Now that you've learned a lot of the important basics in Second Life, you're probably ready to explore, and I encourage you to do so! Search up random keywords in the Places interface. Visit space stations, railroad stations, underwater kingdoms, vampire cities, nightclubs, and more!

If anyone gives you trouble, always remember to block, and report them if the content of their messages is in breach of the terms of use (reporting doesn't ever really give any obvious sign that action has been taken, but it absolutely does not hurt to submit reports for especially offensive types).

Next up on my guides here, I want to discuss some ways to make money, that don't require you to spend money. So, immediately, this will exclude starting up a store, or a nightclub, or any kind of business that requires a financial injection.

I started my own store in 2015 via a little bit of a hefty injection of cash that I had saved away, and to this day I'm almost certain it's the reason my store is still standing!

But we're not here to talk about running stores, or businesses in-general. That's for another guide further down the line. What we want to explore is the topic of making money, without spending money. "You gotta spend money to make money!" They say.

Well, not always.

Make friends!

Prospects of making Linden without injecting real money into your account are slim, but they aren't non-existent. They only require you to look around, to do some research.

First of all, you want to be social. Make friends! Join groups and meet people! Become immersed in the community, and if you develop strong enough bonds, there will always be people willing to help you out if you don't have cash to spend. I'm not saying this as in a way to coerce people, or that you should make friends just because they might give you money sometimes, that's absolutely not something you should count on.

What I'm saying is, tackling Second Life by meeting people and being social is the best way to enrich your experience, whether you have money or not. Sometimes, it isn't even necessary.

On top of that, relationships and networking can lead to opportunities. Even if your avatar looks like a potato among sculpted perfection.

Work, work, something need doing?

The idea of getting an actual job, within Second Life, may not sound so attractive. Maybe you already have a regular full-time job in your first life, and you're using Second Life as a way to simply escape, and not work. That's fine! But there are ways to make money if you're looking for them.

Some people you meet may be running nightclubs, which is, by far, probably one of the largest ventures in the virtual world. Nightclubs need managers, they need DJs, they need greeters and sometimes even dancers. All of these positions are something a club owner would pay Lindens for. And if they don't, they absolutely should be.

DJing in-general is as pretty lucrative Second Life job. If you have the know-how and the experience, this requires literally zero injection of real-world cash.

Generally, as a DJ, you get paid per gig, per nightclub. Some rates can be different, but that's the nature of freelance work. If you're interested in DJing, simply visit a club and look around for notecards or kiosks that speak about a need for DJs! Usually, there will be a way to apply, or at least a way to submit your information to the club owner.

The next line of positions at a club are the dancers or greeters. These are smaller positions underneath DJs that act as the sociable aspect of a club. You're there to be friendly, to create an atmosphere, to encourage people to dance, and speak, and have fun! These positions usually operate solely based on tips but can be paid by club owners.

I have experience doing both of these things myself and have operated on tips and a nightclub salary all-in-one.

Generally, as mentioned before, if a nightclub has open positions or is looking for extra help, they'll usually have signs up stating so.

But what if nightclub work isn't really your thing?

Get ready to script!

In Second Life, almost everything runs on some kind of script. From the clothing you're wearing, to the eyeballs in your head. A lot of store owners use scripts to automatically hide alpha layers on mesh bodies, or two allow customers to easily recolor something they've purchased.

One amazing example of script usage is the Kittycats breedable pets game.

Think of these like pets you have in The Sims 4. They need to be fed, they can breed to create family trees of numerous cats, and sometimes even reveal traits nobody's ever seen before!

It's a cute and neat little injection of pet and time management into a virtual world, and it runs almost entirely on scripts.

Scripting is one of the few ventures in Second Life that doesn't require you to use any real money to create. You'll also never have anyone asking you to dress a certain way, or to wear a certain avatar. And, because the marketplace doesn't require a cash injection to create a listing, you can even sell your scripts on the marketplace.

Or you can advertise yourself as a freelance scripter, available for custom scripts to those who need them.

But you don't know how to script? No worries! You can easily learn. I don't do a whole lot of scripting myself, so this isn't really something I can detail in a guide, but there are places online that you can learn. Check out the Wiki to get started on your scripting journey!

Community managers

You've probably heard of roleplay sims; places people gather to act out a virtual world equivalent of a pen and paper RPG. There are many places like this in Second Life, and every single one of them has storytellers and community managers.

Now, I've never been either of these myself, but one would assume, if you're doing this kind of work, you most certainly get paid for it, right?

