Post: #1

I've been looking at a few things and wanted to know what everyone is or has done to be able to work and travel.

A few of the things i've looked at seem viable but sometimes it feels like information overload and i can't target just the one website or type of work because there is soo much information out there and it's hard to sift through the crap to find the right sites or options.

Would be great to hear from some people on here who have actually succeeded, a few of the things i've thought about but i'm not sure if i have enough experience or if it's worthwhile.

Teaching english online
Data entry
Micro jobs
Online surveys
Dropshipping

Ideally i'm trying to get to a point where i'm earning about $1500+ a month

Post: #2

There is a huge demand for people to write articles / web content.

Post: #3

Talk to CleanSlate.

Post: #4

Sure, I've reached $1500 USD/monthly recently and it makes pretty decent money in Poland, especially for a college boy although it will require for you to get good at something. As you are native English speaker I would recommend you to check writing offers on websites like upwork/peopleperhour or even specific for writers websites. For people outside from the Anglosphere it is much harder, but you definitely have an edge here.

Marketing/SEO is another option, but like I said, it requires some experience cause you are competing with millions of people from India willing to work for low stakes, so you gotta present some "skill" first.

I would advise looking against data entry or surveys etc as they are mostly waste of time.
Call-center jobs are also an option. I've been working one for some time for Canadian company as they were looking specifically for Polish native speakers, but there is tons of offers around the web for English speakers. If I were English native speaker I would probably make it my full time job as income solely from this should be enough to live decently in poorer countries.

If you are sure that you want to travel around the world and work location independent best choice from long-term perspective would be getting into IT, but it's not profitable time-wise if you are below average or average at best, so you will need to put some time into this.

Additionally as I see that you are from Australia, you can try matched betting for some fast $$ or maybe even for some bucks in the long-term. I don't know how the Australian's bookies offers looks from the inside, if they have at least half of the offers that UK(world's gambling kingdom) has you can score some extra money as well, although only one region in Australia allows for bookies to offer cash offers - don't remember which one, so you have to check it for yourself.
Alternatively you can make some accounts and play sure bets, burn the account, cash out and have few extra thousand for your travels.

Post: #5

Extremely hard jobs:

Trading
Professional betting
Professional Poker playing

Easier jobs -

Programming
Various design jobs - job sites for that
Various translation and writing jobs

Real easy, but "location independent"

Fucking girls on cam-sites with your face being hidden

Post: #6

I like the idea Zelcorpion of "fucking girls on cam-sites with your face being hidden" but not sure how much money i would make doing that haha.

I did have a brief look at betting arbitrage, at one point i did have some good websites but it looked pretty risky to me and Australia doesn't have the free cash bonus options other countries do. From memory it looked like you need a lot of cash to make a small amount back each time.

Currently looking at the call centre options but can't really find that many here in Australia so far.

Probably wouldn't be able to do programming, i agree with the surveys type thing, probably not worth it.

Post: #7

Professional betting, poker playing or trading are lucrative gigs, but you need to do an exorbitant amount of studying first. When you have your money management skills down, then you won't lose much except your time. Cash is not required at high levels depending on the strategy you pick - some strategies do, but then you simply pick another one.

But it is a job that most people won't be able to do with success anyway. Also - you can field test all of those things with just a mere 100$ - there are plenty of tools out there. If you can make consistently 20$ from those 100$, then you have a chance - if you lose even at 100$, then you will lose at 10.000$ or 100.000$. My experience teaches me that most people rather gamble while field-testing those things and this is not how things are done - it's mostly a probabilities matrix with many similarities - trading, poker playing and sports betting. If it's not a professional job, then it is a loser activity of a gambler.

There are also some illegal activities like Nigerian Prince email scamming - met a guy once in Thailand who did it and made 1000-2000$/month from that. But I hate those activities, because there is the divine law and it's like cutting part of your carpet away and attaching it to the side you see - karma will get you. Also you defraud dumb people who already have a tough life in a high-IQ world (the bottom 15-20% in IQ have almost no function anymore in the world).

Post: #8

There's also some research/consulting type gigs that are location independent. For example, you don't really need an office to estimate the potential market size for a new type of toothbrush and recommend a launch strategy. You just need access to the relevant data resources your client has at hand.

