What Happened When I Tried To Make Money Online as a Mom (Part 2): What I Actually Sell Online

Since deciding to reinvent myself as a 40-year-old blogger, content creator, and online business owner, I have tried a truly impressive number of questionable internet side hustles.

Creating crossword puzzles because some guy on YouTube promised they would sell?

Check.

Using AI software to build an app despite having absolutely no idea what I was doing?

Check.

Uploading Amazon affiliate links to Pinterest because a mommy blogger promised it would become a huge source of passive income?

Also check.

Did any of those things make money?

No.

No they did not.

And that AI app creation software? That one actually cost me money because I was so confident I could figure it out that I paid for a month of the premium subscription before discovering I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

But after all those early failures, I finally stumbled onto something important.

I was approaching the whole thing backwards.

Instead of asking:

“What’s the fastest way to make money online?”

I should have been asking:

“What could I happily talk about for an hour without anyone paying me?”

The answer was books.

Always books.

I don’t care about crossword puzzles.

But I do care about books.

Like, my blood pressure rises and the volume of my voice increases any time someone wants to discuss them kind of care.

Once I figured that out, everything got easier.

I found a niche that actually matched my interests and started building around it.

So here’s what I do now.

#1. I Make Book Journals

I create journals and tools for people who love books and want to track their reading.

There are lots of different versions of them now, including digital versions, and you can find many of them in my shop.

I use a program called BookBolt to design the physical journals and publish them through Amazon KDP.

It’s one of the few business tools I actually pay for every month because it was designed specifically for people creating books for Amazon. It also has keyword research tools that help you figure out what people are actually searching for.

If you’re interested in creating your own journals, planners, activity books, or other low-content books, BookBolt is the tool I personally use. I liked it enough that I eventually joined their affiliate program. If you’d like to try it yourself, you can use my code BOOKISH for a discount on your membership.

Creating journals this way means I don’t have to store inventory in my house or ship anything myself. Amazon handles all of that.

What most people don’t see is how much work went into getting to this point.

The first journals I created were… not good.

Like really not good.

I went back to the drawing board dozens of times.

I had to learn how to create layouts, use graphics effectively, build mockups, optimize listings, understand keywords, write descriptions, and figure out what readers actually wanted.

Every part of that required learning new skills.

Now I have more than 26 journals listed on Amazon and a small but consistent trickle of sales.

And honestly? That’s pretty exciting.

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#2. I Create Book and Mom-Themed Apparel and Accessories

One of my favorite things to do is create graphics for t-shirts, mugs, tote bags, and sweaters.

It’s just fun.

I keep a running list in my phone of random ideas, jokes, and phrases that would make me laugh if I saw them on a shirt.

Then I turn them into products and list them in my Etsy shop.

If Etsy didn’t charge listing fees, I’d probably spend all day making new products just because I enjoy it.

Unfortunately, Etsy is not a charity.

There are fees to open your store.

Fees every time you list something.

Fees every time you sell something.

And somehow they always manage to find another fee hiding around the corner.

The designs themselves are created in Canva and then uploaded to a Print-on-Demand company. I personally use Printful, but there are others like Printify and Gelato.

I love Print-on-Demand because I don’t have to keep inventory in my house or deal with shipping.

Everything is made only when someone orders it.

The downside?

Every time someone places an order, I have to pay Printful upfront before they ship it.

The profit comes from the difference between what I charge and what Printful charges me.

And let me tell you, that lesson got expensive fast.

The very first product I sold actually lost money because I forgot to account for Etsy’s fees.

I literally had to pay some of my own money to send a customer their order.

Lesson learned.

Today my little Etsy shop is moving along nicely.

Right now I’m averaging roughly a sale a day, sometimes more and sometimes less, but it’s steadily moving in the right direction.

And every time I get that little Etsy notification, I still do a tiny happy dance.

There’s just something so dopamine producing about people wanting to buy things I create.

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#3. I Do Affiliate Marketing

Yes, I know I started this post by making fun of affiliate marketing.

And to be fair, I still think a lot of people dramatically oversell how easy it is.

But I do participate in affiliate marketing.

I just do it differently than the people promising overnight passive income.

Instead of recommending random products I’ve never touched, I review things I actually own and use.

Sometimes that’s through my blog.

Sometimes it’s through TikTok.

Sometimes it’s through my Amazon storefront.

Everything I recommend is something that’s actually in my house.

Or, in one very specific blog post, things I would absolutely buy if I won the lottery tomorrow.

Is affiliate marketing making me rich?

Absolutely not.

But it’s another small income stream that slowly grows as my content grows.

And that’s good enough for me.

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#4. I Create UGC Content for Brands

Over the past few months I’ve spent a lot of time building my social media accounts.

Nothing huge.

Just consistently showing up.

That eventually opened the door to User Generated Content work, also known as UGC.

Basically, brands hire creators to make videos that look like genuine customer experiences.

It’s advertising, but in a much more natural format.

I partner with brands that make products I like, use, or believe in and create content for them.

In return, I get paid.

The pay varies a lot.

Some projects pay around $40.

Others can pay a few hundred dollars.

But that extra income helps pay a bill or two every month, and I’m pretty happy with that.

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So What Have I Learned?

The funny thing is that none of these income streams look very impressive on their own.

One journal sale.

One Etsy notification.

One affiliate commission.

One brand partnership.

One blog visitor.

One email subscriber.

They’re all tiny wins.

But when you stack enough tiny wins together, eventually they start looking like a business.

That’s where I am right now.

Not overnight success.

Not passive income.

Not sipping margaritas on a beach while money magically appears in my bank account.

Just consistent effort and a growing collection of small victories.

For months, none of this made any money at all.

I spent weeks, and then months, planting little seeds all over the internet.

A blog post here.

A Pinterest pin there.

A journal listing.

A TikTok video.

An Etsy product.

Most of them did nothing at first.

But eventually some of those seeds started growing.

And honestly?

That growth feels a little bit like a miracle, even when it’s slow.

So if you’re trying one of these things, or all of these things, keep going.

The internet makes it seem like everyone becomes successful overnight.

Most people don’t.

Most people build it one small step at a time.

Big things always start small.

What About You?

Have you ever tried to make money online?

I’d genuinely love to hear about it.

Did you find something that worked? Did you buy a course you never finished? Did you accidentally spend money on a side hustle before making any money back? (Please tell me I’m not the only one.)

Leave a comment and tell me about your biggest online business success, failure, or lesson learned.

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Keep Reading

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

• What Happened When I Tried to Make Money Online as a Mom (Part 1)

• Also Known As: Evidence That I Should Not Be Allowed Unsupervised on Amazon

• If Moms Were Written Like Fantasy Heroines

• Why Is It So Hard to Maintain Hobbies Postpartum?

Thanks for reading and following along as I build this little corner of the internet.

It may not be overnight success, but every sale, subscriber, reader, and comment still feels pretty magical.