March was another crazy month. Things just keep getting crazier and crazier around here! I earned $9118 which is my second best month so far. But the kicker is that I also did just under $3000 in deals that I’m either waiting for content or for payment for. Had some of them been quicker with their content I would have easily cleared $10,000 for the first time. Now that I’ve made over $9000 for two months, breaking that $10,000 mark doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea. Well… it still seems crazy to me, it just doesn’t seem so unrealistic.
I was in The Philippines for the first part of March and seem to have spent most of the month just treading water and trying to catch up with all the work I neglected while I was there. It meant a lot of time chasing payments, updating my earnings spreadsheet, and adding paid content. There hasn’t been much time for working on new things but I’m going to dedicate this month to new projects and site improvements. Oh and finding an accountant. Can anyone recommend a UK accountant who deals with mobile businesses?
Earnings Breakdown:
- Adsense — $429 – Adsense was having a pretty average month and then, magically, the last two days of February earning almost $60. Strange. but welcome!
- Affiliate sales — $669 – Same same. But I did realise that there’s an affiliate program that I haven’t heard from in while (since June) so I sent an email to see if I’ve earned anything since then. Pretty lazing accounting on my part but I did earn over $100 with them in May so the missing months could add up to a nice amount next month. If they ever get in touch with me!
- Advertising — $7922 – Another insane month. Things just seem to be getting crazier and crazier here. I expect it to die off at some point but so far there’s no sign of that. It seems like more and more people are finding me each month and new deals are combining with ongoing payments or renewals to push the total higher and higher each month. Crazy. Besides one deal for $1400, most were in the $100-500 range and just added up to awesomeness. If I’m feeling ambitious I might divide this category up next month to include permanent guest posts/articles and paid links/ads. I’d guess things are about 50/50 now.
- Ebook Sales — $98 – Fourteen sales.
Spending Breakdown:
I only spent $335 in March on web stuff (I do have other expenses like travel, equipment, etc but don’t list them here… I save that annoyingness for tax time). I actually want to be spending more. In the coming months I might get back into building some new city guide sites which will mean some content outsourcing.
- Link Building Services — $176 – These are the monthly fees for two link building sites I’m using: Linkvana (14 day trial for $5 affiliate link/50 free outsourcing credits affiliate link) and Build My Rank. Build My Rank was deindexed by Google and they’ve closed their operations which meant I got about $30 refunded from their monthly fee. I’ve been told that Linkvana have also been deindexed so I guess I should stop using them? I don’t really know what it all means, to tell you the truth! Either way… if Linkvana is no more, that will make my link building much more of a pain in the ass. Something I’ll need to look into this month.
- Stock Photos – $136 – I buy stock photos for guest posts on Blighty Traveller from iStockPhoto.com.
- Programming — $18 — Paid to have my Kigali forum tweaked to stop spammers. Best money I’ve spent all year! I love the forum (miniBB) and the guy who created it will install it for you for a reasonable price and is on hand with questions. It’s easy for readers to use and looks good. If you’re in the market for a forum for your site, check it out!
- Ebook — $5 – Monthly cost to sell my ebook.
April in Rwanda is very low-key due to anniversary of the Genocide on April 7th each year. It’s a month of mourning and, while things are still open, I think loud music and partying are sort of outlawed. Plus, to add to the sad tone of the month, it always rains in April. Plus my best friend left yesterday for a couple of weeks. All of this adds up to what will be a lot of time spent inside hiding from the rain, no nights out partying (and therefore no hangovers) and the house to myself without many distractions. This will, hopefully, mean that I’ll get a lot of work done on new projects and creative things. The things that always get pushed aside in favour of being lazy.
Some projects for the month include getting my living in Kampala site up and running (I’ll be taking a trip to Kampala in 10 days to meet with my partner and content writer there which should be fun), starting a couple more ‘Stuck in…’ guide sites, finding an accountant and setting that all up (I’d like to incorporate in the UK… I’m hoping I don’t need to go to the UK to do this), finding an alternative to Linkvana for link building, possibly looking into hiring a personal assistant, writing a bunch of content for my Kigali website, and possibly writing more content for my blog and expanding it a bit to include more working and travelling information.
So April will be busy! I’m looking forward to getting back into work for the first time in awhile. It helps that I’m already off to a great start for the month… a nice motivator!
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