Passive income: NO

Earning passive income as a speechwriter is challenging because the nature of the work is inherently active and personalized. Most speechwriters need to tailor their work to individual clients, which requires ongoing engagement and customization. To make it passive, one would need to create a system where speeches are standardized and sold as templates, but this often doesn't meet the unique needs of clients seeking personalized content. From my experience and observations on platforms like Reddit and YouTube, very few speechwriters achieve passive income solely from writing speeches. Most who claim passive income have diversified into related areas like selling courses or templates, which you mentioned are not the focus here. Automation or outsourcing could theoretically make it passive, but the quality and personal touch required in speechwriting make this difficult. Only a few outliers, often those with a strong brand or niche, manage to create a passive income stream directly from speechwriting. Realistically, it becomes passive for those who can leverage their reputation to sell pre-written speeches or templates at scale, but this is rare. Many fall for the myth that speechwriting can be easily automated or outsourced without losing quality, leading to misleading expectations.