November was an interesting month for me in several ways. Firstly I lost 1 week income from one of my regular clients which resulted in a short coming of planned income (he decided to go on vacation). Second, another client of mine fell really sick and couldn’t upkeep his end of the bargain so all in all I lost out by $380.
This sucks, as the sum of this plus my income would have amounted for a nice $1510 for last month which is on track with a monthly increase of at least 10% since October.
But unfortunately due to circumstances outside my control this didn’t happen.
Which means that the total of my income in November 2007 was $1,130. This is entirely made up of my income as a freelance writer and pro-blogger.
Lesson learned: never rely on income even if you think it is a sure thing.
I also thought long and hard about using advertising on this blog since I’m getting around 700 visits per day now, but I still think it wouldn’t be the right move and a good friend has actually told me some time ago that it isn’t advisable to use Google Adwords on this blog.
When the time comes to open this blog up for some revenue streams it will be via direct advertisers only with a “nofollow” attribute. Since I want to keep my Google brownie points I wouldn’t sell them with do follow.
For now, I’m quite happy to keep my writing business growing and at the same time knuckle down with affiliate marketing and this will be done via the Earn $300 in 20 Days Case Study Series I’m blogging about here as I learn and build.
I realized that all though I’m following my passion with blogging and writing, it won’t pay me money when I’m sick or on holidays.
Therefore I also need residual income that pays me over and over again while I sleep and I now is the time to build on this for the future.
One of my major achievements however was the fact that I managed to track my time very efficiently to see how I fare in terms of leaking valuable time or not. I blogged about this on my JV blog Blogging Web 2.0 and you can read the article Free Time Tracking Online - Case Study.
This exercise showed me clearly that I am on track and moving ahead nicely with my efforts. I didn’t really waste much time and to see this black on white is very satisfying.
My goals for December are to increase my RSS subscribers to 200 and get moving with my affiliate marketing efforts.
I’m also keen on getting my plans for next year sorted and broken down into monthly bite size chewable’s.
There won’t be time to indulge too much into Christmas celebration and being away from the blog. I rather work hard now so that in a year or so I can comfortably take time off and still get paid.
Thanks for visiting and should you have any questions, concerns or otherwise, please contact me or leave a comment.
Monika
Technorati Tags: monthly income stats,income overview,monthly stats
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I would concur with your friend who recommended that you don’t do Adwords. I added it to my personal blog a month ago, and have been extremely disappointed, not so much from an income perspective (I wasn’t expecting to make huge scads of cash from it) but because the ads it keeps serving simply wouldn’t be of interest to my readers.
Until their ad inventory is a good match for what my readers would find valuable, I’m going to be dropping AdWords, myself.
These are great stats. I do agree with you that depending too much on something often leads to disappointment. Well that said a mistake made is experience gained.
Kat: I’m glad you mentioned this as having some confirmation from other always helps.
I have learned that Adwords are best used on niche blogs and websites and I’m going to give this a real spin once my new blog is set up.
It will take time, but I’m prepared to wait. I hope you will find a suitable method to advertise on your site too. Especially with that great PR of yours!
Keith: yes, thanks to working online and indulging in personal development I have learned that mistakes are just part of life and the sooner we learn from them, the quicker we can move on.
It is great that you also see it this way. It is always nice to see another buddying entrepreneur who thinks positively.
I’m also not a fan of AdSense. That’s still a nice amount of money to make from writing. If you can combine that with some affiliate income and direct ads you’ll be doing really well.
Steven: Yes, it is great money really for the time spent writing. What you suggested is what I am planning to do plus throw in some of my own products which haven’t been written yet.
I all goes well I should be home free by July next year.
Take a bit of time off and enjoy the holidays
Even if it is only Christmas eve and Christmas day, fill your days before and after with what you WOULD have done on those days. You’ll enjoy it 
Good job on the revenue from writing though. Very nice work. It’s always good to see another fellow entrepreneur making a decent amount of money doing what they do best.
Keep up the awesome work.
Mike
Great stats. your got to be proud of yourself. traffic is an asset and source of income online. as we go along we will know how to monetize the traffic. you have pass the hardest part of it which is generating it. so good luck on the affiliate thing.
You are right. Never count the chicks by the eggs. You never can tell.