If I have all this stock just sitting there, how can I lend it out to people for short selling?
You just disclosed that you are new investor to the stock market. I'd advise that you first understand investing a bit better, as most will advise that investors need to be above a certain level before picking individual stocks.  That said, most stocks trade in high enough volume and have low enough short interest that they don't fall under the category you seek. You want to first ask your broker if they have such a process, not all do. If so, they would need to provide you with the stocks that fall into this odd situation, specifically, the shares that have traders seeking to short the stock, but the stock is unavailable. Even then, the broker may have requirements that you don't fall into, minimum history with broker, minimum size account, etc. Worse, they are not likely to offer this for 100 shares, but may have a 1000 or higher share requirement. Are you willing to buy some obscure $50/sh priced stock to lend out at 1%/mo? The guy trying to short it is far smarter than both you and I, at least regarding this particular stock. This strategy is more appropriate for the 7 figure net worth investor.  If any reader has actual experience with this, I'm happy to hear it. This response is from my recollection of two articles I read about 3 years ago, coincidence they both were published within weeks of each other.