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Leaving Work Behind

Quit your job and build your best life

My Monthly Income Report — January 2013

By Tom Ewer 56 Comments

Money
Photo Credit: Doug Wheller

Welcome to the first income report of 2013! I am excited to reveal January’s activity to you as I have really started the year with a bang.

Since it is the time for New Years resolutions, I am guessing that there are plenty of you out there who have resolved to establish an online business and quit your job in 2013. You’ve got eleven months left to do just that. Seem intimidating? Well, you’ve still got a four month head start on my position in May 2011 when I finally decided to quit my job. It took me about six months to start making any money but I ended up quitting my job in December 2011 and haven’t looked back since! Now it’s your turn.

If you take anything away from this income report, I hope it is that awesome things are possible in a pretty short space of time if you apply yourself and remain determined and patient. I’m certainly not successful by many people’s standards but I am by my own, and you are the most important person to listen to when setting out on the path to leaving work behind.

What Happened in January?

I started the year full of new resolutions just like everyone else and succeeded in some and failed in others. None however have fallen by the wayside — those that have not yet paid off are getting careful consideration and will no doubt be re-approached from an alternative angle. I don’t believe in “temporary” resolutions 🙂

In December 2012’s income report I said that the month was “the calm after the storm.” That made sense and didn’t concern me in the slightest because I launched my information product in November — I expected there to be a spike in earnings around the launch.

Well, in danger of getting too tangled up in metaphors, it would appear that December was in fact just a lull in the storm because January’s earnings have completely wiped out November’s record earnings of $5,776. Let’s take a look at the details.

Monthly Income Report — January 2013

  1. Freelance writing:
    • Income: $4,927.39
    • Expenditure: $79.36
    • Profit: $4,848.03 ($89 per hour equivalent)
  2. Websites:
    • Income: $8.57
    • Expenditure: $0
    • Profit: $8.57
  3. Affiliate Marketing (Leaving Work Behind):
    • Income: $565.14
    • Expenditure: $118.61
    • Profit: $446.53
  4. Information Products:
    • Income: $1,678.30
    • Expenditure: $171.40
    • Profit: $1,506.90
  5. eBooks:
    • Income: $82.51
    • Expenditure: $20
    • Profit: $62.51

Total profit for January 2013: $6,872.54

To say I’m pleased with my earnings this week would be an understatement. Everything really came together in January — it’s amazing what momentum can do for you if you persist.

Freelancing

This the most I have ever made in a month from freelancing by quite a distance — to an extent because I did five week’s worth of work for many of my clients (which is down to a peculiarity of the Gregorian calendar) but also because I took on more work from existing clients and started work with a new one.

I do not want to take on any more work and as such am now in a position where I can be very picky with future clients. I have great existing group that I love working with so any new clients will have to be something special to compel me to work with them. Also, I have noticed that I am receiving more and more enquiries for content marketing services as opposed to just straight writing. This is something that I am really enjoying working on and has the potential to be more lucrative than just straight writing, but I have never actually advertised myself as a content marketer, which seems rather odd. I think that people are approaching me because they think I can help them — not because I’m trying to tell them that I can. The takeaway here is key — reputation is far more important than marketing (tweet this). If you work hard to create a good reputation you will reap the rewards.

Affiliate Marketing

I have occasionally said in the past how I am left a little puzzled and overwhelmed by affiliate marketing. It was tough enough to make any money from it, let alone a decent amount. However, I have made more from affiliate marketing this month than in any other so I hope that it marks a bit of a turning point in terms of my effectiveness.

I feel like I have turned a bit of a corner in my understanding of how a holistic and natural approach to affiliate marketing can be of great benefit to both you guys and me. The key is, of course, to always be open and honest in my approach. If my success in this area continues to grow I’ll definitely be sharing my thoughts.

Information Products

Successful Freelance Writing OnlineWell — I wasn’t expecting my guide to do so well this month, given the numbers from December. My gross sales nearly doubled from one month to the next which is pretty astonishing.

I put this down to a few things:

  1. An increase in traffic to the site (beating the previous record by 35%!)
  2. The introduction of a new sales page that has had a good impact on conversion rates
  3. The introduction of a lower price point

This outcome only strengthens my opinion that most established bloggers should look to produce their own information products. I’ll certainly be revealing more specific information about how I have got to this point (and how I intend to proceed) soon.

eBooks

Successful Blogging
My Kindle eBook.

This part of my business is very much in its startup phase. After the failure of my first Kindle book I resolved to take a completely different approach and I am relatively happy with how things have started out.

The key will be in releasing a number of books and cross-linking them so that people might buy one, then another, then another. I am quite confident that this could turn into a nice little earner over the next six months or so — the key will be in consistently releasing new books on a regular basis.