Post: #9

(09-14-2017 04:27 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  Professional betting, poker playing or trading are lucrative gigs, but you need to do an exorbitant amount of studying first. When you have your money management skills down, then you won't lose much except your time. Cash is not required at high levels depending on the strategy you pick - some strategies do, but then you simply pick another one.

But it is a job that most people won't be able to do with success anyway. Also - you can field test all of those things with just a mere 100$ - there are plenty of tools out there. If you can make consistently 20$ from those 100$, then you have a chance - if you lose even at 100$, then you will lose at 10.000$ or 100.000$. My experience teaches me that most people rather gamble while field-testing those things and this is not how things are done - it's mostly a probabilities matrix with many similarities - trading, poker playing and sports betting. If it's not a professional job, then it is a loser activity of a gambler.

There are also some illegal activities like Nigerian Prince email scamming - met a guy once in Thailand who did it and made 1000-2000$/month from that. But I hate those activities, because there is the divine law and it's like cutting part of your carpet away and attaching it to the side you see - karma will get you. Also you defraud dumb people who already have a tough life in a high-IQ world (the bottom 15-20% in IQ have almost no function anymore in the world).

A beautiful but not so bright girl sure has a purpose.

It doesn't require a particular high IQ from a girl to maintain good looks, cook, clean and eventually pop out and take care of the kids.

Post: #10

Freelancing is the easiest to get into, but competition can be fierce. There are all kinds of niches you can get into, but you need a skill. It can be anything from making Excel sheets and templates to scraping webcontent.

Passive income should be the goal while you freelance. Build some assets in your spare time, let the money roll, don't spend it.

The only "work from home" job I would consider doing as an employee would be rating ads and websites for companies like Google and Facebook. You can make like $15-$20/hour from that, which sounds like peanuts, but trust me, you're lucky to get paid at all doing other "work from home" stuff. I haven't done it myself, but I know it's legit. Extremely boring work and you have to do it for 4-5 hours a day, but then again, it is also easy and with some training you can probably watch a movie at the same time.

Post: #11

How about creating a digital product offered along with optional hourly-billed consulting services that are not yet another e-book, smartphone app, blog or lifestyle coaching service?

Actually, forget that.

It's too hard and would require doing the time intensive work of actually inventing something that does not already exist.

Post: #12

Think bigger and aim to start a genuine business online. The worst mistake I made was to have the mindset of just making a few bucks from affiliate marketing, article writing or other bottom feeding type things when the market is crying out for quality individuals who can bring skills to bear on a problem. If you don't yet have something to offer, sure do the article writing, but look on it as an apprenticeship for a time only while you hone your entrepreneurial skills.

Look, here's what you need to do:
- Offer a service
- Put yourself out there confidently and professionally. Emulate (not copy) the websites/profiles of your successful rivals
- Charge a nice fat fee. Never compete on price!
- Knock yourself out to get the first three satisfied clients and their testimonials
- Show up every day

A 3-6 months runway should be enough if you have enough time and money to work happily during that period. Having three months savings and facing poverty at the end of that will kill your fledgling business due to stress. Better to flip burgers and aim to quit after 3 months but have the option to stay on if you need to.

Post: #13

I'm having a really hard time. I've tried the following :

- I wrote 2 ebooks that are on kindle
- I created a digital product (course)
- Ebay "dropshipping" (getting products from amazon)
- Selling physical products on amazon
- Uploaded original designs on zazzle (similar to cafepress) to sell shirts
- Fiverr gigs

- I have a multi author blog which I will promote on twitter, gab and minds, and I plan to have advertising for affiliate products as well as my own stuff, on my blog

I've been trying this stuff for quite some time now but I'm not going anywhere. My weakness has always been marketing, although now I'm using social media a lot, and the idea of the blog is for it to be a marketing platform (I also have a youtube channel which I can use as one).

I'm the perfect example of someone who tries and tries and gets nowhere. I feel like I'm cursed. If anyone can advise me or point me in the right direction I'll be eternally grateful.

Post: #14

(09-15-2017 04:52 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  I'm having a really hard time. I've tried the following :

- I wrote 2 ebooks that are on kindle
- I created a digital product (course)
- Ebay "dropshipping" (getting products from amazon)
- Selling physical products on amazon
- Uploaded original designs on zazzle (similar to cafepress) to sell shirts
- Fiverr gigs
- I have a multi author blog which I will promote on twitter, gab and minds, and I plan to have advertising for affiliate products as well as my own stuff, on my blog

What site is your digital product course based on? Udemy?

