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


Sixteenth Income Report July 2014
I mentioned a couple of failures in the last report; well, July was a streak of failures.

My sales were steadily going down. Thanks to the release of ‘From Shy to Hi’, another $3 book in my catalogue, revenues were about the same. However, the sales of ‘Master Your Time’ decreased by about 40%. And I didn’t get return on investing in the ‘From Shy to Hi’. However, this was just one of a dozen other worries on my list.

I hired a coach—Tony Stublebine, the CEO of Lift.do (now Coach.me) who started a pilot program of coaching; I became one of his first students. We worked on my marketing. I have been submitting my book to at least one website a day and judging by the end results, it was a total waste of my time. Other times, I invested a few bucks here and there to submit my book; and I tell ya’, I think the business of using websites for promoting books feels like a scam. Very rarely would I get more in return than I paid in

And at the end of the month, Tony canceled our deal; he had gathered enough data for his business. It cost $15 a week, so frankly I was even a bit relieved.

coachi1

Besides marketing, I also tried soliciting reviews. I continued this activity in August. I invested my time to research reviewers who gave good reviews to the books similar to mine, and contacted them one by one. They were quite receptive. At least half of them replied to my inquiry and asked for a review copy. But the final result was just 3 or 4 actual reviews published on Amazon.

Lesson:

That’s the one method that provides reviews that I can recommend. However, it’s time consuming; I would better spend that time writing my next book.

Speaking of which… I wrote several thousand words about the impact of a personal mission statement on my life, and had a vague idea of extending the scope of my book titled, “A Personal Mission Statement: Your Road Map to Happiness.” However, that document still sits on my hard drive till this day; I don’t know what to do with it, and it’s too small to be a single book. I have no idea how to market the eventual extended version of the book. Maybe I’ll do a similar exercise this year and get something like a journal of the impact of the mission statement on my life; I don’t know yet.

Persistence

I also started another book, “The Art of Persistence.” At the end, it took nine months to publish it and was only possible thanks to my friend who edited it for free. And there is a story involved in the idea behind the book. A few months prior, my friend asked me, how the heck I keep my consistency; I replied her via a blog post. Then I had a chat with an old friend wherein I did my “coming out.” I confessed I was an author. He asked me the whole bunch of questions, interested in what I was doing.
The Art of Persistence
Then when we were going to the Ireland for my sister’s wedding, we stayed at my other friend’s home. We chatted, and when I told him about my writing, he got curious. We were discussing about my transformation, what happened to me, how and why… and in the end he asked me the exact question my friend had asked a few months ago: “But how do you stay consistent?”

Then the light bulb went! I had no idea that consistency was the vehicle to success. I thought it was luck. Thus, when Jeff Olson in ‘The Slight Edge’ convinced me that I was wrong, I immediately switched into consistency mood and never stopped. But my friends were brighter than me. They KNEW that consistency was important. What eluded them, was the actual implementation. They wanted to be consistent, they just didn’t know how.

And I had the next book subject ready.

Lesson:

Truly, writers can see a story everywhere; which is similar to entrepreneurs to who see problems, and solutions to them everywhere.

The house

And life was creeping into my writing, not as much to the writing as it was to my schedule. We left our kids in Ireland with their grandparents, hoping that we could start some work on renovating our new house. Sadly all we managed to achieve was more paperwork. We got the mortgage and signed the agreement, but we couldn’t start work on the house before the end of July.

The Dreams Come True

This purchase was a great strain on our budget. We spent everything to the last dime. Well, I stacked away the last thousand euros from my royalties.

My wife started a new job. Luckily, it wasn’t very time demanding. But still, it consumed quite a chunk of her time.

I was losing steam, I observed my sales and was severely discouraged. I had hassled for a year and for what?

Publisher

And at that time I was contacted by Archangel Ink. They found me through my book –‘Master Your Time,’ which was performing not so badly at the time. Matt Stone, the founder of the company, remembered me from the Facebook group Steve Scott had established a year ago.

They proposed a deal: they do all the work which is not writing—editing, formatting, proofreading, cover design, uploading on Amazon, paperback version, marketing and so on—and they take 30% of royalties. Plus they needed an upfront deposit of $250 per my existing books to refurbish them. Matt hinted that they should easily double my current revenues.

I got excited, because it looked like the solution for my struggles. I could outsource all the fluff and focus on writing. It would free up some of my time, so desperately needed for my private life. I didn’t wonder for long. My only problem was that I hadn’t $1,500 for the deposit. After an ultrashort consideration they agreed on a lower deposit; only $1000.

We signed the agreement on the 26th of July 2014.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income: €711.93 (about $963.67)

Cost:
$38, Aweber services
$1,000 Archangel Ink deposit
$55, Lift coaching
$10, gifts of my books
$40, ghostwriting gigs Fiverr
$10, promo From Shy to Hi on eReaderGirl
$10, promo From Shy to Hi on sweetiespicks.com
$3, promo The Fitness Expert Next Door on sweetiespicks.com
$10, proofreading services Fiverr
$10, unidentified submission on sweetiespicks.com
Total: $1,186

Net result: -$222.33

Again in red *sigh*


Previous Income Report: June 2014 || Next Income Report: August 2014

Sixteenth Income Report – July 2014 (-$222.33)

6 thoughts on “Sixteenth Income Report – July 2014 (-$222.33)

  • August 1, 2015 at 7:41 pm
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    Hey Michal,

    Even though you made a defecit that month, the big investment was money well spent and should more than pay for itself in the coming months. Chin up buddy! 🙂

    Reply
    • August 1, 2015 at 7:47 pm
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      Oh, they did indeed.
      It was my breakthrough moment. I learned to send my money away to make more money.

      Reply
  • August 2, 2015 at 3:14 am
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    It’s so scary making that financial commitment…I’ve been flat broke for months now, and only managed to squeak a few dollars here and there to put towards my marketing and “sundry expenses” we accumulate as writers! And I agree, it all takes its toll on your private life. I’ve got three kids, ages 3 to 16, and my husband works long hours, so if my writing’s not making money, it sadly becomes less of a priority.

    That is slowly starting to change…

    I’m loving these monthly retro-reports…isn’t easier to look back than to deal with it all in real time? Who knows, maybe we’ll both be reporting huge increases in profit in a year’s time! 🙂

    Reply
  • August 2, 2015 at 6:51 am
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    Great job.. 🙂 Kinda motivating one to all newbie bloggers.. 🙂

    Reply
    • August 2, 2015 at 10:41 am
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      I’m glad I was able to provide some motivation.
      Very cute chiildren, yours?

      Reply
  • August 3, 2015 at 4:05 am
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    Thanks for being open and sharing your experience. It takes guts to do that! At least I know I’m not the only one struggling…. and it is truly a struggle and a hustle.

    I think as authors though, we should be promoting more in person as opposed to just online marketing. For some reason, face to face has a tremendous effect. I learned that when doing radio, going to events and meeting people through other avenues made all the difference in me gaining popularity and acknowledgement…. and I even won awards within just 3 years of being in the music biz.

    Either way, keep up the good work! I’m sure you are on your way to success! Thanks Michal!

    Reply

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