The internet is a magically beautiful place. Because of globalization, it is now easier than ever to make money online. However, most people in the Caribbean don’t have the slightest clue how online money-making processes work and some don’t even believe people in Trinidad and Tobago (and by extension the Caribbean) can make money online.

It is even more unfortunate that writers and other creatives are not informed about the possibilities of gaining an income online from the Caribbean. Fortunately, for you, I’ve been around the block since 2018 and have found financial success in various ways through writing and content creation.

Part of the problem with making money online in the Caribbean is that people are uninformed about the various payment methods and the ways to link US systems to local banks. I believe that’s why the myth persists that it is impossible to receive income online. In this article I will briefly address this issue, giving you a breakdown of how payment systems work for each money-making method provided.

Writers in the Caribbean struggle to already to gain any income from their writing, so writing, producing content online and being able to make money off of it can provide a greatly needed ease up.

All of the methods shared in this article are methods I have tried for myself, some I made quite a few bucks and others not so much. The point of these articles is to be as transparent as possible. In this article, I’m going to focus on making money online from writing and content creation in the Caribbean.

Here are 6 tested and proven ways that you can make money online from sitting on your couch in front of your Lasko fan and sweating from the Caribbean heat.

6 ways to make money online from the Caribbean

1. Freelancing

Freelancing is my least favourite form of money making. So let’s get this out of the way first. Freelancing by definition is a form of self-employment where you work with a company or individual to complete one single specific project based on your skills. You can make money online through freelance writing but if you have other skills like graphic design or website building you can explore those options as well.

While freelancing offers a flexible way for Caribbean people to make money online is also a pain in the ass to get clients. One way to get clients is by setting up your own website and promoting your services there, through content marketing or providing writing sampling. I will discuss more about making money through your own website under blogging. But if you’re not into that whole building website stuff there are a few sites that can help you find clients and do offer payment within the region. Here are some freelance marketing platforms that pay in the Caribbean.

• Upwork -Pays through, Payoneer, Wire Transfer and Paypal
• Friveer– Pays through Payoneer and Paypal
• Freelancer– Pays through Payoneer and Paypal

Freelance Platforms that Do Not Payout in the Caribbean

Pros and Cons of Freelancing

Pros

• Flexibility-You get to choose your own time to work and choose your own clients.
• Initial cost to start low-Most freelance platforms are free to use and relativity easy to sign up for
• Payout high-If you price your services well you can receive relativity high payments per job. Between $10-$50 USD per job.

Cons

• Difficult to find clients-As I mentioned, that finding clients is difficult even when using freelancing platforms.
• Basically gig work-Even when you find clients, it can be challenging going back and forth to meet their needs, so a little bit of customer service skills may be beneficial.
• No Freedom-Of course you’ll be creating content based on what the customer needs and not based on what you want to create. This can be a little stifling as a creative but the bills have to be paid somehow, right?

NOTE ON PAYPAL: Another myth I STILL see floating around is that you can’t get paid through PayPal in Trinidad and Tobago or the Caribbean at large. Obviously, I’m about busting myths today. YES! You can receive funds in your local bank through Paypal and we’ve been able to do so for a while now.

Kerron Rose Digital Marketing Master gives a detailed account of how to do so in his article Getting Paid With Paypal In Trinidad and Tobago. Please read it for more information on this topic.

2. Social Media Content Creation

TikTok has taken the Caribbean region by storm. Now a lot of Caribbean Creatives are becoming popular and going viral on Tikok and other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook. They are building their brand and making money.

Unfortunately, you CANNOT make money DIRECTLY OFF OF VIEWS in the Caribbean on social media sites, as off writing this article. Although Tikok, Instagram and Trends do have creator funds where creators make money off of views, this feature is not available in the Caribbean region. However, growing a social media brand can be useful and you can make money indirectly from growing a loyal online community.

TikTok allows Caribbean creators to set up subscriptions, where followers can donate to their favourite creators starting from $2.99 USD a month, this feature is similar to how Patreon works. The more subscribers you have the more money you make. TikTok also allows you to get gifts on your videos and during lives from your followers which you can convert to money. And their series feature allows you to place videos behind a paywall. You can receive payouts from TikTok through Paypal.

By growing your brand on Instagram, Facebook and Trends, you can get paid indirectly through:

Once you have a dedicated following and your followers trust you, it becomes easy to pitch sales. Your social media brand essentially becomes a sales funnel to anything you want to sell.

Pros and Cons of Social Media Content Creation

Pros

• Virality– There is a chance of your content going viral and thereby spreading your reach to get more potential customers.
• Growing a brand-Growing a brand using content is a way followers can get to know you and get lead to greater opportunities.