And what physical products are you selling on Amazon? I hope they aren't just "me too!" products in a super-saturated market.

When I look at the stuff you've tried, I only see things that 1) are super competitive and 2) don't make much money by themselves. Selling shirts? Yet another blog? Fiverr gigs? Ebooks? Those aren't going to cut it. To make money, you need to 1) offer a service or 2) start a real business, or both.

I'm guilty of trying to make money off ebooks or a couple of blogs, and it has not made me more than lunch money each week. Like RawGod said, try to aim higher than what you've been doing. If you don't have a novel idea, that's fine. Just offer a service until then.

Maybe this will help: How to make money with an online service-based business

Post: #15

(09-15-2017 05:33 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

(09-15-2017 04:52 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  I'm having a really hard time. I've tried the following :

- I wrote 2 ebooks that are on kindle
- I created a digital product (course)
- Ebay "dropshipping" (getting products from amazon)
- Selling physical products on amazon
- Uploaded original designs on zazzle (similar to cafepress) to sell shirts
- Fiverr gigs
- I have a multi author blog which I will promote on twitter, gab and minds, and I plan to have advertising for affiliate products as well as my own stuff, on my blog

What site is your digital product course based on? Udemy?

And what physical products are you selling on Amazon? I hope they aren't just "me too!" products in a super-saturated market.

When I look at the stuff you've tried, I only see things that 1) are super competitive and 2) don't make much money by themselves. Selling shirts? Yet another blog? Fiverr gigs? Ebooks? Those aren't going to cut it. To make money, you need to 1) offer a service or 2) start a real business, or both.

I'm guilty of trying to make money off ebooks or a couple of blogs, and it has not made me more than lunch money each week. Like RawGod said, try to aim higher than what you've been doing. If you don't have a novel idea, that's fine. Just offer a service until then.

Maybe this will help: How to make money with an online service-based business

My course is on my own membership site, and listed on clickbank. I can't (as far as I know) have it on udemy because it's PDFs, and also the videos (over 100) are supposed to be downladed so that they can be sped up or slowed down.

I'm only selling 1 product, which is an accessory for a musical instrument.

The thing is, everything is competitive. And if it's not, it soon will be. So I don't worry about that. I just try to make sure that I do what I do well, because you can't please everybody. But I do take your point.

I'm not really a blogger. I wish I could do it, but after much thought I know that there's nothing that I can see myself writing endlessly about for years. I can write, but not like that. I prefer books. That's why my blog is almost exclusively for syndicating other people's content (which reminds me, check your email). The purpose of the blog is ultimately to use it as a platform for selling my own and others' products - udemy courses, clickbank courses, kindle books, etc.

As for offering a service, I've been pondering on that for a while. Although it involves directly trading one's time for money, at least it's something. The challenge however is to come up with something that I could teach or advise on that would earn me approx $300-350 per week, without having to do it full time. I've not come up with anything yet. I could do it on skype or praxey ( i.e. https://praxey.com/home/user/assholeconsulting ), and promote it on twitter, etc, as well as my blog.

I don't know. It's a tough game. I'll check your thread, thanks.

Post: #16

^ Fair enough. I can see you're making an effort. As far as a service business, I don't really see anything wrong with trading time for money as long as you're your own boss.

Post: #17

(09-15-2017 06:08 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  

(09-15-2017 05:33 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

(09-15-2017 04:52 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  I'm having a really hard time. I've tried the following :

- I wrote 2 ebooks that are on kindle
- I created a digital product (course)
- Ebay "dropshipping" (getting products from amazon)
- Selling physical products on amazon
- Uploaded original designs on zazzle (similar to cafepress) to sell shirts
- Fiverr gigs
- I have a multi author blog which I will promote on twitter, gab and minds, and I plan to have advertising for affiliate products as well as my own stuff, on my blog

What site is your digital product course based on? Udemy?

And what physical products are you selling on Amazon? I hope they aren't just "me too!" products in a super-saturated market.

When I look at the stuff you've tried, I only see things that 1) are super competitive and 2) don't make much money by themselves. Selling shirts? Yet another blog? Fiverr gigs? Ebooks? Those aren't going to cut it. To make money, you need to 1) offer a service or 2) start a real business, or both.

I'm guilty of trying to make money off ebooks or a couple of blogs, and it has not made me more than lunch money each week. Like RawGod said, try to aim higher than what you've been doing. If you don't have a novel idea, that's fine. Just offer a service until then.

