Jan 02 2008
December Earnings Update
Happy Year everyone! I started the year off with a crippling hangover, as usual. As usual I swore off drinking ever again and, as usual, I don’t expect that to last long. December was another step backwards by a bit but I’m still pleased overall with there I am. I earned $1605.10 in December and am happy to be staying above that $1500 a month mark. I would have cleared $2000 easily for the first time had I kept my mouth shut about a link sale but I’m happy to have learned that touch lesson and I’m not going to dwell too much on it.
Earnings breakdown:
- Google Adsense - $268.24 - This seems to be stuck around this level and I’m not expecting it to jump up much until I build a few more sites which probably won’t happen until around April when I get to China.
- Affiliate Sales - $674.44 - I had a great month in November for affiliate sales and while I wasn’t expecting to keep that pace up, I wasn’t expecting it to drop off quite as much, either.
- Linkworth & Text Link Ads - $106.99 - This has been pretty steady lately with a link dropped or added here and there without much predictability. I know I said I’d be keeping this site ad free but now that it’s gotten a bit busier I might try for some Text Link Ads. I’m curious to see if a site like this, about making money online, will sel links more quickly than my travel sites.
- Private Link Sales - $355 - I had about $500 worth of links up for renewal and managed $185 worth of renewals plus another $50 that a guy has yet to pay so an almost 50% renewal rate isn’t too bad, I guess. I also sold a yearly link for $170 which was my only new one.
I’ve been home for a couple weeks now and haven’t managed to work on my sites as much as I’d like (story of my life!) but I have got a few little annoying jobs done so it hasn’t been a total waste. Things are going to get interesting from here on in as I see whether working on the road is something I’ll be able to pull off and if my earnings will increase as a result.
I’ve booked my flight from Manila to Bangladesh for February 11th so I’d better get my arse into gear before I ship off to the land that the internet forgot! I think my goal for January will be to not lose or break my laptop! I don’t see myself getting much done until I settle in Beijing in April so I’ll keep my expectations low and hope for the best!
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go. 
Nice one! Sounds like a good income to have built up to be travelling around Asia with. Bad luck about the link-sale that fell through but i guess you won’t make the same mistake twice eh!?
Nice job Kirsty sounds like your income is well distributed & you shouldnt have any problems.
Personally I’m thinking of taking up a policy of never buying or selling links to/on any of my (non-existing) sites.
You can never know if the link selling practice (that is less of an offence than link buying apparently) is hurting you any in the search engine rank positions (serps).
And since most of your earnings come from affiliate sales, like has been pointed out by another commenter, tempting search engines to drop your rankings is risky i.m.h.o.
Besides, arent the private link sales yearly earnings so they should be divided by 12 to get an accurate montly earning for december?
Just a thought from a besserwisser who’s nowhere near your success.
I have been trying for years to increase my Adsense income. When it goes up on one site, it goes down on another. I think it is better trying to increase affiliate sales and private advertising.
December is generally a bad month for Internet earnings so I would not worry too much if it has not matched your expectations.
I for one had a poor month but luckily Jan has started off well. It should be all up now in the travel sector.