What’s in Store for February?

In short — a lot! I’ve got a fair bit of work on my plate at the moment and this month is going to be one of consolidation. I actually said that about January in last month’s report but it didn’t end up panning out that way! I have a lot of what I think are great ideas on the back burner (discussed here) but I’m not going to launch myself into them until I can get a little ahead on my existing work and take stock of the time available to me.

As I have said before, I am not in a rush to get rich and would rather take a breather than continue to pile more work on top of myself. With the freelance writing, Leaving Work Behind, my information product, eBooks and my authority site all ongoing concerns, I run the risk of spreading my weight too thinly if I start up another project at this point.

In reality I doubt that I will beat January’s earnings this month, but I hope to be relatively close. The key will be in getting my house in order and ascertaining what available time I have. With that decision-making done, March may be the month to kick back into gear.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kent Faver says

    Tom – wow, well done! Impressive to say the least. Let me ask you this if you don’t mind – do you think the free-lancing work is scalable? I was thinking about this over the holidays. $89/hour is nothing to sneeze at in the least, but some of us have kids in college, etc., so, it would need to be scalable if we were to consider writing full-time as we would need more total monthly income.

    Would you envision the rate carrying on at a scale of 30, 40 or even 50 hourse a week – or do you think it might fall off or decline if attempting to take on more work, clients, etc. were desired? Thanks Tom!

    Reply

    • Tom Ewer says

      Hey Kent,

      I definitely think its scalable — without a doubt. I have built up these kinds of earnings over 15 months or so and I haven’t approached a client since November 2011 — they’ve all come to me. I think there is huge potential for growth in my freelance earnings but I have no interest in working more on that side of the business than I do at the moment.

      This is of course speculation, but I believe that I could have built up a $100,000-$150,000 freelancing business by now if I had really dedicated myself to it.

      Cheers,

      Tom

      Reply

  4. Mary says

    Hi Tom,

    That’s a really impressive performance, congratulations!

    Your posts are always really informative which no doubt is a big part of your success.

    I’m looking forward to implementing your ideas when I start my own blog soon – might even buy some of your products!

    Thanks again,

    Mary

    Reply

  11. eemusings says

    I’d be curious as to what you consider ‘content marketing’ – for example most of my freelance blogging is for company blogs rather than typical publishers; would you consider that CM?

    Reply

    • Tom Ewer says

      No — I consider content marketing to be the creation and/or implementation of SEO, social media, content publishing, design, outreach, and so on. It’s everything you need to effectively build an online brand in one package.

      Reply

  17. Nida Sea says

    Very inspiring! I’m glad your first month in 2013 turned out great, Tom! I’m looking forward to a nice month myself, provided everything continues to flow as it is. 🙂

    Reply

  18. Steve Rice says

    Congrats, Tom. Really glad of all you’re accomplishing. It’s really inspiring…even to people outside of the “online marketing” or “copywriting” niche. You provide such great information and “thought process” type posts that keep me subscribed and interested. It’s one of the main reasons I love Pat Flynn so much and you’re right behind him in my book. (All he’s got on you is a few years advance). Here’s to a fantastic 2013! Cheers!

    Reply

    • Tom Ewer says

      Thanks Steve! I’m glad you like the “thought process” stuff because I love writing it! And I do hope to broaden my horizons in terms of income streams which almost certainly means I’ll be stepping out of the usual MMO/blogging niches.

      Cheers,

      Tom

      Reply

  20. Dwayne Golden Jr. says

    Good stuff man! This really cool of you to post transparency is beautiful thing. I wish you the best success this year.

    May do this for an upcoming business I’m launching.

    Reply

  22. Sarah Russell says

    Nice to see another great month on the books for you 🙂

    And I definitely agree about the growing interest in content marketing. My full-time writing gig is with a digital marketing agency, and the amount of interest we’re seeing in this type of service is staggering. It’s definitely something that smart writers can cash in on!

    Reply

  24. Paul Kridakorn says

    Thank you for sharing Tom, exciting and inspire to see the progress and return in what you have done. By sharing this, it helps me know that you have a Kindle eBook! — i did not know that before — another good lesson idea to enhance blog marketing strategy to me.

    But for now, I am going to check out your Kindle ebook

    Reply

  25. Ellen says

    It’s really great of you to post this for the public. In the least this gives hope to the newbies out there. I wish you all the best with your ebook!

    Reply

  27. Louie Sison says

    Hi Tom,

    It’s my first time to visit you blog and I must say that I’m really impressed!
    Well done on your earnings. I’m also aspiring to earn that income very soon. Right now im still working and blogging. Thank you for inspiring me…

    More power to you!
    Louie Sison from Make Money Online Philippines

    Reply

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