Maybe this will help: How to make money with an online service-based business

My course is on my own membership site, and listed on clickbank. I can't (as far as I know) have it on udemy because it's PDFs, and also the videos (over 100) are supposed to be downladed so that they can be sped up or slowed down.

I'm only selling 1 product, which is an accessory for a musical instrument.

The thing is, everything is competitive. And if it's not, it soon will be. So I don't worry about that. I just try to make sure that I do what I do well, because you can't please everybody. But I do take your point.

I'm not really a blogger. I wish I could do it, but after much thought I know that there's nothing that I can see myself writing endlessly about for years. I can write, but not like that. I prefer books. That's why my blog is almost exclusively for syndicating other people's content (which reminds me, check your email). The purpose of the blog is ultimately to use it as a platform for selling my own and others' products - udemy courses, clickbank courses, kindle books, etc.

As for offering a service, I've been pondering on that for a while. Although it involves directly trading one's time for money, at least it's something. The challenge however is to come up with something that I could teach or advise on that would earn me approx $300-350 per week, without having to do it full time. I've not come up with anything yet. I could do it on skype or praxey ( i.e. https://praxey.com/home/user/assholeconsulting ), and promote it on twitter, etc, as well as my blog.

I don't know. It's a tough game. I'll check your thread, thanks.

Bro, you're the kind of guy who is just about to "get it".

The above experience is normal.



You've actually done those things. That means you're not a buyer of products, but a producer of product. Big difference.

You also can put words together and formulate thoughts coherently. In the years, I've watched people ask for advice online, almost always, the ones that fail, are not able to write properly. Not able to put their thoughts on paper in a competent, organized manner. The guys from Basecamp have a good book called ReWork, I really recommend it. In it, they also say "if in doubt, hire the better writer". You can write, so you can succeed (but work on Capitalizing brand names, maybe that brand name will be your own).

I think you need clarity now and working on one thing until it sticks. I pm'ed you a link to some stuff.

Post: #18

(09-16-2017 05:31 PM)nomadbrah Wrote:  

(09-15-2017 06:08 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  

(09-15-2017 05:33 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

(09-15-2017 04:52 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  I'm having a really hard time. I've tried the following :

- I wrote 2 ebooks that are on kindle
- I created a digital product (course)
- Ebay "dropshipping" (getting products from amazon)
- Selling physical products on amazon
- Uploaded original designs on zazzle (similar to cafepress) to sell shirts
- Fiverr gigs
- I have a multi author blog which I will promote on twitter, gab and minds, and I plan to have advertising for affiliate products as well as my own stuff, on my blog

What site is your digital product course based on? Udemy?

And what physical products are you selling on Amazon? I hope they aren't just "me too!" products in a super-saturated market.

When I look at the stuff you've tried, I only see things that 1) are super competitive and 2) don't make much money by themselves. Selling shirts? Yet another blog? Fiverr gigs? Ebooks? Those aren't going to cut it. To make money, you need to 1) offer a service or 2) start a real business, or both.

I'm guilty of trying to make money off ebooks or a couple of blogs, and it has not made me more than lunch money each week. Like RawGod said, try to aim higher than what you've been doing. If you don't have a novel idea, that's fine. Just offer a service until then.

Maybe this will help: How to make money with an online service-based business

My course is on my own membership site, and listed on clickbank. I can't (as far as I know) have it on udemy because it's PDFs, and also the videos (over 100) are supposed to be downladed so that they can be sped up or slowed down.

I'm only selling 1 product, which is an accessory for a musical instrument.

The thing is, everything is competitive. And if it's not, it soon will be. So I don't worry about that. I just try to make sure that I do what I do well, because you can't please everybody. But I do take your point.

I'm not really a blogger. I wish I could do it, but after much thought I know that there's nothing that I can see myself writing endlessly about for years. I can write, but not like that. I prefer books. That's why my blog is almost exclusively for syndicating other people's content (which reminds me, check your email). The purpose of the blog is ultimately to use it as a platform for selling my own and others' products - udemy courses, clickbank courses, kindle books, etc.

As for offering a service, I've been pondering on that for a while. Although it involves directly trading one's time for money, at least it's something. The challenge however is to come up with something that I could teach or advise on that would earn me approx $300-350 per week, without having to do it full time. I've not come up with anything yet. I could do it on skype or praxey ( i.e. https://praxey.com/home/user/assholeconsulting ), and promote it on twitter, etc, as well as my blog.

