Passive income is:

Repeated, regular income, generated by a business that does not require direct involvement from the owner or merchant. Wikipedia.

Take books for example.

The author of a book works for months or sometimes years getting that book written. They may work an hour a day or 8 hours a day. They may take months off in between chapters and go lie on a beach somewhere.

But they’re not earning any money while they write the book. They only begin earning once the book is published and starts selling. After the book is published, though, they are done with it. They can go play on the beach forever now if they want to. Because the book continues to sell. And every time it sells, the author gets a residual check, a sales commission so to speak. That is passive income. Repeat, regular income generated from the original effort of writing the book.

Another example is song writing.

The writer of the song toils away at his little piano, scratching out a new song for say, Britney Spears. (Sorry for the bad example. I just saw something about her on Yahoo so now she’s the only singer who comes to mind.)

But this writer may spend a few hours or a few days, at this task. While he’s writing the song, he’s earning nothing from it. He’s only hoping it will sell. He’s giving it his best effort because he WANTS it to sell. He has committed to his family that he will put dinner on the table and a roof over their heads. And he is driven to succeed because he loves his family and doesn’t want his wife bashing him over the head with her frying pan!

Once Britney records his song and it starts selling, our writer begins to earn money. Now he can feed his family. And years from now, when some die-hard Britney Spears fan buys that song, he’ll still be earning Passive Income from that sale, too.

Passive Income in blogging and internet marketing works the same way.

You spend hours or days or months setting up a blog or marketing website but you don’t earn any money from it until you sell something.

Most blogs that you see have some type of advertising on them. Look over to the right on this page. You’ll see some ads I have that Google runs. And up at the top of the page you’ll see an ad for HostGator. Every time someone clicks on one of those ads and buys the product, I make money. Even if I’m not sitting here, at my desk, watching this blog. If I were to leave town today, and not come back for a year, I would still earn money every time someone clicks that HostGator ad and signs up for their Hosting plan.

That is the beauty of Passive Income and Blogging!