I opened up last month’s income report by pointing out that we were already one quarter of the way through 2012. And with the passing of another month, there are but two thirds of the year left.
It’s rather frightening how quickly things are moving for me, but I must say that I am extremely happy with how the year has panned out to date.
My original plans have essentially gone out of the window, but I am getting used to that now. I have to remind myself that back in July of last year, I planned to quit my job at the end of this month by building a full time income with my Modeling For Kids site (remember that?). It’s fair to say that my original plan didn’t come to fruition – but it was replaced with a far better end result. I’m going with the flow, and loving it.
Although I have certainly struggled for motivation at certain points (especially given how unsuccessful my niche site project has been to date), I currently feel more driven than ever in accomplishing my planned future goals.
Looking Back
At the start of the month I was extremely doubtful of attracting 10,000 visitors to this blog again – especially given my new approach. I expected that my freelance income would pick up again after having spent a fair proportion of March on holiday. Finally, I had no idea how well my niche sites would perform.
So in essence, I was expecting a mixed bag of results. Let’s take a look at how things went!
Freelance Writing
Things are still ticking along nicely on this front. The work from my two regular clients continues, and I am getting approached more and more often by people who have found me either through my existing work, or this blog.
Perhaps most importantly, I have set an hourly rate for all future clients that I am happy with. Whilst I am not going to reveal my rate, let’s just say that it would just about hit the six figure mark if I chose to work what would be considered a “normal” number of hours per week (although I don’t see that happening any time soon ;)). That rate has yet to be sniffed at by potential clients, which is of course encouraging.
Niche Sites
Well this isn’t going well at all, to be perfectly frank with you. In retrospect I can clearly recognize that I have thrown away an enormous amount of money on this project without appropriately assessing the potential benefits and risks. It is a mistake that I will try hard not to make again. You live and learn!
This month I will be finishing off link building to the remaining sites, at which point it will simply be a case of sitting back and waiting to see if there are any positive results. To be perfectly honest with you, I will be happy to see the back of this project for a couple of months – it has offered very little in the way of progress.
New Project
Once I have wrapped up my niche site project, I will have time to start work on something new. I have been rolling a few ideas around in my head over the last several weeks, as I am not in a rush to start on anything that I am not completely comfortable with.
I really like two of the ideas, and I think I am ready to move forward with one of them. I will probably be asking for your opinion soon, so stay tuned!
Income & Expenditure – April 2012
I am extremely happy to announce that April was a record month in terms of earnings – and by a rather convincing margin no less. It also marked the first month where Leaving Work Behind turned a profit (not including the equivalent cost of my time input).
- Freelance writing:
- Income: $3,157.05
- Expenditure: $0
- Profit: $3,157.05
- Niche sites:
- Income: $18.27
- Expenditure: $183.46
- Profit: -$165.19
- Leaving Work Behind:
- Income: $91.30
- Expenditure: $53.26
- Profit: $38.04
Total profit for April 2012: $3,029.90
My freelance income wasn’t quite at its February peak, but a huge reduction in my niche site outgoings and a modest contribution from this blog combined to make it a good month for me.
I am now flirting dangerously with breaking even on my total expenses (business and personal). I don’t think it will be long before we see that.
Cash Flow
I’m feeling very comfortable with my cash flow now. If I was feeling any kind of pressure, it has now completely dissapated.
If you compare this cash flow with last month’s, you will see that my “red zone” has been pushed back slightly. But the key thing to note is my freelance income, which is extremely conservative. In fact, it only accounts for my two regular clients, and none of the extra work that I am doing. As always, I would prefer to err on the size of cautious conservatism, so that I am not presented with any nasty surprises.
There may well be a point in the relatively near future where keeping tabs on cash flow in this manner is no longer strictly necessary. If my income is consistently exceeding my expenses by a comfortable margin, a monthly cash flow projection would essentially become redundant. It would only be required if I were to want to invest a sizable and/or periodical cash sum in a particular project (at which point, I would want to check that I can afford it).
Blog Roundup
As I expected, April has not been a good month for the blog, relative to the previous two months:
- Visitors: down 21%
- Average actions: up 5%
- Average time per visit: up 1%
- Bounce rate: up 0%
Although I am not at all surprised, I can’t say that it doesn’t hurt a bit. At least the engagement metrics are holding nicely.
At the end of the day, I have to weigh up input against benefit. And the fact is that Leaving Work Behind wasn’t providing me with the kind of income that justified the enormous amount of time that I was investing. But regardless of that, I love writing for this blog and engaging with you guys, so I will be going nowhere.
Quite the opposite in fact – rather than taking this drop in traffic on the chin, I have been completely reevaluating my efforts. There are ways and means of increasing the quality of your input without increasing the quantity. More on that soon…
April Micro-Goals Roundup
My goals for April were essentially rendered obsolete by my shift in approach. They were focused entirely on my niche site project, and I am now winding that down whilst I analyze the impact of my work to date over the next few months.
- Finalize niche site building system obsolete
- Finish building March’s sites done
- Start building 8 sites in April obsolete
- Research methods for reducing cost per niche site obsolete
My To Do List For May
It’s about time that I set some more effective goals. I feel pretty good about what I have committed to doing for this month – it wraps up my existing niche site project and subsequently represents a better picture of where I am heading.
Niche Sites
- Finish link building
Leaving Work Behind
- Finalize new content and promotion strategy
- Implement new autoresponder series
If you are a regular reader then you know that I have struggled with producing a cohesive autoresponder series for this blog. I finally think I have come up with a template that makes sense, and aim to have it up and running this month.
