{"id":65308,"date":"2014-06-09T16:50:38","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T16:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/?p=406"},"modified":"2014-06-09T16:50:38","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T16:50:38","slug":"incomereport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/incomereport\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Earned $505,813.50 from My Blog in 1 Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n Last year, my business earned $505,813.50. \u00a0It feels incredibly awkward for me to say that (as in, pants down walking around downtown kind of awkward).<\/p>\n I’m not really the kind of person that feels comfortable sharing my personal finance information, but I have so many friends and family members who struggle\u00a0<\/em>to make ends meet that I created Income School as a way to help people provide better for their families. \u00a0I know that by being open about my numbers is a way I can help others to stay motivated to get to where they want to be–and helping you is more important than me feeling comfortable.<\/p>\n So there, I said it. \u00a0In this post I’m going to show you\u00a0exactly<\/em> what I did to make it happen.<\/p>\n NOTE from Aug 30, 2016:<\/strong> This is the last income report I ever published. \u00a0I have decided not to publish further income reports for legal reasons. \u00a0I keep this one online just so you can hopefully be inspired to know what’s possible with a blog. \u00a0The only thing I’ll add is that my businesses are continuing to do well.<\/span><\/p>\n Obviously, income doesn’t matter if your expenses eat it all up. \u00a0Last year, I had\u00a0way\u00a0<\/em>too many expenses. \u00a0I spent the entire last quarter of last year selling off office equipment, cancelling subscriptions, and doing everything I could to cut expenses to the bone.<\/p>\n Last year, my business had expenses nearing $100,000 but well over half of that was spent on employees (which I no longer have, by the way).<\/p>\n After cutting unnecessary expenses to the bone in the fourth quarter of last year, I was quite afraid that my income would go down as a result. \u00a0The opposite was true. \u00a0In fact, my business is producing MORE income on FEWER resources now–mostly because of the increased productivity gains earned by simplifying every aspect of my business.<\/p>\n And then there are taxes. \u00a0In the United States, we pay an unreasonable amount in taxes. \u00a0In fact, my tax rate on every dollar I earned toward the end of the year was 47.5% (including federal and state). \u00a0The United States has a progressive tax, so the dollars you earn up to say $50,000 are taxed at one rate, then your next $50,000 are charged at a higher rate, etc. \u00a0The highest tax bracket (which I’m in) is 40% for federal tax, and the state tax is 7.5%. \u00a0So unfortunately that means I had to pay about $90,000 in taxes last year.<\/p>\n Not to rant too much, but the practical effect of this progressive tax is that I have very\u00a0<\/em>low motivation to go out and earn more money toward the last quarter of the year. \u00a0By that point every dollar I earn is taxed at nearly 50%, so I put in the same work and only get to keep half of what I earn. \u00a0If the government were at all serious about creating jobs, it would let me use the $90,000 in taxes on hiring an employee or two. \u00a0It’s robbery! [Rant completed]<\/p>\n Last note, I won’t be producing monthly income reports like Pat Flynn and John Lee Dumas do. \u00a0There are a few reasons for that: (1) I don’t like feeling the pressure of needing to improve my income every single month. \u00a0When I get too focused on that, I end up making bad business decisions. \u00a0(2) Frankly, I’d like to focus more on\u00a0how\u00a0<\/em>I earn a living, not\u00a0how much of a living\u00a0<\/em>I’m earning. \u00a0This post is motivational and (hopefully) helpful. \u00a0Now that you’re here and motivated, I’d like to focus more time on getting things done than dreaming.<\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: If you listen to podcasts, be sure to subscribe to the Income School Podcast (RSS feed<\/a>) or the Income School Podcast on iTunes<\/a>. \u00a0Listen to episode 12<\/a>, which is an audio version of this income report and includes many, many more details.<\/p>\n I have spent the last 3 years building up my online classes business. \u00a0I now have online courses available.<\/p>\n Here’s how I do my classes: Each class is made up of 30 videos. \u00a0So students watch a 10-minute video lesson every day for a month. \u00a0While the videos are available to the students forever, they only have 30 days of instructor access. \u00a0I give my students UNLIMITED access to me. \u00a0They can email me, call me, Skype me, send in photos to get a critique, etc.<\/p>\n So while the $267,000 from online classes is amazing, it doesn’t come easy. \u00a0It means I’ve created 44 HOURS of professionally-produced tutorials and I spend UNTOLD hours working individually with my students. \u00a0Most internet marketers are NOT willing to do that. \u00a0They just want to create a simple downloadable product and call it a day. \u00a0I’m putting in the time with each and every student, and while it’s quite taxing, it is also rewarding.<\/p>\n This area of my business saw a dramatic drop last year. \u00a0In previous years I’ve earned up to $80,000 from my eBooks.