Cons

• Growing a social brand doesn’t mean you will make money-Unfortunately just growing a brand using video doesn’t grantee you will make money
• Navigating brand sponsorships can be difficult-Because there’s no set standard or cost for brand sponsorship, so it can be challenging to set a price for your work.
• Comes across scammy– You have the potential of coming across scammy to your audience if you try to sell them too much.
• Hard work being consistent-In order to be successful in any way on social media you MUST show up consistently to your audience. This can be challenging for some, especially for those who don’t like showing up on camera.

3. YouTube

Now YouTube is the wholly grail of content creation. Everyone knows about YouTube, everyone loves YouTube. Now as you may already know YouTube has a Creator Partner Program. This program allows creators to gain income through views by placing ads throughout their videos.

Because YouTube is owned by Google, these ads are Google ads therefore creators get paid from AdSense. Joining AdSense is free. While AdSense is available in most countries, for some reason YouTube’s Creator program seems to place a restriction on certain islands of the Caribbean. However, this can easily be solved. Trinidadian YouTuber Lyndon Baptiste gives a pretty detailed breakdown of How to monetize your channel in Trinidad and the rest of the Caribbean.

The hardest thing of course is reaching YouTube’s Partner Program requirements, which are:

• 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours for long-format videos

OR

• 1000 subscribers and 10 million views for shots.

If you manage to reach the requirements, getting paid is the easy part. AdSense pays through Wire Transfer directly into your local bank account or via cheque through the mail.

Pros and Cons of YouTube

Pros

• Growing a Following-Similarly to social media, growing a brand on YouTube can be useful and bring in other opportunities.
• Monetize other ways-Just like social media, you can monetize your channel using affiliate links, brand sponsorships, selling goods and services and linking to Patreon (or similar donation sites)
• Paid through views-Being able to make money directly from the platform is great without having to sell anything directly to your audience.

Cons

• The YouTube Algorithm is difficult to master-One of the major challenges with YouTube is trying to get your content in front of an audience. YouTube is horrible at linking Caribbean content creators to Caribbean viewers naturally. Furthermore, our Caribbean accent can something be a barrier for American viewers.
• Low ad income-Relaying on ad income on YouTube can be a bit disappointing. The Caribbean region has fewer ads and therefore ad revenge for Caribbean content may be low compared to other regions.
• Hard work being consistent-Similarly to social media, you need to consistently put out videos in order to make any headway.

4. Selling books on Amazon

Now if you’re serious about making a living as an author one of the ways you can make a pretty consistent income is by selling books on Amazon. Of course, just like the methods before consistency is key, however, there are strategies you can use to sell your books on Amazon and make money.

Dave Chesson specializes in KDP-Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon’s Book Publishing Platform) education for writers would want to learn how the Amazon algorithm works and use it to make consistent income through publishing books.

Self-publishing your book and marketing it locally is a different story and takes great effort time and research. However, it’s good to know that the option is available to receive income through Amazon by selling your books. The method used by most Caribbean authors to receive payouts through KDP is by opening up a Payoneer bank account.

Pros and Cons of Selling Books on Amazon

Pros

• Wide audience-Amazon is global. When you publish your book on Amazon anyone in the world can order your book with just one click.
• Earn royalties– Amazon offers competitive royalties from anywhere between 35% to 75% depending on the type and format of your book.
• Choose your own price-On Amazon you have the ability to price on your books yourself.

Cons

• Wide audience-There are millions of books on Amazon which can make it difficult for your book to rank on top and make decent sales.
• You don’t own your ISBN-If you sell books ONLY on Amazon, then Amazon owns your ISBN and you won’t be able to sell those books anywhere else.
• Their platform their rules-Sometimes Amazon can put your book on sale which can affect your earnings.

NOTE ON PAYNEER: Payoneer is an American financial services company that provides online money transfer and digital payment services globally. By opening a Payoneer account you can receive payment from Amazon and other sites. Payoneer works in the Caribbean by transferring funds directly into your local bank account and you can even request a card. However, their fees and charges are a bit high so read their terms and conditions before sending money there.

5. Blogging

Most people in the Caribbean don’t know that you can make money online. Even more, people don’t know you can make money online by writing. And the majority of people don’t know what a blog is and how you can make money off of it.

Simply put, a blog is a website that is focused on written content. What you’re reading right now is a blog. Blogging has been my main way to make money online as a writer since 2018. Blogging is hard work but there is so much freedom in writing whatever you want to write.

