praise anyone it’s just an example, let’s not get political).
Figure out what kind of videos you want to make and go with it. Start experimenting and start having fun making videos. I must put a disclaimer, however, don’t put your lives in danger and don’t do stupid things for views. The things you put out there are forever. You can never live it down. Some people couldn’t find a job after posting something stupid on the internet that blew up. It made them quite a bit in the short term but it’s not enough to sustain them long term. There are also cases of people going to jail for something they did and posted on Instagram. Please be considerate and smart when you post anything anywhere.
Want to learn how to become a content creator and make money this year? Click here.
5. Make a million by blogging
Michelle from makingsenseofcents.com makes over $100,000 per month blogging. Yes, that’s per month. She makes 1.2 million per year.
Makingsenseofcents is a personal finance blog. Michelle started it to record her personal finance journey of paying off her debt. Now she has more than 300,000 subscribers to her mailing list and a business that consistently makes her lots of money every month.
Pinchofyum is a food blog that consistently makes over $30,000 per month blogging. It’s roughly $360,000 per year income from her blog. Within just 3 years, she’d make over a million from her blog. That is some tremendous success!
Adam Enfroy from adamenfroy.com is another blog in the blogging, making money, and business software niche that made him a millionaire in under 2 years without any paid advertising.
Financialsamurai.com makes $500k-2M per year blogging. He’s been doing this for more than 10 years and never once showed his face.
There are tons of examples of people making a living through blogs within just 1–3 years of starting their blog, many of them are making more than a million from blogging every year.
Blogging is the easiest business out there that you can start with the lowest cost and the greatest return.
This is my favorite way to try and make a million dollars. With consistent effort, the right niche, and high-quality content anyone can become successful with blogging.
If you want to start a blog, you’ll need a hosting service and a domain name. I recommend HostGator. Use this link to get a free 1-year domain name!
The more articles you write in your blog, the more shots you have of successfully making a living blogging. Click here to find out how many articles you need to post to make a living blogging.
Click here to find out how you can pick the best domain name for your blog.
6. Make a million with subscription service
A subscription service is a type of business in which people pay money to you monthly or yearly to get a certain benefit. Think about Netflix. People pay $11 per year to watch all the shows available on Netflix. This recurring bill year after year or month after month can make the company a lot of money.
If you want to make a million-dollar with a subscription service model within a year, you’ll have to have:
- 5000 people paying you $17/month over the course of 12 months, or
- 2000 people to pay you $42/month for 12 months, or
- 1000 people to pay you $83/month for 12 months, or
- 500 people to pay you $167/month for 12 months, or
- 300 people to pay you $268/month for 12 months.
You do the math, it’s not actually that difficult to make a million dollars a year if you have a bunch of people paying you some money every month.
Of course, you need to give people a reason to pay you recurring money. You can, for instance, create a membership opportunity on your own website or on a Facebook group. Only those who pay you can be in the group for example. You’ll have to make the group a very enticing place to be if you want people to want to join.
This subscription service can also be the access to your courses on your website. Those who pay a subscription fee can access all the courses that you consistently put out and if they stop paying, they stop getting access to your courses.
Use your imagination. What do people want to pay for? It could be a community, courses, short stories that you write, comics that you make, etc.
You’ll have to find a way to attract an audience first. One way you can do this is via social media sites like Tiktok. You create videos of yourself promoting your brand. Something interesting that captures everyone’s attention. You can put a link in your bio to your own blog where they can pay for subscription services.
For example, say you have a health and fitness brand. You can make short clips of training exercises and a link to your courses that people can access if they pay a monthly fee. You can build a community of people who are interested in getting fit through running. Every Saturday, you host a live exercise training group. There can also be a place where your subscribers can talk to each other and motivate each other. The sense of community, unlimited videos, and live courses could be the reason people sign up for your subscription service.
Another subscription service business model is called the subscription box service. Go to www.cratejoy.com to get some inspiration. You have people making a million a year selling monthly subscription boxes to help women with menstruation. It arrives in their mailbox every month with convenient packages of things that people want and need but may not necessarily realize that they need it. For women who are of menstruating age, a box like this could include, lotions, tampons, pads, relaxing scents, soap, headbands, stuffed toys, etc. If you can create an experience that brings people joy, comfort, and convenience, it can easily hook them on to subscribing to your service every month.
