Second Life® for Dummies®

Chapter 17. Getting Paid in Second Life (It's Not Easy)

In This Chapter

• Choosing your field: services or products

• Using SL to test product ideas

• Getting a job

• Setting a salary

• Understanding the job market

• Running your own business

• Making money from real estate

Many people join Second Life (SL) after reading some news report touting SL as a way to make easy money. These stories remind us of press coverage of the Wild West during the Gold Rush. Promises of free cash flowing like water had folks piling into wagons and traveling across country with a pie plate and pick axe in hand, intent on striking it rich! All too soon, pioneers found out making a fortune would require hard work and luck. Second Life is no different, as you can see in Figure 17-1. It is a pioneer town with lots of opportunity, but it takes smarts, ingenuity, and a lot of effort to cash in. In this chapter, we get you headed in the right direction to avoid common mistakes and increase your chances of striking it rich.

Here are the two ways to earn money in Second Life: Provide a product or a service. Both approaches have been very successful in SL, and both have been huge failures. The best advice is to pick what you are good at and exploit that talent. For example, if you make amazing furniture, open a furniture store. If you're an excellent scripter, set up shop as a scripter.

Figure 17.1. Second Life can be like the Wild West. ...