Eek! It’s finally happened! It hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be as of a few days ago, but I finally had that bad month I’ve been dreading for a long time. I guess at $3612 for the month, it’s certainly not a bad month – it’s more than I’ve ever earned at a ‘regular’ job – but it is my lowest total since February 2011 and a lot less than the $6000 I seem to have been averaging lately.
But after looking a little more closely at my books, I’m not so worried. August has been the first month in ages where I’ve had almost no renewals. It’s not that I’ve deals to renew and people have cancelled, on me – it’s that I haven’t had many links even due for renewal this month. One deal for GBP90 expired and I haven’t been able to get a hold of the guy, and another deal for GBP320 was partially renewed as they wanted fewer links. It’s not unusual for me to earn $2000 or more in renewals alone, so not having any has really left a gap in this month’s income.
Earnings Breakdown:
- Adsense — $302 - I’m doing nothing to work on my Adsense earnings so I’m happy to have a seemingly stead $300-sh rock up every month.
- Affiliate sales — $51 - A downward spiral! I think there are a few things I could be doing to improve this – like actually having links to existing affiliate programs instead of dead ones. Now that I think back, I seem to remember lots of emails telling me about affiliate programs that are no longer in effect. I should probably look into that and update the links or change my affiliates. I’ve also decided to report quarterly for one of my affiliates so this update is missing in this report, too.
- Advertising — $3139 - As I mentioned above, I didn’t have many renewals in August which I think had a big effect on this month’s earnings. It’s a good reminder for people who are new to this as well – renewals are important for growing you earnings base and another reason not to expect too much too soon.
- Referral – $50 - Referred an advertiser to an online buddy and they did a deal.
- Ebook Sales — $70 - Seven sales.
Spending Breakdown:
This month was a doozy for spending! Not only for web stuff, but I’ve been loading up on gadgets and things to take back to Rwanda with me so the bank account has taken a hit. Not a great time to have a crappy earnings month, but I think the big spending days are behind me, anyways. In August I spent a total of $3204 which is almost as much as I earned. Eek.
- Link Building Services — $147 - I’m still using Linkvana (14 day trial for $5 affiliate link/50 free outsourcing credits affiliate link). No idea if this is a good idea or not.
- Domain Renewal – $12 - Another year for one of my domains.
- Website – $2800 - I bought the site British Travel Blog to add to my collection of UK-related sites. I’ve had several inquiries and a few guest post sales so far but am hoping things kick off a bit in the coming months. We’ll see!
- Articles – $240 - I paid for some articles for a new London site and my Kigali life site.
- Stock Photos – $23 - Stock photos mostly for Blighty Traveller articles.
- Ebook — $5 - Monthly cost to sell my ebook.
I’m back home in Canada right now sort of working, sort of not. I’ve got a bunch of writing to do but haven’t really sat down to do it. I’ve mostly been trying to organise and get on top of some neglected things. The biggest thing on my plate at the moment is the new living in Kampala site that I’ve launched with a partner. I’m working on SEO and also trying to keep on top of the city’s events and trying to get the forum going. We’ve got someone helping us with the Facebook stuff (like us! like us!) and my partner is working on the content side of things. People seem to like it and I’m looking forward to this project.
That’s all from me! I’ll be at home for another 10 days-ish then off to NYC for a couple of nights with a bunch of people to visit with and then back to Rwanda. I’m looking really forward to getting back, finding a house and getting settled into a routine. I’ve got a lot of interesting projects on the go around me (friends doing cool stuff) plus a few fun things of my own in the works.
Here’s hoping this month is a fluke!
I will take your bad day, any day!
Congrats on your continuing success….
Any advice on attracting paid advertisers? Did you go to them or did they find you once you reached a certain threshold for page views?
Nice report,which affiliate programs are you using for your travel sites?
Kristy- how do you manage your advertising? A simple spreadsheet or are you using something more sophisticated?
thanks,
megan
Hey Megan,
I just use a spreadsheet. It’s a pretty simple setup with each column being one month (labelled ‘Sept 2012′, ‘Oct 2012′ etc) and the rows being the deals that I do.
So in the far left column I put the contact email address, the next column to the right is the link duration (eg ’3rd – 12′ means that I added the link on the 3rd of the month and it’s a year long deal or ‘permanent’ etc), the next column to the right is a short description of the link (eg ‘Expedia link on Nerdy Nomad’). Then I scroll over to the current month on the far right and put the amount in there and total it vertically.
I also use a variety of background colours to mean different things like bright yellow for the work is done and I’m waiting for payment or light yellow for everything’s done and I’ve been paid. I’ll change the permanent link lines to blue gray and I’ll gray out any deals that haven’t been renewed. For recurring deals I’ll also go forward however many months/columns I need to and hightlight that square so I know to chase them for a renewal.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Kirsty
Oh, I’m really jealous. How much time do spend on your online work? I realize I’ve so much more options to explore, but I hope I can one day see the same amount of income from my baby….
Cheers for the post
Kristi, Love your site, I’ve been coming here for a couple years. Now I have a simple question, it’s just a curiosity really but I don’t see any advertising on any of your other sites. There are the adsense ones and maybe an easytobook one so I was wondering are most of your ads text ads or in a email feed?