How To Make An Income From Coding — Full Guide

Programming is a fabulous skill to have, but how good would it be if you could make a lot of money from it too? That would indeed be amazing right?

Programming is a really profitable job, and there is a lot that you can do as a programmer that could bring you money, and today, we are going to discuss about the ways that you can follow to make money with code.

Are You Excited? Then Lets Jump Right Into It

Tutoring

This is a really underrated way to earn from programming, although it does have the potential to make you a lot of money.

Tutoring people is by far the easiest way to make money from programming. Not only that, but also, If you are a beginner and want to make an income from coding already, then this is the best way that I can think of to make money from programming. There are a lot of ways you can teach people, and lets look at some examples:

• 1 on 1 Tutoring Sessions: This is a really great way to start off as a programming tutor. If you are someone who is good with people and can deal with beginners, then this is probably for you. If you consider yourself to be a level 4 or 5 programmer, out of a 10 level range, then it will not be that hard for you to teach people who might be absolute beginners, or someone who has just learnt what variables are. This approach is sort of easier than YouTube, but the pay might vary a lot. If you are in the US, then you can visit platforms like Takelessons or Wyzant. These are both amazing platforms for you to teach from. You get to pick your rates, and then, students can approach you. If you are not in the US, I would recommend visiting platforms like fiverr or PeoplePerHour. The only challenge is finding your first clients in these places, but if you do, then you can have a great future ahead of you as a tutor.
• YouTube: This is not an easy one, although if you do put in your heart and soul into content creation for YouTube, It will not be hard for you to grow. Afterwards, when you have enough subscribers and viewers, you can put in ads, or start with affiliate marketing, or get sponsors. There are a lot of ways you can make money from YouTube, but again, at the start, it will be hard for you to get enough subscribers and viewers on your channel that you can make money. This is a long term approach, and ideal for you if you are willing to be consistent and dedicated towards it.
• Start Your Own Course: This is an amazing approach in my opinion. If you think that you are good enough for this, I would Highly recommend you to make your own course about the topic which you find your strength in. If you are into ML and AI, this is probably one of the best opportunities for you to make money from coding. If you go ahead and make a 20 or 30 hour long course, and publish it on Udemy, and if you can get enough people to join your course, Trust me, there is a lot of chance that you can go BIG with this. I find myself buying courses every now and then, and any person who wants to learn something new would like to check out either Udemy or YouTube, and there is a high chance that they enroll in your course. Remember, it is important for you to have a presence in the social media so that you can advertise about the course there, and so that people actually come to your course. If you do not want to make a Udemy course, then you can even make your own course at your own website. You can get as fancy as you want with the course. Some people include live calls and make their course worth a lot more, but normally, you can price it at 20–100$ If you think that the course is good enough. Again, the pricing is purely your concern, and this blog is not going to tell you figures.

These were just some of the examples of making money from tutoring. I am sure that there are a lot more than this, and I leave it up to you to explore it all.

Lets move on to the next one:

Start Blogging

Blogging is another underrated mode for you to generate an income from programming. If you are a good writer, or have past experience in writing, perhaps this one is amazing for you. Even if you are not, then too you can learn by practicing and being consistent.

Lets look into more details as to how we can make an income from blogging:

• Affiliate marketing: One of the best ways to make a lot of money from blogging is through affiliate marketing. If you have a recommendation for your viewers, say a book or a course, then do not forget to get an affiliate link for it. You can easily hyperlink a word and redirect the users to the product or the website. If you are going for a book, then I would say that you should try out affiliate links from amazon, and if you are going for a course, then you can try to mail the creator of the course directly, and ask for an affiliate link. If you are targeting a course from a popular website like Udemy or coursera, you can use their affiliate program and get the link from there. All of these links can then be used in your blog as hyperlinks.
• Paid blogging: If you are a reputed blogger, then this is a good one for you. If you find anyone who might require a blog, then you can approach them and say that you can do it for them. Start off slow, and then move on. Normally, Paid bloggers charge around $25 to $150 for 1 article. If you can type fast, it would not be hard for you to complete a blog a day, or even more. Paid blogging does come with the disadvantage of you not being able to openly express your thoughts, as you could in your own blog, and hence, it is a choice for you to make. If you are willing to give up the freedom of expressing your thoughts openly, then this might be for you.
• Blogging On Medium: Medium itself is an amazing platform to blog in. Even though you cannot run your ads on medium, the thing is that if a member reads your blogs, then you get a commission for that. Without the member actually doing much, you are still getting paid just because they are viewing your blog. If you can consistently get a lot of people to view your blogs, then I am sure that you can make a lot from this platform too.