Community managers, from what I've observed myself, are responsible for, well, managing a community. Keeping up with the content of conversations, making sure no abuse is ever taking place, and in the context of a roleplay sim, make sure there isn't any cheating going on.

A storyteller, though, is more a person tasked with creating situations where roleplay can happen. Sometimes your players need a little push to get things going. Your job as a storyteller is to conjure up a setting, dialogue and scenarios. This is great for building up the lore of an environment, and giving people ideas that can drive their own characters.

Again, I will say, if these are not paid positions in most roleplay sims, they should be.

The very first roleplay sim I was ever part of was a Mass Effect themed sim, as dubious as that may sound, crossing the legal boundaries of copyright infringement (which is absolutely against the Second Life ToS). But if you're not selling anything ... it's technically a-okay!

The storytellers and community managers used to have meetings about what they wanted next for the overall sim in-general. Where they wanted to drive the story, how they were going to tackle it without Shepard.

And then it eventually closed down, due to many disagreements among the storytellers. It was a shame. But there are always new roleplay sims to join!

Escorting, and you

This is purely an adult themed suggestion and Second Life career venture but is also one of the few no-cash-injection prospects available. The upside to escorting in Second Life, is that it's just like being a roleplay storyteller, except it's on a one-to-one basis and it's explicitly sexual. Which is why I would not recommend it for everyone.

The downside of this profession is that a lot of people may, or definitely will request that you buy yourself a mesh avatar at the very least, and clothing to go with it. This is, unfortunately, something that requires you already have Linden, but! And I mean, but the prospect of finding clients who don't care about those types of things have and do exist.

In order to become acquainted with Second Life escorting, I'll link you to Escort Connection, so that you may get yourself a good idea of what escorts do, and what you should expect if you decide to go this route. Obvious warning here, all of this is extremely adult themed, and you will encounter nudity.

But the prospect is there if you should want to explore it!

Remember, you always have the right to ignore other residents no matter what they ask of you, no matter what they tell you to do, no matter how you present yourself in the virtual world, even if what you're doing is escorting. Unless these circumstances involve following guidelines set forth by sim operators and owners. Even then, you're free to be other places if you don't like rules that are set forth.

Become a blogger/photographer

The final suggestion for a sort of line of work in Second Life (for now, until I think of or encounter more opportunities) is to become a blogger!

This is yet another venture that requires no cash injection. All you need to do is setup a free blog on WordPress, name it, design it, and start doing photography. There are ways to manipulate Second Life's lighting and graphics to create quite impressive displays.

The above is a photo taken with very minimal manipulation of lighting effects, and zero Photoshop touchups.

Which is something else that should be mentioned about becoming a photographer in Second Life. Many photographers absolutely will run their photos their photoshop for touchups. That includes smudging, burning, dodging, blurring, and much more.

I am not personally extremely well versed in light manipulation, so I'll refer you to this video on some easy ways to get lighting down well for amazing photos.

Doing photography of other residents for their profile pictures, for vanity, or even for their stores is a great way to make some Linden, and exactly what you need to do in order to build your portfolio in order to become a blogger.

But what's a blogger?

A blogger is someone who is exceptionally good at photography, who has branched out into doing photography explicitly for stores within Second Life in order to feature and advertise new and upcoming products and events.

You can find many examples of this on places like Flickr, where I would suggest you open an account immediately if you want to become a photography and/or a blogger.

Here's an example of what a blogger might do in their work:

See what I mean? It's photography, but also, this resident is wearing and holding all sorts of products from stores that they've been hired to blog for. In the description they would list the name of each product they're featuring and what store it came from.

In order to become a blogger for a store, most have applications sitting at the front of their stores. And you might be wondering, "Why do I have to fill out an application to become a blogger?"

Quite simply, because bloggers who work for stores usually receive items completely free of charge, so that they may blog about them. And, in order to curb abuse of this, you must be screened beforehand. Which is exactly why it's very important to build yourself a portfolio of photography beforehand.h

That's it! This is one section of the guide that I will keep an eye on and update as necessary! There are always new opportunities coming and going in the virtual world, and they'll be added here if they come to me, or if they're suggested.

Head back to the main guides page by clicking How-to SL at the top of this page.

If you have any questions regarding this guide, or using Second Life in-general, please feel free to message me in-world, and while I am kind of busy most of the time, I'll do my best to get an answer to you! My username is: C M D R ::Ｎｏｖａ Ayashi Wu (Nova Ayashi). Thank you for reading!

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