Making Passive Income
I’m not really the kind of person who saw themselves as a “creator.” Like, I used to think that was for people with big followings, cool studios, perfect laptops, that sort of thing. Me? I was just… figuring things out.
I’m Sara. I’m 22, from a small town outside Dhaka. Not the fancy side. The side where people still think online income is a scam. My family included, lol.
Anyway, this started kinda randomly. I was stuck at home after graduation, applying for jobs that never replied. One night I was watching YouTube videos — y’know, those ones like “How I Made $10,000 Selling E-books on Etsy!” — and I rolled my eyes. But something about it stuck.
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I don’t know… I guess I was desperate enough to try anything.
So I opened Canva. My internet was slow. My laptop fan sounded like a dying motorbike. I had no idea what to make, but I saw people were selling planners. Simple daily planners, budget trackers, gratitude journals. Stuff I’d actually used before.
So I made one. Honestly? It was ugly. 😂
But I made another. And another. I kept tweaking them, playing with fonts. I’d sit up till 2 a.m. watching Canva tutorials on my cracked phone screen, headphones plugged in ’cause my mom was sleeping beside me.
Eventually, I had a set of like 7 printables. I created an account on Gumroad. Didn’t even know how to price them. Put one up for $3. Sent a link to a friend just to check if it worked.
Nothing happened for days. I thought maybe it was all a waste. One day I literally almost deleted the whole account. I was like, “Who do I think I am? Some Etsy queen?”
But then… boom. Email notification.
“You’ve made a sale.”
I swear I blinked like 10 times before I believed it.
It was $3.04 after the fee.
Not much, right? But I can’t explain how it felt. Like someone out there saw value in something I made. From scratch. On this dusty laptop. That feeling… I can still remember it.
That sale didn’t magically make me rich or anything. But it lit a fire.
I added more products. Redesigned a couple of the old ones. Made a “Self-Care Workbook” that took me 3 days and a lot of crying (the good kind). Uploaded that. Shared a post in a small Facebook group for creatives. One of the girls there bought it, then DMed me saying it helped her “slow down and breathe.”
Bro, I cried. For real.
Then came a week with no sales. Total silence. I thought, okay, maybe that’s it. Maybe it was a fluke.
But nah. Next week I sold 4 in a day. That was my first $10 day. I remember going outside, buying myself a cold drink from the roadside, and sitting there just smiling like a weirdo. My neighbors probably thought I’d lost it.
Eventually, I figured out better titles, tags, and descriptions. I learned about SEO. I found forums. Reddit. Pinterest. Pinterest is wild btw — I had one pin that brought in 300 clicks in 2 days. I freaked out.
Somewhere along the way, I realized this wasn’t just “side money.” It was becoming a real thing.
I made an e-book. It was about self-worth and boundaries, based on my journal entries (with the embarrassing stuff removed lol). Put that on for $6. People bought it.
Like… real humans. With real money. For words I wrote. Me. A girl with a secondhand laptop and a head full of self-doubt.
And the craziest part? These products, once made, kept selling. Even when I was offline. Even when I was asleep. That first night I woke up and saw 2 sales from the U.S.? I thought it was a glitch.
Passive income isn’t totally passive though. There’s work, updates, promo. But still. The fact that something I made once can keep earning — that’s magic to me.
So yeah. Digital products changed everything. They gave me options. Confidence. Peace.
And a little extra cash to buy mom that blender she’d been wanting. 🥹
