Stats & Analysis for March 2008 – $2,091 earned

This blog and your financial breakdowns are good inspiration for someone like me aspiring to break into the blog industry. Sometimes I question whether I’ll ever be able to blog to support myself, rather than just for fun, but you give good insight as to what to expect and strive for when my blog goes public, thanks!

-Chris

Hi Caroline,

That supports my previous comment about having your own product being the holy grail. It can be used to leverage yourself in so many ways, and bring you passive income down the road.

Way to go.

Do you think you would have done it while working full/part time?

Cheers,
Alex

Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com’s last blog post..An Ode to Bounce Rate

All in all that looks like a pretty great month then does it not. I am impressed by how many web hosting sales you are still making. It really is the bulk of your income there. Any plans to create any more major income sources?

Tom Beaton’s last blog post..The single most annoying thing you can do

Hi Caroline,

I just discovered your blog yesterday and find it very interesting. Curiously, I have also decided to incurse in the blog industry but did not register all my experiences through a blog like you do. Yours definitely convinced me that it’s never too late and that I should do it, so I’ll start today.

What also surprised me is your Adsense Revenue. I find it very low. I do myself earn between 300 and 500 USD a month and without as much visits as you do. What you should have a look is your eCPM, which is the value Google gives to 1 thousand pages from your site. I recommend you to try to increase that value. If I can be of any help, please contact me….

Fabien’s last blog post..Google Adsense: Having Multiple Sites For One Account and Buying Google Adsense “Secrets”

Interesting stats Caroline. It proves that releasing a free, quality eBook with affiliate links can be very profitable if done right.

Ryan

Ryan Cote’s last blog post..Google’s New Search Experiment

Bravo, Caroline,
haven’t time to read the details this very moment. just happened upon new e-mails flashes.
will come back in about half an hour.

Caroline,

Congrats on another good month! It is interesting to see how your sources of income are continuing to grow. As a new blogger I am concentrating on building readership but I have started to think about ways to earn a little bit of money from the blog. Based on your experiences I think the best way is to create a “deliverable” that I control.

Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to seeing how you do for April.

Mark Sinderson’s last blog post..Fabulous New Pill Now Available- Increase Your Health And Fitness While You Sleep

Caroline,

Congrats as always. I cracked up at that last paragraph… passing the 6 month mark. I always think of you as so much “older” than I am (your blog, that is…), but we’re only a month-plus different in age. :) You’ve grown so much taller than I can ever hope to!

It’s not in my genes… and I’m good with that. That is some very good part-time money. I predict you will easily have a full-time income by year’s end. Cheers!

Until later,

Kelly

Kelly’s last blog post..Quit Waiting for Business to Pick Up, Theres Growing to Do!

Am I the only one who thinks your earnings are low? Take out your Bluehost commissions and you earned about $250.00! LOL!! Then you blog about your earnings like you are proud of it. And that is after over 6 months of blogging and tons of subscribers!

People better wake up and realize you just don’t have any idea how to make money online. Why on earth do you have 1800 subscribers? Are you helping people make money when you don’t know how yourself? Why are you trying to sell them things that won’t help them? The things you sell won’t help them make money because you can’t make money yourself with them. Please wake up people!

Sara Hughes…With all due politeness, I rather think you are the one who needs to wake up.
Nobody, including Caroline, has looked upon or, is looking upon her online earnings in March as a phenomenal amount.
If you had been reading her posts on a fairly regular basis, you would know that Caroline has been going through a learning experience, educating herself as she moves forward, explaining to her blog readers what she is doing and will be doing and, why.

Caroline — very cool. I guess the weak dollar is not helping you much. Sorry about that. What does a pint cost now (I saw your tweet Saturday night, so I know you have recent data). LOL

@Alex — I cannot answer for Caroline, but I can speak as a guy who compares himself to Caroline. (Note that this is a brutal approach — there is little favorable comparison in my case — LOL). Anyway, I think it is very difficult. I am not able to post with the frequency, thoughtfulness and quality of research that Caroline does. There are many reasons for this, but chief among them is time. At any given moment, I have 17 ideas and time to execute poorly on only a few. It is very frustrating. Staying focused takes discipline (not my strength).

