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Last month I started sharing my blog income report to encourage new women business owners. I want to show fellow bloggers how to make money blogging.

Last month I started sharing my blog income report to encourage new women online business owners. I want to show fellow bloggers how to make money blogging by sharing the exact strategies that I use. In September 2016, I made $1,703 and launched my first eBook, Busy Moms Building: 12 Steps to Running Your Own Online Business for Busy Moms!

Background

In January, I left my corporate job to work for a small company from home. I used the flexibility that I gained from transitioning away from the office environment to start turning this blog into a business. You can read my tips for transitioning from a corporate job into self-employment here:

I began writing my first eBook, Busy Moms Building: 12 Steps to Running Your Own Online Business for Busy Moms, in June. I turned Redefining Mom into an LLC in preparation for my eBook launch in September 2016.

I launched my first eBook, Busy Moms Building, in September!

Important Facts About My Income Reports

  1. I do my accounting on a cash basis. This means I only count revenue and expenses at the time the money comes into my bank account and leaves my bank account. All of my income reports will be done on a cash basis.
  2. Affiliate payments for items I promote are usually on a 60-90 day pay delay. This means that most of the affiliate income in this report was earned in previous months.
  3. I spent roughly six months building my blog while I was still working full-time. My primary focus was not on making an income during that time but rather building a foundation that would allow me to make money through multiple income streams later on.
  4. This income report will not take into account income I make through contracts that do not directly relate to blogging.

Why Do I Want to Share My Income Reports?

  1. This is my job now! I plan on using these reports to hold myself accountable.
  2. Three years ago, I was sitting in a cubicle in corporate America feeling trapped and anxious. I felt like I spent way too much time at work or traveling for work. I needed more time at home with my baby. My plan is to give you a look into my journey through sharing these income reports.
  3. It helps new bloggers or potential bloggers to know how people make money so they can see that it is realistic for them to do it too.

Do You Want to Start a Blog?

I wrote one epic post breaking down the 4 major stages of starting a profitable blog.

Stage 1: setting up your blog

Stage 2: growing your audience

Stage 3: monetization

Stage 4: create your own products

Head on over to read my Ultimate Beginners Guide to Blogging: How to Blog for Money to learn more!

Redefining Mom Stats for September 2016

  • 10,517 Pinterest followers <– 4% increase from August
  • 5,058 Twitter followers <– .6% increase from August
  • 1,935 Facebook page likes <– 5.33% increase from August
  • 1,944 Instagram followers <– 7% increase from August

Last month I started sharing my blog income report to encourage new women online business owners. I want to show fellow bloggers how to make money blogging by sharing the exact strategies that I use. In September 2016, I made $1,703 and launched my first eBook, Busy Moms Building: 12 Steps to Running Your Own Online Business for Busy Moms!

September 2016 Blog Income Report

I spent September in launch mode for Busy Moms Building. It was WAY more work than I thought it would be. I tend to be a perfectionist which makes launching a very stressful task. The good news is, I learned A LOT about the process and I plan on documenting everything I learned in a future blog post to help others who are new to their own online business launch their first product. Stay tuned for more on that!

September was also a month that I seriously started thinking about my long-term business plan. I learned two very important lessons during this month:

  1. I am not interested in doing sponsorship blog posts unless it is super relevant to my audience and I am passionate about the topic. I turned down an opportunity for a large brand network because I decided my time and energy is better spent building my own brand.
  2. I fired a client. Not because they were a bad client, but because I now know that I need to be super clear on the types of clients I want to work with moving forward. Identifying my ideal client avatar is the only way I can scale. One of the new services I am offering is a 1:1 power hour for moms in the beginning stages of building their online businesses and need guidance on how to move forward.

Affiliate links are included below. This means I get a commission, at no additional cost to you, if you purchase products that I recommend. Everything I recommend below I personally use myself! 🙂

Income

AFFILIATE SALES

$18.00- Blog by Number eBook

$32.00- Make Over Your Mornings and Make Over Your Evenings

$81.89- Shareasale affiliates including; Genesis framework (for self-hosted WordPress sites), Lifestyle Pro theme (runs on Genesis), Tailwind (what I use for Pinterest scheduling), Grammarly (ahhhhmazing tool for checking grammar as you write online), Emily Ley planner, and PicMonkey.

$59.40- One Woman Shop’s 2016 Solopreneur Success Bundle that was only available for a week in September 2016. Did you miss it? You can check out the One Woman Shop Bundle that’s available all year long.

