To those of you that aren't technical, what do you do to earn money?

I own several wordpress sites where I do drop-shipping business on which is going quite well for me! Thanks to Facebook ads for marketing!

Copywriting, customer service/email correspondence, and transcription at times.

Thanks for re-opening this @elisha!

So my nomadic journey is still going strong. I’ve done some pretty varied stuff over the past 8/9 months. I started off freelancing on PeoplePerHour and Upwork but didn’t really make much money from that (competition was crazy).

I then went on a bit of a mission to pick up a remote job, and I did. I was working on a growth executive with a startup based out of NYC for 6 months. I learnt a tonne and felt I made some real steps forward in an industry I really enjoy!

I recently finished up on that though, because travelling around a tonne has really sparked my entrepreneurial spirit and I really want to start something on my own. This has been helped a lot by being in Chiang Mai for the last couple of months, there are so many business owners here who are killing it. I couldn’t help myself.

So now I’ve just launched my own business called Websitely (www.websitely.co) that is a Wordpress design agency. Idea is to apply to same growth hacking principles I learnt in my previous contract to this and see what happens.

In terms of the money, I’ve got a pretty decent runway by being pretty frugal and some cash stored in the bank, so I’ve got a few months to make it happen.

So happy I made the jump though. I know working out on the way isn’t for everyone and I wouldn’t advise you necessarily do it the way I am doing it. One thing I did take away though is that you can learn as much (if not more) through a remote job than you can in a traditional office environment. I had so much responsibility and autonomy it was crazy. I became really strong on the project management side of things too, as planning and implementation was key when you weren’t in the same location as the rest of the team!

If you’ve got any more questions about anything, hit me up!

Also I was actually just interviewed for a podcast about my journey so far, if you’re interested, check it out: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/01-blake-moore-on-growthhacking/id1130647335?i=1000371784277&mt=2

I’m a coach and I teach online courses on writing and practical magic.

I work with clients on Skype and I teach via webinar and Facebook groups.

It’s a pretty awesome location-independent life, and I couldn’t code to save my life

I guess I have “tech” skills in the sense that I can set up wordpress websites and email marketing funnels, but it only took me a month or two to learn to do that, and also it’s totally possible to just hire folks to build business websites for you of course.

So yes, there’s plenty of options for nomadic work that don’t involve tech skillz.

same here. I am a psychotherapist and instead of working in a private practice back home, I am now doing my counselling/therapy trough skype.

When I decided to go down this path, I really wondered what I would do to put all those beers in my hand while overseas. I don’t have any tech skills and did feel kind of lost and hopeless when looking for remote/freelance jobs. After a month or so of kicking ideas around in my office, I kind of woke up and realized I could just keep doing what I was doing, but as a freelancer. So I became a freelance attorney. I just told people I met through my career what I was doing, signed up on some websites, and the work started coming in! I think everyone has a skill set, or work experience, that they can translate to an income to live the lifestyle. It’s just a matter of figuring out what it is, and how to market it.

Just asked this as my question in my introduction @blake and I often wonder the same thing. Reading all the responses here, it seems writing/blogging/translating are the common themes but what @gigigriffis and @ani rightly pointed out, it definitely isn’t an easy way to make money for a few reasons.

I’m personally a freelance food writer (I’ve been writing for free on the side just because I love trying new food) as it is but what I’ve found is:

• Once you use it to pay bills, it becomes quite a chore to churn out words onto a page especially if that’s not your background
• Standing out from the crowd is not the easiest job and hitting deadlines sucks
• I’ve never asked, but I’m not 100% sure the money you make is necessarily scalable enough to support the lifestyle unless you’re quite professional - aka. the ramp up time is quite steep

Those are my thoughts anyway, not to say it’s impossible, but it does seem much more difficult which is why I’m trying to find other alternatives. Learning to code/develop might not be a bad skill set to have in the long run.

I’d love to hear what others have to say outside of translating/writing - like consultancy services they may have started and their journey to success from there?

I’m a 3D Designer. I work mostly with architectural visualization and product rendering (most of my clients in this area are Amazon sellers).

I’m a quality assurance engineer and software tester. I’m not technical at all but I do know my way around computers a bit.

I am freelance writer for students who buy essay here usa and this job allow me to earn good money without spending much time on it.

I work as a customer support/service agent and a virtual travel agent/planner, as well as managing my family and friends with their holiday rentals business in Croatia (e.g. managing properties on Airbnb and other portals, communicating with guests, giving advice etc.)

I work as a designer to help brand with their branding.

hi!

I am also a translator (more localiser for games and apps) and a copywriter/writer. I do English-Italian and separately English and Italian writing, being bilingual.

I could have been (and partly have been) a nomad from the start, several years ago.

I write! not even a blog, I write fiction and sell my work mostly on Amazon. I am a firm believer in “anyone can do this”.

I do Virtual assistant work… research, Wordpress setup, SEO, copy editing, graphic design, customer service, business development. Right now it’s a lot of social media managing and campaigns (Pinterest in particular).

I read a LOT of travel / DN blogs and so many of them write for their blog, for other publications, other blogs etc, with NO prior experience as a writer. And it’s how they make money! It seems that as a traveler, your perspective is already in demand, so much so that writing experience or skills fall second to being in a cool location that someone wants you to write about. After I learned this, it was really a, “wow, anyone can do this” realization

Hey @Blake, I just added a non-tech category to Remote OK: https://remoteok.io/remote-non-tech-jobs.

There’s now more non-tech jobs than ever, including copywriting, community management and sales. Before I’d say “learn to code”, but maybe this is a better way!

there was a thread about this recently that you might find helpful.

I’m a translator and copy editor/proofreader. In order to support myself when I went freelance, I took on long-term house-sits; now that the money is more regular, I’m renting (cheaply) more often than house-sitting.