<\/p>\n The reason for the drop this year is simply because I haven’t even\u00a0touched\u00a0<\/em>them in about 2 years. \u00a0I created them when I started my business and they have run completely on autopilot since then. \u00a0The books about technology–meaning that some of them are getting outdated. \u00a0Also, some of them are not of very good quality. \u00a0My beginner book is quite good but some of the others were created in 5 days and thrown onto Amazon and Smashwords before the ink dried.<\/p>\n I should put more efforts into the eBooks side of the business because it is truly passive income. \u00a0In fact, if I had the stamina to write eBooks all day every day, I could probably earn $505,813.50 just from passive income from eBooks. \u00a0But the fact of the matter is that I usually feel like breaking something after writing an eBook. \u00a0Cranking out 55 or 80 pages (my books are quite short) is not my idea of an enjoyable work day.<\/p>\n Still, if I were starting my business today, eBooks would undoubtedly be a part of my strategy. \u00a0I earned my first dollars online by writing eBooks and it gave me the motivation to do this full time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although it only brought in $37k in revenue last year, affiliate marketing is one of my favorite aspects of my business.<\/p>\n To help my audience pick the right gear, etc, I created a page on my website called “Recommended Gear” where I break through the marketing speak and just recommend the best gear. \u00a0For each product, I link over to Amazon.com with my special affiliate link. \u00a0If you aren’t familiar with this program, you can sign up for Amazon Associates here<\/a>.<\/p>\n What I love about the Amazon Associates program is that they give you 8% of the purchases that people make on Amazon after clicking a link from your website. \u00a0So you can link them over to buy a lens and if they end up buying a vacuum, you still get the commission on the vacuum. \u00a0Unfortunately, this percentage is only 4% for items in the electronics section.<\/p>\n Amazon Associates is something that almost any blog could add to their monetization strategy. \u00a0It’s a piece of cake to get your affiliate links for items, takes 5 minutes to sign up, and your readers don’t feel like you’re selling them on anything. \u00a0You’re just telling them about a product that you like and showing where they can buy it.<\/p>\n The lesson I learned from last year is that expenses take a tremendous toll on a business. \u00a0I had expenses for all kinds of things: WordPress plugins, rent for a nice office space, training websites, I spent over $15,000 on a video system to produce higher quality tutorials, etc. \u00a0The expenses neared $100,000 and I felt that was “investing back into my business.”<\/p>\n It wasn’t. \u00a0It was just unnecessary cruft. \u00a0It was exactly the things that made the business so bloated and complicated that it paralyzed my progress.<\/p>\n For example, I spent $15,000 on a system with cameras mounted all around the room. \u00a0I could sit at a desk and with the press of a button switch which camera was on me while doing a webinar or video training. \u00a0It was AWESOME! \u00a0Awesomely complicated, that is. \u00a0I spent way too many hours figuring that system out, and when I wanted to record a video it meant I had to go through a long process of firing up the system.<\/p>\n In the end, I got rid of every single piece of that setup when I realized that the “investment” in that setup made it so I was producing half as many videos because they were so complicated to produce.<\/p>\n Another example of a foolish expense was office space. \u00a0My office was 18 minutes drive from my home–a short commute. \u00a0But it also took 4.5 minutes to walk from the parking lot up to my suite, another minute to unlock the doors and get set up for the day, and more time getting insurance, writing out rent checks, etc. \u00a0I did the calculation one day and realized I was spending 9 FULL DAYS per year commuting. \u00a0When you drive 18 minutes each way every day plus the other few minutes to get into the office, you’re actually wasting a tremendous amount of time.<\/p>\n So, I dumped the office space and now I work from home. \u00a0When I’m ready for work, I walk from the living room to my home office and start working. \u00a0Done. \u00a025 minutes later and after a commute, the old version of me would just be sitting down at my desk.<\/p>\n I wrote this to show you what is\u00a0possible\u00a0<\/em>with a simple blog and a lot of hard work. \u00a0My business has been a tremendous blessing for my family.<\/p>\n I can show you how to create a blog like mine, and if you learn from my mistakes and do it the right way, it’s surely possible for you to do it in less time than it took me to figure it all out. \u00a0I want to invite you to\u00a0start your own site, by following my get started blogging series<\/a>. \u00a0It’s about 8 articles that walk you step-by-step through the how to set up a blog that can earn a decent income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last year, my business earned $505,813.50. \u00a0It feels incredibly awkward for me to say that (as in, pants down walking around downtown kind of awkward). I’m not really the kind of person that feels comfortable sharing my personal finance information, but I have so many friends and family members who struggle\u00a0to make ends meet that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","content-type":"","_eb_attr":"","publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incomeschool.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A few notes before we begin<\/h2>\n
Here’s the breakdown of where the $505,813.50 came from<\/h2>\n
\n
About my online classes<\/h2>\n
About my eBooks<\/h2>\n
Affiliate deals<\/h2>\n
What I learned and what I’m working on now<\/h2>\n
My invitation to you<\/h2>\n