Twenty Fifth Income Report – April 2015 ($1196.14)

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

I was hustling the whole of April. When I look back at what I accomplished I’m quite amazed by the energy I had. Part of that was that my day job didn’t consume a lot of it. Another part, that I was encouraged by Trickle Down Mindset success and was convinced (mistakenly) it was a turning point in my career.

April was the month of The Art of Persistence launch. I published it on 3rd of April, but the real launch started at … the Buck Books promotion. I sold 170 copies that day. It gave a nice impact to the book.
For the rest of the month I organized a few more $0.99 promos and played with categories to maximize the exposure.

In the first month of The Art of Persistence’s life I hopped through Amazon categories several times. It was a fruitful tactic, gaining a little exposure each time I tapped into a different audience.
Revenue-wise this book was a success. Before the end of the month I earned more than the cost of publication and marketing. Since then it has been an asset generating income in a passive way.


And it helped a lot of people, exactly as I wished it would.

That month I also diligently prepared the launch of Slicing the Hype. The manuscript was sent back and forth between me and the editor. I also organized a beta reader list and harvested feedback from them.

Writing habit

On the writing front, I was writing another volume of the Six Simple Steps to Success series, the one about defining your mission, finding your purpose and narrowing your focus. It will be the last but one part of the series. I wrote also a bunch of book reviews and blog posts.

I already had about 5 unpublished manuscripts, so I didn’t have to worry about writing the next book hastily. Truth to tell, a year later I am almost at the same place. I still have 3 manuscripts that need a lot of polishing, before worrying about another book.

Editing habit

I was very productive in April because of the editing habit I decided to develop. At that time I was sitting on a pile of raw drafts – blog posts, articles, book reviews and books. I had no problem with writing, but processing my texts later was a pain. Thus I started editing for at least 30 minutes a day and I didn’t allowed myself to write before I had edited something on a given day.

It worked. Writing habit and identity were parts of me. Even If I had to write just before midnight, I did.
Unfortunately, I don’t like editing. Since April 2015 I managed to abandon that habit. This report made me think if that was the right decision. Nope, it wasn’t a decision, it was my subconscious sneaking excuses on me: “This is too tiresome; you don’t have time for all of that…”

Outsourcing

I tried Fancy Hands to export some of my workload. They did all the tasks I gave them, but they were expensive. One of my coach’s favorite sayings is that an hour of business owner is worth between $100 and $200 per hour so outsourcing tasks for $20/h is a no-brainer.

Unfortunately my time was worth less than $20 per hour and explaining in detail what I expected from my contractors drained even more of my time and energy.
Besides, the book promos I organized by Fancy Hands didn’t provide the results I wanted. It was a dead end.

The Income Report Breakdown

Income
Amazon royalties: €2014.53 ($2215.98)
German royalties for Master Your Time: €40.33 ($44.36)
At the end of April I received Amazon February royalties, the first full month of Trickle Down Mindset on digital shelves. And I’ve received the first payment for German translation of Master Your Time. It was my record month.
Total: $2260.34

Costs:
$2, some random promo of Trickle Down Mindset
$6, Fussy Librarian promo of Trickle Down Mindset
$14.99, Fancy Hands fee
$29, Aweber
$162.21, iPage hosting
$20, Domain fee
$830, Archangel Ink’s payment for full Slicing the Hype production (formatting, editing, proofreading, cover design…)

Net Result: $1196.14

Previous Income Report: March 2015 || Next Income Report: May 2015