Here are 10 ways real people are creatively taking home some extra dough:

1. Do freelance work

Felice Premeau Devine left her lucrative, full-time job two years ago to raise her son. In the interim, she’s picked up writing and editing freelance work and started a blog, where she is able to earn a little cash from advertising.

Nowadays, almost any job can be done on a contract or freelance basis. Check out sites like Sologig, which lead job seekers to contract, consulting, freelance, temp-to-hire and part-time project opportunities in your field.

2. Sell your books

If you’re a college student or you hung on to your college textbooks thinking you might want to read them again somewhere down the line, select retailers like Barnes & Noble allow you to sell your textbooks for some quick cash. Or, take some classics from your personal library and sell them at a local second-hand bookstore.

3. Search circulating coinage

Susan Headley, the “guide to coins” on About.com, is a lifetime coin collector who has been boosting her income by searching through circulating coinage for the past six years. In 2008, she made about $2,500 and so far in 2009, she has earned approximately $500 from coins she’s found.

People who search circulating coinage successfully for a side income do so in very large numbers, she says. They buy rolls of coins from banks, typically in whole boxes, and sort through it to find stuff that just doesn’t belong, Headley says. Half dollars, for example, were no longer made from 90 percent silver after 1965, but they still had 40 percent silver in them until 1970; either of these turn a nice profit. Presidential dollar errors can be worth $50 to $5,000 each; uncirculated state quarters can sell from $10 to $50 per roll; and rare error coins can value up to $35,000.

4. Start a “business”

Turn your hobby, skills or expertise into a part-time business. Sites like Jobvana can help you do so by providing you with free tools to market your services and offer specialized skills to those looking for help.

Peter Olson says he built a profile in September 2008 offering to teach guitar lessons. He has since gained two students, earning about $240 extra dollars per month and grossing around $1,000 since he started teaching.

5. Enter local and online sweepstakes

Wendy Limauge has been entering sweepstakes since 1993 and teaching others to win through her Web site, Sweeties Sweeps, since 2002. Though winning sweepstakes rarely provides actual cash, her winnings have consistently provided her and her family with 200 to 300 prizes a year, many of them large items she and her husband couldn’t afford on their incomes alone.

Prizes she has won include three TVs, two of which are flat-screens; a home theater system; three dishwashers, each won on separate occasions; at least $1,500 in grocery gift certificates; an $18,000 voucher for the vehicle of her choice; a trip to France valued at $25,000; and, in March 2009, she won $5,000 in an instant-win game.

“The Internet has so many options for saving money, getting something for free, winning a prize or earning money from home,” Limauge says. “You just need to find those resources that offer helpful information and point you in the right direction to get you started and keep you motivated.”

6. Give your opinion — and get paid

Linda Childers, a California-based freelance writer, says many of her friends participate in focus groups. Contributing an hour of your time can earn you up to $100, sometimes more. Online surveys, phone surveys and product trials can also earn you anywhere from $5 to $150. Check out Free Paid Surveys or FindFocusGroups.

7. Sell your junk

Terri Jay earns $2,000 – $3,000 per month just by selling junk. On eBay, Jay not only sells stuff she isn’t using; she hits up local thrift stores on 99-cent days, garage sales and tack sales, looking for things of which she knows the value. She says her best sale was for a drink tray from the 70s: She paid 25 cents for it and it sold for $87.

“The trick is to [sell] what you know,” she advises. “Therefore you can list them [at correct prices] so they will get picked up in searches [on eBay].”

8. Join a direct selling company

Direct selling is one of the easiest ways to earn some extra cash, especially if you sell products you love. Avon, for example, allows you start your own business for $10 — your take home depends on your efforts. Some full-time representatives earn six-figure salaries, others own licensed Avon Beauty Centers and many just sell Avon part time around their family’s schedules.

Haizel MacIntyre started her Avon business in June of 2008 to earn supplemental income to her full-time job when her husband was laid off. Since joining Avon, MacIntyre averages $1,800 a month in sales and her husband is helping her run the business. Her Avon earnings help pay the bills, provide extras for her three kids and she is hoping to earn enough to put towards her college tuition when she goes back to school to get her Masters in Social Work.

9. Be a secret shopper

Keen eyes for detail as well as a good memory are really all that it takes to succeed as a secret shopper, says Zippy Sandler, who has been mystery shopping for about 13 years. After registering with a secret shopping company, you are paid to basically go undercover and report on a company’s operation from the customer point of view.