Having said that, my very meager progress suggests that you can do it part-time, you just need patience and focus. The fact that I have neither may be of some comfort to you. LOL

Mark Mason’s last blog post..Google First Out of the Gate with GMail April Fools Prank

Thanks again for the stats. It just proves that it works doesn’t it?I like the fact that the long tail income should continue. I’m reaching that time where blogs fail. I have no intention of quitting. I’m having too much fun. I know I’ve said it before on other blogs and maybe even here. You can’t win if you ain’t in the game. I’m justa saying!

Mark’s last blog post..I’m justa nother April fool!

Unlike Sara….. I am very impressed with the earnings. Any revenue I make I appreciate, whether it is a few cents or over a thousand. Congratulations with the great month.

@Alex, there is no way I could have done this part-time. Perhaps if I was more focused and had less distractions but thats not the case.

@Tom, well the SU course will be an income source and I have another 2 or 3 ideas rolling about in my head but nothing concrete yet.

@Fabien, the AdSense doesn’t come from this blog – it’s on a little site I set up about a computer game a while back. There’s about half a dozen pages on it and it gets about 30 visitors a day. I have no plans to work on that site at the moment.

@Kelly, being 5′3 I have never really thought of myself as tall :)

@Sarah, yes I am fantastically proud of my earnings! I earned enough this month to not go deeper into debt and that makes me extremely happy.

I quit my job 6 months ago with no clue how to make money online. I started this blog with the intention of reporting my progress and sharing what I learn. I simply blog about my work, I don’t claim to be any kind of expert.

@Mark Mason, hehe lol that was wine and I was drinking at home! I think a pint is about £2.50 :)

@Mark, good on you – it can get tough around that point.

Keep it up Caroline.

This is YOUR life, don’t let the naysayers drag you down.

The REAL big money makers would never piss on those who are having a go.

Allison Reynolds’s last blog post..Indie Clothes – Sale Pain

Fair dues for posting your stats up Caroline. Carry on in the same vane and you will be surprised a few months down the line how much you’ll be making.
As for the comment by Sarah, then pay no attention. She obviously hasn’t read any of your previous posts to get the gist of what your blog is all about. Shame on her :)

Caroline,

Being 5′10″, this is my first chance to feel short. Now I know how my cousins used to feel… “someday you’ll catch up….” (No I won’t!)

:)

Congrats again,

Kelly

Hello from one of your new subscribers. Thank you for posting your earnings – it’s all very encouraging. I’m just venturing into the world of mimi sites and affiliates and it’s all very exciting.

Aren’t you worried what will happen in the future? What will you do if the numbers start going down?

Looking at your income like Sarah Hughes did, I have to agree, you definately need to diversify. Take away the bluehost and things look a lot darker :)

But the tone she used is unnecessary and sounds a bit bitter to me, even envy??

Congratz anyway :)
I hope you keep growing *wink wink*

Stefson’s last blog post..The king of technews, you know who!

Congratulations and thanks for sharing these stats.

I started blogging before you but I haven’t been as successful, but thats because I haven’t been able to put enough time into my blogs.

It’s nice to see what I can look forward to though and it gives me the motivation to keep going. Thanks

@Sara – Caroline’s blog is not a traditional MMO blog. She is not claiming to provide anything other than an honest account of her journey. Why that makes you want to attach her subscribers confuses me.

The answer to your question regarding why Caroline has so many RSS subscribers is probably complicated. One reason is that Caroline would probably never make a comment like yours – and we like that. :)

Hace a great day. Mark

Mark Mason’s last blog post..Google First Out of the Gate with GMail April Fools Prank

@Allison, its ok, everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don’t let other people get me down :)

@TonyC, that’s quite common really but in all fairness, with over 150 posts I can’t expect every newcomer to go and read all my old stuff!

@Stefson, no I’m not worried at all. Right now I only have one asset that produces an income but I am in the process of producing a second and after that I have many more ideas. I can only do so much work so it takes some time to diversify my income.

