Following on from the popularity of my first income report last month, I am pleased to bring you another income report. June 2013 was not a big month for this blog. I spent around a week or so working on the relaunch of Martial Arts Videos and in the last 10 days of the month I had lots of hosting problems.
I did eventually find a new hosting solution, however between the downtime I experienced and the time I spent looking at new hosting companies, I lost over a week. This was time I could have spent working on something more productive.
Disappointing Results from Second Free Run on Promotion
Hosting wasn’t the only disappointment in June. My free promotion of The Art of Freelance Blogging on Amazon in June was very disappointing. Around 850 copies were downloaded but the promotion generated zero reviews. More concerning was the ranking of the book. Since launching the book has been in the top 40 blogging books. After the free promotion, it dropped out of the top 100. Sales have been slower since then and I am only now getting close to the rankings I once had. Hopefully, this promotion will still have some value in the long term as the book will be shown in more “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” pages.
For those who are not familiar with Amazon’s KDP Select program, it breaks down like this. Their KDP Select program allows you to get 70% commissions in regions such as India. It also allows you to offer your book free for five days in order to generate reviews. The downside to this program is that you are not permitted to sell the book anywhere else during the time you are opted into their program. You need to opt in to the program three months at a time. They take this very very seriously. If they find your book being sold elsewhere, they will not pay you unpaid earnings. It is complete bull that they will not pay out monies owed to authors…though they are the dominant company in the book market. Their house, their rules.
This was the first time that I had renewed a book in the Amazon KDP Select program. In future, I do not believe I will renew again. What I will do instead is keep the book in the program for the first three months and then release the book elsewhere afterwards. Sales in other bookstores such as Apple’s Bookstore and Barnes and Nobles are generally much lower, but I will still make money. I will also reach people who have not heard of me previously.
Traffic Statistics
Traffic for June was around 500 visitors per day again. Considering I published less articles and my website was offline for long periods of time towards the end of the month, I am not too displeased about traffic staying at the same level. It does, however, remain something that I need to address long term as I want to increase readership here.
I am unsure what traffic is going to be in July. This month I will be hopefully returning to Scotland after another year in South America, so I will be spending a little time catching up with friends and family. Therefore, I suspect traffic will be at a similar level, but even an increase of 100 to 200 visitors per day would please me.
Last month my global Alexa rank was 87,360. It currently stands at 82,232.
Readership & Social Media
Readership is something that should increase every month. It is rare for a blog to see readership decrease over time as few people unsubscribe from a blog once they follow it, and those who do are easily replaced by new subscribers. Whilst traffic is obviously very important, I do want to develop a loyal readership that reads my blog regularly, even if they only read my articles through their feed reader.
The stats for last month’s income report were taken on 19 June 2013. The stats below were taken on 6 June 2013, therefore the growth below does not represent a full month.
- RSS = 1,623 Subscribers (+181 Subscribers)
- Email Newsletter = 1,826 Subscribers (+7 Subscribers)
- Facebook = 271 Followers (+30 Followers)
- Twitter = 2,012 Followers (+12 Followers)
- Google+ = 450 Followers (+19 Followers)
- YouTube= 25 Subscribers (+2 Subscribers)
* RSS stats are tracked by Simple Feed Stats.
As you can see, the growth of my readership is slow…but it is still growth so I am not disappointed. Particularly when you consider I have not actively updated Twitter, Google+ or YouTube in a while.
Income Details
Book sales were very disappointing. No sales were made during the free promotion of The Art of Freelance Blogging and afterwards sales were extremely low for the week afterwards. So my decision to offer the book free pretty much halved the income from the book for the month. I am positive that book revenue will be much higher next month as sales return to normal, so I think this was just a lesson I had to learn about Amazon KSP Select.
I made a little extra from freelance blogging but made less affiliate income. The drop in affiliate income is possibly due to less posts and the problems with my hosting.
My total income for KevinMuldoon.com for May 2013 was $1,878.70.
It was generated through:
- Freelance Blogging = $1,382.80 (+$218.70 )
- My Books – $231.75 (-$171.31). This includes digital and printed book sales.
- Affiliate Income = $264.15 (-$238.77)
* Difference in income from previous month show in brackets.
Overview
These income reports are more about looking forward than looking back. As I noted last month, my goal is to increase income generated through this blog. I do not want to make all my money from freelance writing. Therefore, in July I am not actively going to be writing for others. So expect my income to be much lower next month.
I have been looking at some different business opportunities online, however I am still very much in the research stage of that so I do not want to say any more about that just now. One thing I am working on is more books. I have several great book ideas. They are not just concepts, I have broken down each chapter and written the introduction for a few of the books already. My aim is to try and release two more books by the end of the month (fingers crossed!). Over time my book income should increase steadily, giving me a more stable income every month. This should also advertise this blog to more people.
In between writing books, I also hope to write some high quality guides to publish on KevinMuldoon.com. This change of direction will mean slightly less money in the short term but a lot more money in the long term. Whilst I do enjoy writing from others from time to time, I prefer the greater challenges and rewards that I set myself.
The main challenge for me just now is to get back into a good working routine. Relaunching Martial Arts Videos and suffering from so much downtime with my previous host took up most of June. This left me with a hundred little tasks to do every day. I always write better when I have zero distractions, but dealing with so many problems and emails every day has made that difficult. My plan is to now reduce as many distractions as possible and focus on writing. In theory, I should be able to complete a new book within a week if I do not work on anything else. Despite this, I do not see myself completing four books per month, though who knows: I may surprise myself.
I hope you have enjoyed this month’s income report. If you enjoyed this income report, I encourage you to check out the income report from my friends website WP Squared too.
Thanks,
Kevin