$78.80- Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course –> if affiliate marketing is something you want to add to your business strategy, I highly suggest this course. The Facebook group alone is worth it! Michelle, the course creator, just did an interview with me that you can read here to learn more: How to Earn Money with Affiliate Marketing

$10.00- Blog Traffic Ebook: How I Went From 17K to 350K+ Monthly Page Views in 9 Months eBook

Total: $280.09

SPONSORSHIPS

$103.00- sponsored tweets through IZEA

FREELANCE WRITING

$400.00- from 2 writing assignments

FREELANCE CLIENT WORK

$250.00- from a social media client retainer package

PRODUCT SALES

$505.00- from my new eBook Busy Moms Building that launched on September 29th! I am thrilled about this!

$164.54- from my product Easy Budget and Financial Planning for Busy Families Spreadsheet (I do not promote this at all except for a Pin on Pinterest and an upsell funnel that happens when people download my Free Printable Budget Planner).

Total: $669.54

INCOME TOTAL

$1,702.64

Expenses

SUBSCRIPTIONS, SERVICES & FEES

$9.00- SendOwl is the e-commerce tool I use to sell my products.

$45.00- iMark Interactive for tech support on my website. Grayson Bell is the guru behind the company and has helped out tremendously! I pay him a monthly retainer for his services.

$10.00- Acuity Scheduling is what I use to manage my calendar with clients and business meetings. LOVE IT!

$12.95- Canva.com is what I use for making all my social media graphics.

$5.00- Google Apps for hosting my domain email address.

$0.00- ConvertKit is my new email service provider but I am on a 60-day free trial so it is free this month!

$455.00- Graphic design work for Busy Moms Building, I broke even within 2 days of the book being on sale so I believe this was a very good investment. The book has a professional look and feel, plus I saved several weeks on the launch timeline. Win-win!

$37.62- PayPal/Stripe payment fees

Total: $574.57

EDUCATION & COACHING

$480.00- business coaching

ADVERTISING

$150.00- I’ll be able to share more on this later, I am so excited about what I’ve got going on with this category and I think it’s going to pay off!

EXPENSES TOTAL

$1,204.57

Net Income

$498.07

My expenses are again a lot higher than I would consider normal. I have been investing a significant amount in 1:1 business coaching which will be transitioning into a small group mastermind. This expense will be cut in half in the upcoming months. One of the important lessons I’m learning about running a business is that investing in the future is critical. I’ve been working on a long-term business plan with my business coach which I believe will be crucial to reaching my income goals in 2017.

The large expenses for graphic design and advertising are one-time expenses.

Accomplishments for September 2016

  1. The biggest accomplishment I had this month was launching Busy Moms BuildingLike I mentioned earlier, it was way more work than I anticipated so it did take most of my energy this month. I am very proud of it! During the process, I learned several new skills, including how to edit videos in iMovies.
  2. Started offering 1:1 power hour business coaching to moms looking to start an online business.
  3. Executed my first Instagram marketing campaign for the book launch! I took the 12 steps of the book and made each step an image for Instagram that I posted each day for 12 days leading up to the launch.

Did I Reach My September Goals?

  1. Launch my eBook Busy Moms Building on September 29th! If I did $500 or more in sales between then and October 1st, I would be thrilled! –> Both goals accomplished!
  2. Reach 40,000 page views. –> Accomplished!
  3. Grow my email list from 2,607 to 3,000. –>Accomplished, currently at 3,230!
  4. Publish 4 new posts. –> Missed, I published 3 new posts.
  5. Reach $2,000 in monthly income. –> Missed.

Goals for October 2016

  1. Make a 90-day strategic plan.
  2. Determine what my next major product/service will be.
  3. Start a Facebook group.
  4. Reach 50,000 page views.
  5. Reach 4,000 email subscribers.
  6. Reach $2,500 in monthly income.

Woah, this may be a little too ambitious for October since I will be in Disney World for an entire week with my family to attend the Type-A Parent East conference. My daughter turns 4 and has 2 days off from school. Plus I have to host her birthday party. Wish me luck!

More Resources

Busy Moms Building: 12 Steps to Running Your Own Online Business for Busy Moms

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Last month I started sharing my blog income report to encourage new women online business owners. I want to show fellow bloggers how to make money blogging by sharing the exact strategies that I use. In September 2016, I made $1,703 and launched my first eBook, Busy Moms Building: 12 Steps to Running Your Own Online Business for Busy Moms!

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11 Comments

  1. Monica, this report is absolutely inspiring! Pinning it for later! And I received the Emily ley planner as a gift and love it too!

  2. I love income reports – totally my favorite reads 🙂 thank you for being willing to share!

  3. Awesome results on your ebook. Mine hasn’t done much, and soon I need to find a way to improve this. Maybe you could write a blog post on it (or maybe you have already). This has got to be one of my January projects (I mean learning how to accelerate my ebook sales).

  4. As a mom starting off blogging, it is super encouraging to see real life income reports. They are super motivating for newbies like me.