But no I don’t worry about the numbers going down, things go up and down all the time and as long as I feel I am making progress in the right direction, I’m happy. This is all one big learning experience for me so I don’t just expect everything to improve every single month.

Wow, congrats to you caroline. Good job :-)

Ebook’s last blog post..Bending the Web

Fascinating read, I felt a little voyeuristic looking at all your stats (shame on me!)

Very nicley done. My blog is nearing the 3-month mark and it’s just getting a head of steam. My most recent blog post made its first sale yesterday, resulting in a $480.00 sale.

The thing is, I don’t blog for $$$, it’s just a communication device, really, so I see more benefits from blogging the longer I do it. More traffic, sales, subscribers etc…and it now gets almost 1/2 the subscribers each day that my other feeder sites get.

Congrats on the income stats, keep up the good work

Dan
danielmcgonagle.name

@Mark Mason,

Oooh, bad news for me then.. But, the way things are going it seems that I’m going to find my self “self-employed” in a couple of months. I guess I could regroup for all the additional time I would have on my hands.

@Caroline,

What do you think: Like I was saying, I’m probably going to leave my job, is there anything to do to prepare for the day you are out there on your own? (Looking at blogging, of course, not family life or etc.)

Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com’s last blog post..An Ode to Bounce Rate

Hey Caroline – as someone who has not made one dime from the internet or blogging, I commend and applaud your efforts!

I hope your income doubles next month :)

mark’s last blog post..AnyWired-Middlebrook Make Money Online Challenge: Open Source Entrepreneurship

Hello Caroline……congrats on the income for this month! I have a question related to ebook income…..from your breakdown, it seems as though you are selling things that others are selling too…..if so, does that mean those particular items will sell on any website?

Also….I know this is probably a silly question but to promote bluehost, do you already have to be hosted with them?

(sorry for the weird questions, I am very new to blogging)

Thanks,
Ray

Ray’s last blog post..Troubleshooting PC applications

@Alex, to prepare try to have a good idea of what you want to do before you quit your job. I didn’t have any clue and figured I’d just work something out along the way which is why it’s taken a while.

@Ray, most of the stuff I have sold as an affiliate would do well on other sites and no you don’t have to be hosted with Bluehost to promote them.

@Alex — sorry. I did not mean to sound so discouraging. My observation is that many people that “fail” on the internet either “give up too soon” or are looking for “something for nothing.” Note that this is a comment from someone with 60 RSS subscribers and a brand new blog, FWIW. LOL.

Mark Mason’s last blog post..Breaking Down the Magic of Social Media in a Web 2.0 World

Wow… Caroline Well done!

I did not check in here for quite a while because the Cosmetic surgery business in Thailand has had some great success after our last “How to find meaning in work” discussion & post.

As a fellow 30 day challenger it really feels great to see your rewards starting to pay off, well done Caroline i am sure a lot of us are very proud of you.

For those inspired with to dreams to travel the same path as Caroline and find the courage to persevere and quit a job, just like she has done. Hang in there folks!

Caroline proves it is very possible and to be quite honest, it’s a lot easier than you think, minus the hard work of course, it just need s some careful planning and a little preparing.

Making a living online is something we can all achieve if we persevere and tackle a little bit each day, its just like planting seeds and waiting for the rain.

Now we can all begin to see Carolines hard work and integrity come to blossom, she is living proof that it can be done and in an honest way.

Her honesty and modesty is what makes her Blog unique and yes, we can all ride on her success wave because unlike so many transparent blogs or ebooks out there,Caroline’s can actually make a difference to us, because there are not that many who are as open about things as Caroline is willing to be.

There are no hidden agendas or crafty Aff links scattered around here, her honesty in disclosing her stats proves a lot and are certainly no way a boast about her income.

If anyone after 6 months of blogging can achieve 2000 dollars a month, id certainly say thats something to be very very proud and a feeling she has the right to cherish.

Especially since it has been done in a completely ethical and honest environment plus sharing and helping others along the way.

All those devious internet marketeers and perhaps even Sara should take a long hard look at themselves and wake abruptly up!

Caroline is proof that you don’t all have to be devious parasites to make an honest living and help people in the process.