Doesn’t matter what niche you’re in. You can find a way to start a community that people want to pay to get into. If you can do so, scaling up can be quite easy. All you have to do is to attract more members to pay for your subscription service and you’d be able to make quite a bit of money. It’s quite likely for you to make a million within a few years with a subscription-based model.
Oftentimes, once someone signs up for a subscription service, they’ll keep it even if they don’t use it much because it can be a lot of work for them to unsubscribe (even if it’s just a few clicks away). They’d justify that their spending was legit and would think to themselves that they’d use the service more in the coming days when really they never got around to it. A subscription service is a better way to make money than convincing someone to pay you a large amount of money once. Many of us often ended up paying more for a subscription service over time than a lump sum one-time payment.
Click here to find out how you can make money as an artist with these 19 unheard ways.
7. Make a million with apps
Have you heard of people making a million by developing apps? You don’t have to be a developer or know how to code to build apps. You can hire someone to do it for you. If you got an idea that you think may make you a lot of money why not try this way of making a million bucks?
Think about Flappy Bird. Flippy Bird was created by a guy who at one point was raking in $50,000 per day but he decided to pull his game from the app store because he believed that the game was too addictive. He could have made a million dollars within just 20 days had he kept it going.
Personally, I think if that was the real reason he pulled his game from the app store it was not a good move on his part. Many are going to get addicted to games all the time doesn’t matter whether his game exists or not. It’s either they get addicted to his game or it’s another game they develop a high affinity for. It’s also very likely for their interest in the game to fizzle out so they don’t get as addicted to the game over time. It wasn’t his responsibility to make sure no one was addicted to his game. He lost out on a lot of money to be made.
You can certainly make a million with apps if you want but either develop the app yourself or hire someone else to do it for you.
Just know that it’s pretty difficult to make even a little bit with apps. Everything I put on here has difficulty. It’s not as though if you create something that is needed, it’ll immediately gain traction, you need to learn how to market it.
Read: how to make $65k/month selling slimes
8. Make a million with Twitch
Twitch is a platform that allows people to stream themselves live. You could be playing a video game on Twitch or just simply chatting. Your goal should be to attract 100,000 paying subscribers. There are different levels of subscribers. Those that pay you $4.99 per month, those that pay you $9.99 per month, and those that pay you $14.99 per month.
There are people making $500,000 to a million every month live streaming on Twitch. You can make a million in a year with 100,000 subscribers or 50,000 if your subscribers are generous enough.
Click here for a full guide on how you can make money with Twitch this year!
9. Make a million flipping houses
Flipping houses means taking houses that need repair, buying them at a low price, renovating it, and then selling it for more. You can easily make a million or more flipping houses.
You have to pay attention to the housing market. There’s nothing worst than buying something that nobody will pay for. If you buy it in a bad neighborhood that everyone is moving out of, you may have trouble selling it even if it looks beautiful.
If you can’t sell, you can also choose to rent it out (if you can find a tenant).
This isn’t something that anyone can just start on a whim. You’d be putting in a lot of money in buying the house, paying the legal fees to own the house, fixing it up, etc. You must do your diligent research before diving into house flipping.
If you do it right, you can make millions a year flipping houses.
Flipping houses is best suited for people who have knowledge of how to fix houses. If you’re a contractor who builds houses, this may be something you can look into.
Read: How to make money selling fonts
10. Make a million with podcasts
There are many people who make millions per year with a podcast. You’ll need to gather quite a bit of audience to make a lot of money with podcasts but if you never start you never know how many audiences you can attract.
There are places out there where you can host your podcasts for free if you wish to. I would recommend Buzzsprout. Use the link to get a free $20 Amazon gift card.
Doing this right can make you millions of dollars in a matter of a few years. Think about what people will be interested in and what your expertise and interest are.
If you have enough listeners and subscribers to your podcast, you can attract great sponsorship deals that pay you a lot of money for a few seconds of you talking about their brand.
Read: How to make money with podcasts this year
Final thought
Making a million-dollar in 1–3 years is a lot easier than most people think. It still has its difficulty of course but your hard work and persistence will be rewarded.
Tell me, which one of these will you try today?
Read: How to become a content creator and make money this year
Read: 50 Ways to make extra money today
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