Blogs make money similarly to other forms of content creation, namely ads, affiliate links, sponsored posts and selling goods and services. When you launch a blog you have complete control over your brand, the colours used and the type of content posted.

Other than AdSense, there are other Ad companies would will pay you for a spot on your blog. These companies include Raptive, Ezoic and Mediavine to name a few and each have its own requirements to be accepted. I was able to monetize a few blogs over the past years with AdSense and Raptive and was able to get payments directly into my local bank account.

In order to start a blog you’ll name a host, a domain and CMS (content management system). For the host, I use Hostinger. You can purchase a domain on sites like GoDaddy and Namecheap. About half of the websites on the internet are built with the CMS WordPress, which is free to install after you launch your blog.

Once you set up your blog, you can produce content, run ads, sell goods and services, or do whatever the hell you like. The world is your oyster!

Pros and Cons of Blogging

Pros-

• Freedom to produce whatever content you’d like-Your website, your rules.
• Various ways of making money-Because you’re on your own website, you can decide how you want to make money on it and there are various opportunities to do so.
• Connect directly with your audience-On your blog, people come directly to you, this makes it easier to connect with them, upsell or build an email list.

Cons

• Pricey upfront-Starting a blog can cost anywhere between $120 to $300 USD per year. This might be a bit pricey up front for some folks. However there are coupon codes for hosting and domains littered all over the internet.
• Technical knowledge needed-Running a website does take a bit of technical knowledge. It takes some time to learn and there is a trial and error period that can be frustrating.
• Learning Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Content marketing-Most people will find your website through a search engine like Google. However, SEO can be difficult to navigate especially with all the recent AI developments.

6. Medium

Lastly, there’s Medium, which has recently opened up their partner program to the Caribbean and many other countries. As of August 2024 Medium added new countries to their partner program list, including: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda.

If you don’t know what Medium is, it’s basically YouTube but for writers and readers. However, Medium doesn’t operate on an ad system. Most writers and readers on Medium pay $5 USD per month to be there and most of the articles are behind a paywall.

Once you become a member (by paying $5 USD) and join their partner program, you can choose to place your stories behind a paywall. When people read those stories, you get paid. Medium only pays through Stripe Connect Express. I had a pain getting them to accept my local bank account but after some emailing back and forth I was able to register and now can receive payments directly into my account.

Pros and Cons of Medium

Pros

• Freedom of expression-Once it’s within Medium’s community guidelines, you can basically write whatever story you like and you’re not held down by a niche.
• Blogging without a website-Your Medium profile is basically a blog without needing to you to know all the technically aspects.
• Grow an audience-Similar to social media; you can gain followers on Medium who love your writing.
• Integration and Greater SEO-Because Medium is an already established website, it has great domain authority. Therefore your articles have a chance of reaching an audience through Google and other search engines. Furthermore you can integrate your own blog or YouTube videos into your stories.

Cons

• Their Platform, their rules-Because you’re on someone else’s platform, you have to battle their algorithm to get your stories seen by audiences.
• Low pay per view-Medium’s pay per view can be pretty low.
• Hard work being consistent-Just like the previous methods, Medium is a content hungry system. The more high quality content you produce the better chance of making money. However being consistent can be quite difficult.

NOTE ON PAYMENT THRESHOLDS: All payment platforms have thresholds, so if you make $2 USD don’t expect them to send it into your bank account at the end of the month. Once you make the required threshold, these companies are required to send you your earnings, once you set up your payment systems correctly and have filled out relevant tax information. Here are some common payment thresholds (all values in USD):

• AdSense (Google)-$100
• Amazon- $100
• Payoneer-$50
• Medium- $10
• Tiktok- $10
• Most other ad companies-$100

Final Thoughts

Not going to lie to you, making money online in the Caribbean is a grind. You have to be willing to be consistent and persistent even through inevitable disappointment.

Also, it’s best to focus on only one or two of these methods at a time. Trying anything until something sticks just divides your time and energy and can make it even more frustrating when nothing seems to be working. Take it from me, I’m a hypercreative.

Most of these methods will take 3–6 months of consistent work to get any traction and take 6–12 months to begin seeing any money. This can be disappointing to hear but it’s the truth.

But just because something is difficult doesn’t make it impossible. So chin up and don’t despair, your mother teach you better than that.

You have to decide if it’s worth the effort. I can tell you from experience that it is. It’s worth seeing money come in for your writing and knowing that someone out there read something you wrote.

Remember,

Tell Your Story.

Niques.

If you are a Caribbean writer and you’d like to get started on Medium, please feel free to join my publication Caribbean Writers Connect. Just leave your username and comment “Add me as a writer” under this post.