Well done Caroline and keep up the good fight!

We will all reap what we sow down here, and for those of you who will be reading this blog next year, you won’t need proof to know why!

Warm Regards
Daniel

@Caroline — If you are awarding prizes for worlds greatest comment, I’d like to nominate Daniel. Do I hear a second?

Mark Mason’s last blog post..Breaking Down the Magic of Social Media in a Web 2.0 World

@Daniel, awww thanks, comments like that make me feel all gooey inside :)

Mark,
‘Just this minute finished reading Daniel’s glowing assessment and I concur without pause. Here, here, Daniel!

Another month, another success story from Ms. Caroline :)

Congrats on your success! I see that you’re getting a slow, but effective growth now after all your plugs. I’m also wondering how many viewers I sent your way :P

-Mike

mike huang’s last blog post..Settling Down

@Mike, in the last month you’ve sent me 53 viewers, thanks :)

Sarah Hughes, how about you hush your mouth. Everyone starts out from the same place, no one is born with innate knowledge about this industry.

If you have made it big well done, but don’t try and protect your weak ego by attacking Caroline or others who are in the position you yourself was once in.

Got to hand it to you, you have really done something here. I know that many people have tried making money online. I even have a friend who quit his job and started a site called mycityfaces dot com and I know he has spent more money on his site than you have. I don’t think he is making anything yet.
I would bet that if someone just copied what you do here and did the same thing for their site, they would be doing very well. Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t people who have a different approach and have had even better success, I am just nearly stating that you have given your readers the recipe. While others just vaguely give pointers, and usually useless ones too. I AM A BIG FAN. I am willing to donate one month advitiser to your site (as long as its still $50) to any person deserving, as you see fit.

serge’s last blog post..John Chow gets SEO advice from The 30 Day Man

@serge I think that is part of the magic. Caroline is actually hard to copy. She has some combination of honesty and clear writing style. She does not pretend to be something she is not, and she clearly works hard.

@sawya Well said. I feel your rage, and I wanted to pile on to your comments. Instead, I’m going to suggest that we all let the Sarah Hughes thing go. I am guessing that Caroline would be most comfortable if we kept the remainder of this thread positive (that’s kinda the way Caroline rolls). :)

Have a great day!

Mark Mason’s last blog post..Filsame is Brilliant — Butterfly Reports is Live

@Mark, you know that’s a shame in a way because i WANT people to be able to copy me – that’s why I try and lay out exactly what I do. Okay you can’t copy my specific words and ideas but everybody has their own individualism and if you can apply that in the same way I’m sure anybody else can have similar results.

And yeah I’m not into bashing, everybody is entitled to their opinion. The only thing I would edit out on here is profanity or personal abuse.

Caroline,

I am a 6 month IM person as well and I think I have just found a new home!

I totally agree that most people professing to help others in this business only give small chunks. That, unfortunately, is where I’m at.

I have an affiliate site I recently converted to WP that has not made me a penny, the blog cited above and a Build A Niche Store that I’m in the process of doing SEO on.

For the last two years, I’ve been selling mint vintage childrens books on ebay. As the collection is coming to a close and the money has all but dried up, I have been trying to develop on stream after another but none are flowing yet.

I’ll be reading your site inside and out for the forseeable future because you have so much to teach me.

I know that most readers of comments dislike hearing yet another story from a guy who’s busting his butt and getting nowhere so I apologize in advance to them.

I’m really glad to see you are making some money and I would kill to have my readership anywhere near yours.

Perhaps if I take to heart your many lessons and use the information I’ll get there much much sooner.

I’ve subscribed and I’ll definitely be back!

Jeff

Jeff Jones’s last blog post..Can One High Quality Link Really Make A Difference?

@Caroline — agreed. It’s not that you have not been completely clear about what you are doing (which has been really helpful to so many of us). I just meant to say that a lot of the reason that you have 1800 subscribers is because of you and not because of some formula. This just an opinion from a random guy…(me).

Mark Mason’s last blog post..Filsame is Brilliant — Butterfly Reports is Live

Hi Caroline, Congrats on the great month. As someone who’s only making $50 a month, you’re a role model.

