Ninetieth Income Report – September 2020 ($2,329.88)

Are you curious about a 3-month delay? I explained it in my first income report.

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September 2020 was a very productive month for me. As 2020 months went by, anyway.

The marketing/ prospecting effort in August resulted in some work in September too. Plus, I gave a webinar for Joe Bunting about Amazon ads on the 25th of September. Hence, I got a few 1-time customers. We made about $700 on those gigs in September, which was about 20% of Resurrecting Books’ revenue in that month.

Wedding Anniversary

On the 8th of September, I took my wife to an inn to celebrate our 20th anniversary. I was prepared, had a few small gifts for her, and made a PowerPoint presentation using our family photos. We spent the night at the inn and the next morning we were sightseeing a nearby 18th-century park aptly named “The Romantic Park”. The great food in the inn was a nice bonus. The icing on the cake was a bouquet of 20 roses I ordered a few days ago and gave my wife on our way back home.

My wife thoroughly enjoyed all the attractions. She didn’t expect such a feat. her idea for the celebration was baking a cake when I was supposed to be at work.

We had a nice time and I felt a pang of hope for our marriage I haven’t felt in years.

This pang translated into a spur of productivity. Subconsciously, I decided my effort is worth something, so I hustled. I woke up early in the morning and worked for 6-8 hours a day. This additional energy lasted for about a week.

Failed Experiment

One of my customers has an Advantage account in the US and after weeks of begging, he allowed me to use his account to advertise my mentor’s traditionally published book. I’ve already tried it with my Advantage accounts in Canada and UK without much success. The idea was that since my mentor is an American, it will translate into more sales in the US.
It didn’t. Amazon liked the book and ladled out quite a few impressions. But people weren’t buying. Only about 1 in 62 readers decided to buy. My mentor said this was too expansive to justify continuing the ads.

Podfest Masterclass

At the beginning of September, I got an email from Podfest about their new virtual event. I volunteered to lead a session about using free books on Amazon to drive traffic. And they accepted. Which resulted in even more work for me. I attended a call for speakers, I created a presentation, I recorded and uploaded my session in case of technical glitches. And I gave my presentation live at 11 pm on the last day of September, which created additional challenges.

Amazon Ads Webinar

Also, I gave a webinar to Joe Bunting’s class about Amazon ads. I repurposed my first Podfest presentation, so I didn’t spend much time on preparations. The delivery was much better too. I dealt with the presentation in under 30 minutes and had a lot of time to answer all the questions.
Unfortunately, I got only a single prospect and she wasn’t the right fit.

Life

I should’ve worked on my 2023 goals – an assignment from my mastermind. However, I used my business as an excuse. Yes, I made some progress, but not much progress.
Apart from all the activities I’ve already mentioned, there were others, like dedicating one morning to shopping for a bike for my daughter’s birthday.
Speaking of bikes, I had an accident and I broke my employer’s iPhone. Getting a replacement, and then switching back to my phone after the repair consumed some hours too.

Book Sales & Canada

My sales plummeted; they were 137 copies lower than in August. I lost 33% of sales in Canada.
I also lost a couple of clients in Canada, who decided to run their ads, one in the middle of the month, and another at the end of September.
I also asked a few older customers to open their Canadian accounts. We switched to their accounts which allowed us to avoid paying the Polish VAT tax. The only bright side of all this commotion was that pressure on my cash flow eased quite a bit.

Covid

Schools in Poland have been reopened. And the number of Covid cases started to skyrocket immediately. At the end of the month, my 18-year-old son went back from school sick. He recovered in three days, but he infected all of us. I got hit on Sunday, two days before my Podfest presentation.
We all went through the flu pretty mildly. Nobody even had a fever. But the fatigue was overwhelming. My temperature barely increased by a fraction of a degree, but I felt like crap. My energy levels dropped to ‘almost dead’. My wife had it even worse and she spent a few days in bed.

The September 2020 Income Report Breakdown

Income:

Amazon royalties: €1,447.26 ($1,693.29)
Coach.me fees: $119.97
Audiobooks royalties: $21.59
D2D royalties: $0
PWIW personal coaching: $335.45
AMS service remuneration: $4,272.89

Total: $6,443.19

Costs:
$23.37, BirdSend fee
$1,948.52 Amazon ads
$500, ISI mastermind
$1,521.2, RAs’ remuneration (RAs = Real Assistants; my team)
$30, SiteLock fee
$78.53, royalties split with co-author
$82.47, editor’s share
$210.53, Advanced Amazon ads
$32, book promo
$4.95, Scribando
$95.09, an obligatory monthly fee for LLC
$92, my accountant’s monthly fee
Total: $4,113.31

Net Result: $2,329.88

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Previous Income Report: August 2020