New Project
- Make a start
This goal is deliberately ambiguous. Since the project is very much in the formative stages, I am do not have a specific goal in mind for the month – I just want to get the ball rolling.
What’s In Store For May?
April was a bit bumpy, but ultimately represented a successful month in terms of earnings. I want to take that momentum forward into May – with possibly even higher earnings, a new approach for this blog (perhaps accompanied by a recovery in traffic numbers), and the start of an exciting new project.
All in all, I am looking forward to crushing it in May!
Creative Commons image courtesy of Images_of_Money
Justicewordlaw says
Congrats on the new growth with everything man. Excited to see how everything works out for you.
tomewer says
@Justicewordlaw Thanks Justice – it’s awesome to have your support!
richescorner says
Actually, it looks like your freelance writing is doing very well. I find niche sites can lead to good passive income, but take a lot of time up front to build up traffic and authority.
tomewer says
@richescorner Not to mention the fact that a large proportion of your potential for success is in the hands of Google. That is something I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with.
deaconbradley says
Way to go Tom! I certainly wouldn’t count all that money on niche site learning “wasted.” It’s money well spent on a real-life education! You’re going to be so far beyond the people who study but don’t execute it’s not even funny! Remember – the strongest indicator of future success is NOT experience or expertise. It’s persistance. And you demonstrate that consistently here!
tomewer says
@deaconbradley Couldn’t agree with you more regarding persistence and taking action. Thanks for the encouragement Deacon!
msharron says
I started following your blog about two months ago and you inspired me. I’m now working towards quitting my job. I started experimenting with fiverr SEO gigs after the downfall of BMR/Rank Jumpers and wasn’t overly impressed. It seems you get what you pay for with SEO. I’ve since invested some savings into testing different packages advertised on wickedfire and similar sites and the results are a lot more promising.
I’m a few weeks away from launching my own SEO company (www.sussexseo.net). Wish me luck 🙂
tomewer says
@msharron Best of luck! That’s a good looking site 🙂
Brendan Hufford says
Thanks for continuing to post your progress, Tom. I am continuing to apply for writing positions on the ProBlogger Job board, but no such luck as of yet.
tomewer says
Send me an email if you’d like me to take a look at your applications and see if there’s anything more you could be doing – happy to help 🙂
Ruth Zive says
Tom – I’ve been rooting for freelance copywriting all along! You’re a great writer; there is much opportunity for you and you can DEFINITELY earn a good living this way (and note that your expenses were ZERO! My expenses were also negligible my first year – though now I’ve taken an office, so I have that expense). In any case, my income last month was over $15,000 – and that wasn’t even my best month to date. So shoot high my friend, and keep me posted. Can’t wait to hear about the new project!
tomewer says
@Ruth Zive Thanks Ruth! I will certainly keep you posted – in fact, I may well be specifically seeking your advice in the near future 🙂
aaronchua says
100k divided by 52 weeks, divided by 5 days per weeks and divided by 8 hours in a day gives you around USD50 per hour. Is that the rate you are charging now?
tomewer says
@aaronchua Given that I explicitly stated in my post that I am not going to reveal my hourly rate, do you think I am going to here? 😉
If you consider working 52 weeks without holiday “normal”, I feel sorry for you! 😉
aaronchua says
@tomewer Haha! Wow, your rate is much higher than I thought. Great for you man!
Sheyi says
Its still good for you considering the fact that you aint got no boss to shout at you. When you work more, build more niche sites (not adsense sites though) the income will grow.
Sheyi
tomewer says
Thanks Sheyi 🙂
Tom says
It must be a huge relief not having to be dependent on an employer. Freelance writing seems a positive revenue stream for you. Best of luck.
Tom Ewer says
It is nice to have no one to answer to but yourself 😉 but that is also a curse, in that you have to provide your own motivation.
Chris Green says
What are you doing to get more freelance clients?
I have been able to break the 10k a month barrier many times by getting the right clients on board. Is that part of your strategy?
Tom Ewer says
Hi Chris,
I’m not actively looking for any further freelance clients (unless something really interesting comes along) – I’ve got enough work at the moment.
I have very little interest in earning big sums at this point – freelance writing only makes up about half of my ongoing projects at the moment 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
Trav @ Extra Pack of Peanuts says
Tom,
Keep it up! Great to see you making enough money off the freelance writing that you can live how you want to live (without a boss!).
Two quick questions:
1. What do you use to track your traffic?
2. What do you consider to be the best places to look for freelance writing jobs?
Thanks.
Tom Ewer says
Hi Trav,
1. Clicky – much prefer it to Google Analytics.
2. Search for “freelance writing” in the search box in the sidebar. Should be a few posts that can help you out there 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
Werbung Dülmen says
Awsome Report! Thank you for sharing your experience. That motivates me to do mor for my site
Clare says
Hey Tom this is GREAT that you share so much here – great both for us reading and for you to be accountable to yourself and to whoever reads and follows you! Great idea!
Seems the copywriting is the best income stream for you right now. I was going to start with affiliate marketing but for some reason it sort of seems like working for something that is not mine – like what you were saying about your property job!
Like you I am not 100% comfortable relying on google for my traffic – although you can get lots of traffic optimizing your site for google, from yahoo, bing and all sorts of other sources, not to mention direct links and nice comments on forums, blogs, etc – and of course paid ads if you can master them.
I think its great having a blog, I know it helps me order my thoughts writing blog posts and its great when people find you and connect. Good luck with everything and best wishes, Clare x
Tom Ewer says
Thanks Clare! It’s actually blogging I do for the most part, not copywriting, but yes – it is by far my primary means of income.