Sandler decided to start secret shopping not only to earn money eating, traveling and shopping, but also to learn customer service skills to pass along to the employees she managed at a retail store. Depending on the clients she is shopping for, Sandler says she has earned everywhere from $100 to $2,000 per month.

10. Sell your photos to stock agencies

It doesn’t matter if you’re a hobbyist, an amateur or a seasoned photographer – anyone can submit their photos to stock photo agencies like Shutterstock.com. If your images are accepted, they will be available for download by subscribers. Each time someone downloads your photos, you get 25 cents.

excerpt of a story originally posted on CNN

You want to make some extra cash in a big way? This is one of the oldest online affiliate programs and they know how to help you be successful. Amazon Associates is one of the first online affiliate marketing programs and was launched in 1996. The Amazon Associates program has a more than 12 year track record of helping website owners, Web developers, and Amazon sellers make money by advertising millions of new and used products from Amazon.com and Endless.com.

If you have a website or a blog, you have all the tools you need to start earning. When website owners and bloggers who are Associates create links and customers click through those links and buy products from Amazon.com or Endless.com, they earn referral fees. It’s free to join and easy to use. Even if you don’t have your own web space (see free hosting services), you can earn money as an Amazon Associate. Get links to products you want to sell and market them on your social network pages or via email marketing.

Refer customers to a trusted site where they can purchase the products you advertise on your site, social networks, or email. When people purchase you can earn up to 15% in referral fees.

Take advantage of various Amazon retail promotions and leverage our newly created advertising features to drive traffic and earn referrals.

I will be to the point here… video adds a great dimension to any marketing effort. With the rise social networking, video is an awesome tool.

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Spamming chat rooms or instant messaging systems with undifferentiated marketing messages is certainly not a very good idea. But if they are used the right way, these channels can be great to communicate with the market – especially to establish a dialogue with customers.

Have you ever been to a chat room and posted a message?
If you have then you may learn some free web-advertising secrets on how to market your products and service in chat rooms. Chat rooms are usually broken into categories. You will need to find the right chat room where your targeted audience would gather. If there isn’t one, them you may need to create one.

It will be of no use to create one that is obviously for the sole purpose of selling your product or service. Rather, it needs to attract people who would be interested in your product or service. For example: If you sell garden products, your chat room should be on the subject of gardening and not the brand name of the products you sell.

Another way to use a chat room to promote your business is to include a chat room on your web site. Host a free online seminar in your own chat room about a subject of your expertise. Use your chat room to meet with your current customers and answer any questions or address and problems they may have. Regularly schedule free events in your chat room and be certain that your customers are made aware of when they will occur.

For example, you might have an expert in the field available to answer questions on a certain day and between certain hours. You might, also, host other people’s chat rooms as an expert yourself. You, of course, could charge for this but it might be wise to do it free to gain publicity.

This is a really simple idea, but very effective. Building a list, getting trackers, followers and friends are all ways of networking to promote your business or opportunities.

KuleTrack is effective at getting you more followers for Twitter and SoKule. You can advertise on the website, as well as earn money from referrals.

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Stop with the enforced e-mail forwards already! Trying to force or bribe people to forward your info to a friends or family in order to be rewarded or win looks skanky in today’s ultra-permission-based world. Especially when you tell visitors nothing about their friend’s or family’s privacy in the space directly next to the e-mail form.

A true viral campaign gets forwarded because consumers are compelled to do so by the glory of the content, not because you bribed them with points or something else.

What absolutely will not work:

Suggesting that e-mail recipients forward your message to their friends and family will not work. Adding a line at the bottom of your e-mail that reads “Please feel free to forward this message to a friend” is more likely to get it deleted than forwarded.

What absolutely will work:

Offering something worthy of sharing like a valuable discount, vital information or offering an incentive for sharing like additional entries into a sweepstakes or an added discount or premium service will work.

Relevant or timely information, research, or studies that are included in your e-mail might encourage the recipients to share with their family and friends. Interactive content like a quiz or test, especially if it’s fun, will inspire forwarding.

Jokes and cartoons are almost always forwarded to everybody the recipient knows.  Why?  Because they are entertaining and entertainment is meant to be shared.

A really cool multimedia experience is always going to achieve a lot of pass-along. Rich media is new and the novelty and tech factors alone are often enough to make the e-mail recipient eager to share it.

Oops!  Almost forgot one really important thing….You can craft a brilliant e-mail following all the rules, but if a consumer visits your site and has an experience less that what was promised, you are going to achieve viral marketing, alright…the bad kind.  So be certain that your product or service is ready and is as advertised.

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