Quick question about your BlueHost commissions. Which affiliate network are you working through?

Doing the math, it looks like you’re making $65 per sale. Is that per sale of a 12/24 month hosting plan? Have you looked into Commission Junction? Bluehost offers $90 per sale through CJ.

I’ve heard mixed things about some of the affiliate networks out there. Someone said that some of the networks are shady and scraping some of the profits off for themselves. (I forget the term). I’ve never run anything outside of CJ, so don’t have any experiences to share. Any thoughts?

WebDiggin’s last blog post..You have a 1 in 14 chance of winning $5

@Jeff, if you have a scan through the archives I have quite a few posts where I do breakdowns of large subscriber jumps, effects of my twitter guide, ebook and so on. Also the monthly stats posts like this one break down a lot of the details. Start with those posts :)

@WebDiggin, yes BlueHost pay out a flat $65 per sale, regardless of whether its a 12 month or 24 month plan. I go directly through their site, I wasn’t even aware you could go through CJ! I’ll have to look into it.

Caroline,

I will absolutely be going through your posts because I have a lot to learn and your talent for putting it in terms that mean sense is extraordinary!

I’ll be back and checking in for sure.

Thank you,

Jeff

Jeff Jones’s last blog post..I’m Going To Start Making Money With Build A Niche Stores!

Great post Caroline, it is certainly very courageous of you to reveal your income statistics as your are!

1. Dearly Beloved Caroline:
2. Greetings!
3. I think, at this point, you beat me to it and there is no two cents for you! :-)
4. Trust you do not need it anyways… Got over £1000 pounds already! ;-)
5. If someone is listening, I just have this to add…
6. When you choose to help others WITHOUT THE FEAR OF LOSING energy, time, talent, treasure, gifts, ideas, skill and many other things that we all cling to, the REWARDS are always enormous.
7. Now, it may not come overnight, but it will SLOWLY and SURELY come OVER TIME!
8. All Caroline does here is help people, most especially “ME”, do not know if anyone else genuinely gain one or two things from here but I do each time I visit and that “MUST” pay off someway in the long run for Caroline.
9. Keep this quote in mind each time you do something on this planet…
10. What You Make Happen For Others, “GOD” Will Make Happen For You!
11. Note that, it is not the people you did it for that will necessarily make your visions and dreams happen, but “God” who rewards every seed sower with abundant harvest.
12. Hope those two cents will go round to everyone who gets this.
13. Remain blessed and a blessing and please do not forget that there is always room for improvement Caroline. That is one room that can never ever get filled.
14. It is always my prayer that every one that “genuinely help” others, will “reap the rewards of their labour” and interestingly enough, Caroline is a point of contact for everyone wearing that shoe.
15. We shall communicate again soon if God is willing!
16. High regards,
17. Olakunle Solomon Fatoye.

Olakunle Solomon Fatoye’s last blog post..How to Choose the Best Home Business for You

@Olakunle, thank for you for your thoughtful comments as always. I prefer to think of “God” as the Universe. Everybody has their own definition. I’m glad that I can help people with this blog, that is my intention :-)

Nice! well done Caroline. I made €6,- last month lol…just started though:-)

André

André’s last blog post..Video – SEO Optimization: Top Google Rankings FAST

@Andre, well they say the first dollar is the hardest! It took me something like 4 months to start making any money and then it went up quicker from there so well done!

Thank you, that means a lot to me. I was so happy when I saw my first euro on my Tradedoubler account!

I realized that I did quite well when I read your article about the 30 day challenge! €6,- is about $9,40.

Now I am hooked and there is no way back :-)

I learned alot from your website, keep up the good work!

- André

André’s last blog post..Searchengine Classification

I’m new to blogging as I just started for the past couple of week. I never thought the idea of having income from it was real. My blog sits in a free wordpress.com.

Thank you for the new insightful thought of having income from blogging.

azris last blog post..Witch Yoo Hee(Korean Drama)

@azri, the vast majority of the income earned in this month was due to my ebook. Although I couldn’t have done that without the blog, I certainly wouldn’t have earned as much without the ebook!