Everyone likes nice things. Some people enjoy leather furniture. Others crave an expensive kitchen with a professional oven. Some might want a personal wine cellar, while others might want to drive a fancy car, like a Porsche, or an Aston Martin. I enjoy traveling, as does my wife. We take close to half a dozen trips per year throughout Europe, and I have a pretty healthy wine hobby, not to mention the video game side of me that requires plenty of high def, big screens, and gaming rigs.

What many people don’t know is that you can have all of these…simply writing for eHow.

I’m sure at this point many of the “veteran” writers in the crowd are shaking their heads no, claiming that it’s impossible, because they haven’t been able to do it. Something you will see a lot of at Complete Writing Solutions (if you haven’t already) is proving the impossible to be possible. I have a very “Richard Branson” look on life, which is setting goals for myself that seem insurmountable to others, and consequently becoming addicted to the feeling of gratification I get when I’ve overcome those supposedly insurmountable odds. It’s a rush.

Now, before I get started, I need to give credit where credit is due. I stumbled across his blog a few months back and I can honestly say his approach is something that has inspired our direction for 2010. His name is Pat, and he is the owner of the Smart Passive Income blog. His website is all about showing people how to make smart, passive income. If you read his annual report for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the guy cleared $203,000 in gross income from simply selling an e-book…all for an initial investment of around 200 USD. He’s 26 years old, and a brilliant marketing genius who completely understands the concept of digitalization (selling a product entirely online in the digital world), something I talk about a lot here at Complete Writing Solutions.

The beauty of Pat’s site is that he gives away all of his information for free. If you take the time to read his blog he discusses the reasoning behind this, because while he isn’t making enough money to give to charity, he feels that giving away his marketing strategies for free is a way to help give back to the community. And considering the amount of income his affiliates make from affiliate earnings, I’d say he’s giving back plenty!

Pat is really good about showing proof of his income. It’s something I’ve been inspired to do, and something you will see incorporated in 2010 when we start showing our income breakdown. That’s neither here nor there, however. I wanted to give you a basis for understanding where the concept of this article came from. The inspiration, as it were.

I have not personally written for eHow, although I have articles up on their site published through Demand Studios. I did not write residual articles, but rather focused on up-front payouts. However, I looked at the math over at Pat’s page on eHow earnings and considering how much I love to put together the numbers to prove people wrong when they talk about how these markets are supposedly low-paying (for example, showing how you could make over 100k a year writing for content sites; if you’ve followed my posts for any length of time you’ll see it’s rather an addiction I have, proving people wrong with math), I had to nod my head and go “Hot damn, here’s someone who gets it.”

Looking at the math on his site, if you were to write 150 articles per month for 9 months you could earn (according to the numbers in his equation, which are not definite; please pay attention to the variables which could sway the number up or down) over 14,000 dollars in residual income over the next year after you stopped writing.

While $14,000 doesn’t sound like a lot up front, you have to look at the broader scope. That’s a car payment for the entire year. Your mortgage. Several nice vacations with the family. A new room addition to your house. A remodeling project to renovate your kitchen. A omfg-blow-your-mind home theater system that will have the neighbours for 5 miles in every direction jealous. And it takes almost no time to write those 150 articles a month. Why?

Because you are living in the age of globalization. There are literally thousands of niches that people are writing in, and thousands of niches that people want to read about on a global basis. It could be something as mundane as how to get stains out of a toilet bowl or something as off-the-wall as how to make a wig out of camel hair, but at the end of the day someone out there in the great big ol’ world is going to want to read your article. And if you understand SEO and know how to pad the articles properly there is a veritable boat-load of cash just waiting for you to claim.

Writing in a niche is wonderful because it takes literally no time. Your niches do not require research; you know the topics intimately. You are capable of sitting down and literally writing five niche articles in an hour or two. What that means is that you can easily sit down every day and write 5 little niche articles in your spare time.

The beauty about residual income is that it is the gift which keeps on giving. However, you need to understand that the initial groundwork still has to be laid, and you are still going to have to put some effort into getting that residual income flowing. Writing is not a get-rich-quick industry, but it is incredibly lucrative when you factor in the thousands of niches that are available for you to write about.

The easiest way to start is simply take your favorite hobbies and write about them. These are already something you are extremely passionate about, so it’s going to be a fun project for you to work on in your one or two spare hours of time every day. And as long as you are dedicated to it and write at least 5 articles a night, you could see the same kind of numbers (or even better!) that Pat posted on his website, which means you could see yourself sitting with an extra 15 grand or so in your pocket next year from doing nothing more than writing about something you were passionate about in the first place! Not only are you having fun, but you are making money having fun, and there’s nothing wrong with that!

There is no such thing as low-paying in today’s markets, people. Everything is relative. When you look at the earnings from places like eHow and Demand Studios they might look small up close, but when you take a step back and look at the potential over the course of an entire year, the results are fairly staggering. 14-15k a year from residual, and 100k a year from an 8 hour a day job? I certainly don’t consider either of those low-paying in the least.

So get out there and start writing in your niche today. You could find yourself with a brand new shiny (insert favorite thing here) next year, purely from spending an hour or two every day writing about something you were passionate about in the first place.

(I am not affiliated with eHow or the Smart Passive Income blog in any way, shape, or form. I am simply someone who enjoys crunching numbers and proving how these supposed low-paying markets are in fact quite lucrative when used properly.)