Now’s the Time for Introverts to Create an Online Empire: How to Build Online Income in 3 Steps
Our time is now
I launched my Substack last May with no following whatsoever. Within six months, I became a Substack Bestseller and began earning a living from my writing. If you're ready to start earning from your writing in 2025, let’s explore the fast-track steps together.
Now’s the Time for Introverts to Create an Online Empire: How to Build Online Income in 3 Steps
We all know them, the influencers. Those that show up to the nicest places, to make them immediately not nice.
Lately, they have shown up in coffee shops more often than usual.
While sipping on my cappuccino, the laptop in front of me, and Mambo (my dog) at my feet on his little cozy blanket, I slide to the sides trying not to be captured in their billions of images or worse, videos.
Annoying, content creators.
Oh, but wait. Content creators?
I guess that’s what we are as well. The online writers. Just less in the limelight. We like to hide away behind our screens, sit in the darkest little corners of that cafe, and peacefully write away.
In a way, I feel a lot of online writers out here are more introverts rather than extroverts. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we prefer to share our views and values through words and maybe even through face-less videos on YouTube. Still, TikTok and Instagram might be a bit too far-fetched for us.
And you know what? It’s our time to shine.
While technology might be shifting to short attention span-focused media, I say the time for introverts is now.
Hear me out, why.
The Rise of the Introverts
Technology finally allows introverts to play a bigger role in the online scene.
Platforms such as
Medium
X (Twitter)
Substack
Reddit
Quora
have emerged, and people from all over the place were invited to share their views online. Through words.
There’s nothing new in that.
But what is new, is that platforms now show up that value writers more than ever.
Take Substack and Medium for example. They allow authors to be directly paid for their value-creation in the form of words. And I’m all here for it.
The Time of Newsletter Marketing Is Now
What is fantastic about it is that while you can create content and place that on all kinds of social media, you can link it back to your paid newsletter.
The use is twofold
Getting paid subscribers directly through there (e.g. on Substack)
Selling your digital products through it.
I love that Substack has developed a new system for authors and creators, one that disrupts the entire idea of newsletter marketing.
It’s no longer exclusive for businesses to send out their offers.
Nopes, it’s now used to create valuable content and send it out in the form of newsletters with the option to be paid for it directly.
All of a sudden, you and I, are the product.
Start Your Media Empire Now
“This is the best time there’s ever been to start a one-man or one-woman media empire.”
This is what
, one of Substack’s co-founders has recently said in an interview.And I could not agree more.
We have the tools on a technical level, we have the community access, and we finally have the empowerment to create our own media empire.
How To Build Up Your Online Empire in 3 Steps
Okay, now we know it’s our time - how do we actually do it?
I started working on my online creation journey 6 months ago. In fact, my first article ever written was about that topic.
And I will never forget my partner saying “Making even $1 on the internet is hard”. Right, he was.
My first three months were rocky. I struggled with finding exactly what I wanted to do to make money online.
The hardest part isn’t just starting something new, it’s sticking with it when things get tough, especially in those early months when everything feels uncertain.
There were so many moments where I was tempted to quit. I’d ask myself if it was even worth it. I knew deep down that success doesn’t always come on a straight path, and I had to remind myself that persistence was key. So, I kept going, experimenting, adjusting, and learning what didn’t work just as much as what did.
Six months in, things started to shift.
The difference was I had finally figured out what worked for me.
I stopped trying to follow everyone else’s path and instead focused on refining my own. It wasn’t perfect, but it was progress.
Now, looking back, I’m so glad I didn’t give up.
Today, just six months after I started, I’m running an online business that brings in about $1,000 a month.
3 Steps to Earn Online
Try things out.
I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear, but it really comes down to, what you like and what not. This is what I started with
Writing Online
Creating Print-On-Demand products
KDP Coloring books
Funny enough, one out of them succeeded, one did alright and one was a total failure.
It’s the one I enjoy the most, which succeeded. Writing online, building a community, and my business around that.
The one that failed was the print-on-demand thing. I only gave it a couple of weeks, but I immediately realized that this was not for me. I hated creating individual designs, that I did not put love into, plus the margins and the marketing effort did just not make it for me. I wrote about it in more detail here.
Creating KDP books was okay, I made some money with it and enjoyed it for a while. However, I quickly realized that I did not want to create coloring books forever and gave it up. Plus, the marketing expense was also huge, so I did not make a profit with it either. If you want to learn more about it, you can find my article here.
With writing, I made my first dollars in my second month on Medium and expanded it to Substack right after. Combining Medium and Substack was ideal for me and a great starting point for my online income journey.
2. Stick with what you like.
The second most important thing is to stick with what you like. Even though you might not see big success right in the beginning, trust the journey. As long as it is something you enjoy, you are on a good track.
Imagine I would have quit in my second month of writing (the online income I enjoyed the most), after seeing the result of my first month here.
I am so glad that I powered through the first difficult months.
Consistency and time makes all the difference, trust me on that.
Being consistent is one part of it, evaluating whether you can make money with it, is another story. If you can make a few dollars in profit with it fairly quickly, chances are you are on a good track to scale it up. Do consider the market size, though — is there a big enough demand for you to make online income?
Those things obviously do matter.
3. Scale it up.
Once you have found
what you like
what you can do persistently, can make money with it, and have a big enough market
you are set to scale.
Now, this is all about volume. Especially, when you write online.
Nicolas Cole just said in a podcast “Writing is a lottery, so optimize for volume”. Next up is to create more volume. This can be in terms of bigger audience, bigger marketing, or also more products or value creation for your customers.
Think about ways to increase your reach so that more people can benefit from your offerings. Oftentimes, it’s a good idea to create some kind of free content to start with so people understand what value you can create for them, it creates trust.
Once that has been established, you can offer a variety of paid products.
These are my three steps to create online income for beginners. You do need to put in the work and the effort in the beginning, but also you need to keep going.
As always, trust the process and keep going.
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This perspective is incredibly empowering, especially for someone like me who just started recently! I completely agree—Substack is a refreshing platform for introverts like me . Keep shining!
Self-professed introvert! We’re some of the most creative people I know. Time to shine!