How can I find a job that pays good real life money?

[LaussNyta]

:womanfrustrated:How can I find a job on SL that will pay enough lindens that I can convert into real cash to help make ends meet in real life?

[Freya Mokusei]

You can study or learn a high-value trade: Animating, land selling, mesh clothing.

I wouldn't advise land selling without a starting capital, but you can figure out the other skills quite smoothly with a little time and patience.

As with real life, no-one gives you their money for nothing. You're going to have to learn fast and effectively, and expect to work many hours per week. Only a very small minority of Second Life users make enough to extract L$ regularly from in-world.

[Lindal Kidd]

What Freya said.

There definitely ARE people who make enough money in SL to earn some extra RL income.  Some even manage to make a full time living with SL.  But even these people could probably make more money in RL (possibly even using the same skillsets!) 

The only way to make a significant income in SL is to either own and manage a large, successful Estate (which takes a lot of startup capital to buy the land!) or to create things that are of such high quality that others will pay to get them.  The latter requires skills in third party programs.  While some of these programs cost a lot of money, others are free.  The two most popular free programs for content creation are GIMP (a paint program like Photoshop) and Blender (a 3D modeling program for creating Mesh objects.)

If you do decide to get into either land rentals or content creation, be aware that like RL businesses Second Life businesses take a ton of work, and success is not guaranteed.  You could very well end up losing all the time and money you've invested.

In the "services" area, if you have a large music collection and like parties, you could become a DJ.  Successful DJs often make reasonable money in tips.  If you have musical talent, you could become a live performer and these make more money than DJs.  Once again, don't expect to earn a lot of money in RL terms.  A good session at a popular club could earn you $L1,000 to $L2,000 in tips for a two hour gig.  That's LESS than $5.00 an hour in RL money.

The only unskilled job that I know of that has a chance of making significant money is escorting.  Even here, most escorts have a hard time finding clients who will pay for virtual sex, and could make much more by doing RL phone or webcam work...which I do NOT recommend!  It's degrading, and risky.

[Rolig Loon]

Freya and Lindal have it exactly right.  If you have the skills and the financial resources to get a good, paying job going in SL, you would be much better off using those skills to get a better job in RL.  No matter how good you are, you won't ever earn as much being a skilled creator, performer, or land baron in SL as you would in RL.  Treat your SL job as a fun way to practice your talents and earn enough cash to help with in-world expenses.  If you are looking for ways to boost your RL income, get a RL job.

[Abigail Longmeadow]

I agree with what the others have said and add this:

Successful land barons in Second Life have been working at it for years. They got in early, when you could still transfer 'grandfathered' sims. As a result, their estates have lots of 'grandfathered' sims that cost less than full tier sims. Linden Lab gives them a discount on their monthly fee. You can not get a 'grandfathered' sim, because such sims revert to full tier as soon as they are transfered to a new person. This puts any new land baron at a disadvantage to the estabilished ones.