The other day I had an interesting Conversation. It was a bit one-sided…maybe you've experienced that too? The conversation went something like this:
So, you know your stuff. And you ARE making money online. But how does anyone KNOW you make money online? You are an awesome blogging instructor, but you don't share your income reports, and I think people have problems believing you enough to buy your courses and membership. Once they purchase, WOW! they're blown away, but it's that first proof issue. Where's your proof?
Um, ouch!
What's worse is that I've had this same conversation with not one, but THREE people lately. And it's even more difficult because my husband and I have certain convictions about sharing income reports online. I was afraid “people” would see sharing income reports now as an integrity thing after we've said for so long that we wouldn't. (Random side note: Isn't it funny how we're all so afraid of the judgements of those “people on the internet” who we don't know and will likely never meet?)
So, after talking with our business coach, Tap and I decided to give you an exclusive peak into our business financials. We're not going to disclose every month's income (read more on that here) but we do regularly make a 4-figure a month income (our goal is to hit 5-figures a month in 2017) and we've chosen a random month from the last 12 month period to share the actual real-life numbers from our online businesses below.
Here are 5 of the ways we made money online during a 30-day period:
1. Coaching/Services: $2,787.23
2. Products: $2,356.91
- My Books on Amazon: $3.12
- My books on CreateSpace: $20.64
- Paradise Praises products: $27.50
- Amazon FBA: $32.77
- Lemonhass® bookstore: $2,272.88
3. Advertising Income: $900.00
4. Affiliate Commissions: $372.07
5. Ad Networks: $139.29
- Adsense $116.60
- The Blogger Network $22.69
As you can see, creating your own products and offering services in your area of expertise can have a huge influence on your “blogging paycheck”. And who wouldn't want to make an extra $372 a month just by recommending products that solve your reader's problems (i.e. affiliate marketing).
Total (Before Expenses) Income: $6,555.50
You may be saying that's great, but how much of that do you have to spend to keep it all running? Here is what we typically spend in a month (not including podcasting, or stocking books for the bookstore, because that's a whole different ballgame).
- Hosting $3.95 per month x 3 sites
- Email Service $149 (list size up to 15K)
- Landing page design $39
- Subcontractors $650
- Affiliate commissions $90
- Tools/subscriptions
Total Expenses: $ 966.92
It's important to note that as a self-employed blogger, an additional 30% or so of your income will be absorbed by income taxes. It's good to set that aside. You may also have sales taxes for selling your own products. And you'll be responsible for your own health care, insurances and other things normally covered by an employer.
Here is what our online income streams looked like for that 12 month period with different colors representing different streams:
How much money you make online in a month will fluctuate
Some months We've made over $2,500 just in affiliate commissions. Some months We've made only $1-25 from ad networks. And some months we try totally new things like a one-time offered service, a bundle sale, paid writing assignments or user testing to bring in some extra income. It's also good to note the the first quarter of the year, in our experience, is a lot lower than the rest of the year.
Each month, in our business, we take a hard look at our income streams by the numbers; tracking them, seeing what's working, what to cut off because there is no ROI, checking for those $ leaks (I.e. apps or service subscriptions we're not using or not using fully).
Blogging income is fluid and because of that not every month can be “the best month yet” but there's still time for NEXT month to be the BEST month yet, and our hope for our readers, clients and membership members is that you begin to incorporate a variety of these things, as we have, to increase your opportunities to make money online.
Want to learn how to do this too?
Join our weekly newsletter list and as a bonus I'll send you our free mini-ebook “Earn up to $1300 a month with these 13 ways to earn money online”. (See our privacy policy here)
Other Resources to Help you Make Money Online
- How to Know if You Should Promote an Affiliate Product
- My Quarterly Business Report: How I Earn with my Blogs
- How to Find Affiliate Links in Share-a-sale
- Emails that Convert
- Affiliate Marketing Secrets & Strategies
- How to Write a Review that Gets Sales
- How to Make Money Blogging