I don't know. It's a tough game. I'll check your thread, thanks.

Bro, you're the kind of guy who is just about to "get it".

The above experience is normal.



You've actually done those things. That means you're not a buyer of products, but a producer of product. Big difference.

You also can put words together and formulate thoughts coherently. In the years, I've watched people ask for advice online, almost always, the ones that fail, are not able to write properly. Not able to put their thoughts on paper in a competent, organized manner. The guys from Basecamp have a good book called ReWork, I really recommend it. In it, they also say "if in doubt, hire the better writer". You can write, so you can succeed (but work on Capitalizing brand names, maybe that brand name will be your own).

I think you need clarity now and working on one thing until it sticks. I pm'ed you a link to some stuff.

I'm flattered that you think I'm close to getting it. It doesn't feel like it, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is a journey and I've done a lot of legwork in the last 3 years. Doing all these little things has been beneficial, no matter how demoralized I get sometimes. You learn stuff, you get confident, and you start to think like an entrepreneur and see yourself as one.

I remember way back I used to pace up and down in my living room giving myself speeches, telling myself that this is my life now and there's no going back. I even wrote 100 times "I will not give up" (when I was feeling particularly down), making sure to feel the anger each time I wrote it, kind of like imprinting it onto the page. I've still got the sheet somewhere.

I'm totally on my own, with no one to really look at what I'm doing and point me in the right direction, but again, it's a journey and I guess I have to walk that road alone so I can finally yell "I did it!" some day. I look forward to the self respect that I'll feel when that happens.


I'll leave this for anyone else who's interested :

Book : https://www.amazon.co.uk/ReWork-Change-W...8&qid=&sr=
Podcast : https://rework.fm/

Post: #19

^ Look into the link I sent you and stop messing around, set goals way above $300 a week.

Post: #20

(09-13-2017 09:18 AM)Shimmy Wrote:  There is a huge demand for people to write articles / web content.

I think username Vinman would have something to say about that. According to him, there's way too many guys from the Philippines and India doing this now - the barrier to entry is so low it pays extremely little and you'd probably get pretty tired writing mediocre general interest articles about subjects you don't really care about anyway. But if you're an expert in a particular field you may be able to pull it off, but only as a sideline to actually working as an expert in that field.

Some jobs lend themselves to remote work much better than others. In the IT field, I can think of QA and some coding jobs that are often remote. Ditto for web design, though for any of this you need the skills and probably experience working in a regular setting with verifiable contacts.

Remember too, with IT jobs generally, you will constantly face the reality of being phased out by either technology or, more immediately, even cheaper labor from India, even if your skills are superior. They don't have to be good, just good enough. If you're in a job for which they cannot compete such as a defense contractor with a security clearance, that's solid but no way to work remote in a gig like that.

Post: #21

Currently looking at a few things after all the advice on here which is greatly appreciated.

Dropshipping - Potentially found what i think is a good niche and could work, about two weeks away from launching once i get suppliers.
eBook - Have a few ideas but not sure if this is really going to make money or have the potential to

IT related - I don't really have any IT skills. I'm a security technician by trade and i do like problem solving but this doesn't really help me in being location independent. I have built blogs and websites before but the competition looks fierce and it might be a little too much up and down for my liking. I like the idea of teaching english in person not online. Did look into sporting arbitrage and online poker but i don't think it's an option for me longterm.

As Cleanslate mentioned in his other thread it should be something you actually like doing, can do well and feel you can add value. This has definitely changed my mind in a few ways, before that i was just thinking just need to make enough money and i will do anything for it.

Feeling a little bummed but i've given myself until the 31st of May to get consistent money coming in before leaving.

Post: #22

(09-15-2017 04:52 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  I'm having a really hard time. I've tried the following :

- I wrote 2 ebooks that are on kindle
- I created a digital product (course)
- Ebay "dropshipping" (getting products from amazon)
- Selling physical products on amazon
- Uploaded original designs on zazzle (similar to cafepress) to sell shirts
- Fiverr gigs

- I have a multi author blog which I will promote on twitter, gab and minds, and I plan to have advertising for affiliate products as well as my own stuff, on my blog

Your problem is you are jumping around way too much. Pick an avenue that has been proven to work (SEO, dropshipping, ecommerce store, Amazon FBA) and stick with it.