Blogging is a vast field, and is not limited just to tech. So, this is perfect for those who do not want to be committed to tech, but are more about checking stuff out. If you do not like writing about tech, then also you can continue to write about whatever you wish to.

Freelancing

This is a really popular way of making an income from programming, and is also a really profitable one. From anywhere between making a really basic landing page, all the way up to making an entire website for a client, there is a lot in freelancing to do. The earning potential is a lot too. People make over 100,000$ a year with freelancing, and they are working 20 hours a week. Of course, this is a field where if you do not know what you are doing, you can get in a BIG pitfall.

Lets look at the pros and cons of freelancing:

Pros:

• You get to work whenever you want, wherever you want
• Your charges are put by you
• You are self employed, that means you DO NOT have a boss.
• You can fire your clients if you have multiple of them
• There is no capped limit to your earning potential.

Cons:

• You might be fighting for really low priced jobs at first if you do not have the experience.
• Landing that first client is going to be really hard
• There is NO job security, meaning you can be at Mauritius today, and on the road tomorrow.
• You need to find a way to balance work with life
• Fluctuating incomes

There are both amazing pros and awful cons, but if you can take the risk, then you might go REALLY BIG with this. To start off with this, I would recommend first mastering the basics and having an amazing portfolio, then having a social media presence, and also, having some really good connections and soft skills. You can try out Upwork or Fiverr for starting off. I have even heard some people recommend freelancer.com, so you might want to check this out too.

PS: If you are interested, there is an amazing YouTube video that comprehensively explains everything you need to know about freelancing. You can check it out here.

Full Time Job

This is by far the most common way of making money. This is the “risk free” approach as people call it, and it is wonderful for anyone who likes stability.

If you are not that risk tolerant, then this is by far the best approach that you can take to start making money from programming. As most of you know, getting a Job is composed of a series of tasks to do, lets jot them down:

• Learn the technical skills
• Make a solid portfolio
• Send your resume to companies you are passionate to work with
• If you get accepted, then you have an interview
• You nail the interview
• You get the Job

There are a lot of pros and cons to a job. Lets see what they are:

Pros

• You do not have to worry about searching for clients all day everyday
• You work in a team (if you are a team player, then this is amazing for you)
• There is a lot of stability, at least way more than that in freelancing

Cons

• The adventure element to life basically ends
• You do have a boss

If you think that a job is the best approach for you, I would highly recommend going for it. There are a ton of companies which might be looking for a person like you.

Start A Start Up

This is the one with the highest risk. There is a big possibility that you will fail, but there’s also a huge opportunity on the positive side. If you can tolerate that amount of risk, then maybe the start up approach is for you.

key points to remember with this approach:

• There is a LOT of chance that you might fail
• You are self employed. This might be good for some people, but I am sure that this will be the killing part for some.
• You have NO stable income here. There is normally a lot of fluctuation. Some days your business is sky rocketing, and some days, its on the verge to break apart
• If you are successful, then you can go REALLY big.

The tech industry is full of opportunities and there is a lot of room for improvement. If you can actually think of solving a big problem, there is a high chance that you will succeed. Just remember one thing, calculated risk is no risk at all. There are a lot of things to think about if you wanna make a good start up, but if you think that your business will succeed, it just might. As Henry Ford says, “If you believe you can or if you believe you cannot, either way you’re right ”.

Sell An E-Book

If you have a really good sense of a topic, and if you think that you can jam pack a lot of value into a book, I am sure that you can crush this field. Many people out there might be looking for books that you might publish, and there is no limit as to how high you can go with this.

Some of the key points to remember while making an e-book are -

• Make a book which you as a user would love to read
• Be yourself while writing the book. Its of no point to be someone else while writing
• Do not forget to market the book well!

There are also a lot of resources where you can sell your book from. For example, one really popular one would be amazon.

Conclusion

There is a lot of opportunity to make money from programming, although you do need to focus on something which you yourself like to do. This blog was just to list out all the possible ways to make money from programming, and I am sure that there are more ways than what I have listed here. I would say that you at least start off with one, see how it goes. The main Key point which I want you to take away is: Start off. No point to waste any more time now.

That’s it for this blog.

Thank you! I hope you enjoyed it

Priyanshu Saraf.