Post: #23

(09-17-2017 03:54 PM)zoom Wrote:  Your problem is you are jumping around way too much. Pick an avenue that has been proven to work (SEO, dropshipping, ecommerce store, Amazon FBA) and stick with it.

This is 100% true. It's not the idea that makes the money, its the drive/execution. Most people spend their time trying to find the best money making idea when all they needed to do was pick one idea and work on it non stop and do it better than all of your competitors are doing it while scaling their success.

Post: #24

(09-17-2017 03:54 PM)zoom Wrote:  

(09-15-2017 04:52 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  I'm having a really hard time. I've tried the following :

- I wrote 2 ebooks that are on kindle
- I created a digital product (course)
- Ebay "dropshipping" (getting products from amazon)
- Selling physical products on amazon
- Uploaded original designs on zazzle (similar to cafepress) to sell shirts
- Fiverr gigs

- I have a multi author blog which I will promote on twitter, gab and minds, and I plan to have advertising for affiliate products as well as my own stuff, on my blog

Your problem is you are jumping around way too much. Pick an avenue that has been proven to work (SEO, dropshipping, ecommerce store, Amazon FBA) and stick with it.

And stick to an industry you know. Pick a big enough market that there are plenty of products or services they would find valuable then become an expert in that market.

There should be a whole list of offers you eventually have for this niche, which you can then upsell to your existing customer list.

Post: #25

I've become increasingly convinced that creativity is the rarest of gifts.

I'm not talking about fucking throwing paint on a canvas creativity. That's a skill. Artists who are genuinely creative are incredibly rare.

The problem with pursuit of income (outside of working for another person) is that unless you are a creative person capable of seeing a problem, devising a solution, developing that new idea into a finished product and then creating a successful sales and marketing plan, you're unlikely to ever succeed at anything other than working for other people (who have a combination of those skills or money to afford to hire people who do).

I am a creative person. I didn't really begin to tap into this feature of who I am until about three years ago. Since then, I've realized that I'm not sure if I've ever met anyone who actually does create. I know those people are out there (watch enough Shark Tank episodes and you'll see a few), but they seem incredibly uncommon. My best guess is that there are far more people capable of noting a business opportunity and who have the drive to see it through.

My current work largely involves creation. I create new things that have never existed before, both in concept and finished product. I meet people all the time in my industry (language education), but I've never met a single one who has created a new tool that they use for their work. They simply recycle existing concepts that they've either been trained in, read about or are so blatantly obvious that everyone seems to use them. Every language textbook I've ever seen absolutely sucks. To an untrained eye, many of them seem excellent, but with experience in the classroom, you'll quickly learn that they all offer little utility for contributing to successful learning.

I don't write all this just to brag, but rather to point out why you're unlikely to create a revenue stream that makes it easy to be location independent. Unless you are capable of creating that which has rarely been imagined and never been created, you're going to struggle.

The second best option (to creating a business based around a line of original, problem solving products) is to learn a skill that can be done from anywhere with a reliable Internet connection.

The problem with this option is that (a) you have to learn a skills and (b) you have to become good enough at that skill to earn a decent living despite competing with literally everyone who has an Internet connection and an ounce of ambition.

I'm not kidding when I suggest that you talk to CleanSlate.

This guy has made it happen. He experimented with learning several skills and eventually selected one and then put the time and effort into creating websites to drive clients to him. While we haven't chatted in a while, my best guess is that he's at this point reached the stage where he has more clients that he can personally handle.

While it wasn't easy for him, it also wasn't as hard as you would thing. Forum member Beyond Borders has also succeeded in learning a skill, learning how to market and sell himself and earns an income from doing so.

But unless you are creative, motivated and selective enough to envision and create a product that will generate revenue (enough to justify the time, money and energy you've committed) or capable and driven enough to follow through with learning an in-demand location independent skill, you're best bet is teaching English online.

Demand is pretty strong and you can learn as you go.

The other options are just really poor. For example, writing e-books won't earn you money no matter how good or useful your books are if you don't have the platform in place to drive sales. If you want to earn an income selling books, either be a famous celebrity or spend five years providing value via a blog first. Same goes for online courses, etc.

tl;dr: If there was an easy and obvious way to make money online, everyone would be doing it. However, if you have some level of talent and drive, it will be far from impossible for you to learn a useful skill and make a location independent income inside of a year.