August was a huge mixed-bag kind of month. On the one hand, we went on an amazing family vacation to Bear Lake. On the other, it was also crazy busy with weird, not-covid sicknesses that went through the whole family, back-to-school prep, and starting to remodel our kitchen.
In any case, it’s really nice to have a business set up to run even when I have to take a step back for a bit. Don’t worry – I’m back. The business isn’t totally turn-key yet, but I will keep working on adding the systems needed to keep getting things growing and going. But more on that in a bit.
August 2021 Writing Statistics
- Articles published: 2
- Total word count published this month: 5,012
- Videos filmed, edited, and published: 0
- Total Page Views: 81,858 (up from 72,222)
- Total on-cash received this month (earned in previous months): $910.52
- Overall EPMP: $11.12 (down from 11.69)
And here are the very sad-looking story statistics.
- Stories I wrote this month: 0
- Stories submitted to publications: 0
- Stories edited: 0
- New stories outlined and plotted: 0
August was such a sad month for publishing – and writing in general. But waves, ebbs, and flows are a natural part of tides – and life. So it’s all about finding a way to work with yourself, your abilities, and everything else rather than fighting the riptide.
Month 25 of Project 24+
August was my 25th month with Income School’s Project 24. For me, it’s now more like Project 36-48, but that’s okay. Because when there’s a good goal and you don’t meet the timeline? You don’t throw out the timeline – you change it.
So was Project 24 worth it? Absolutely. Here’s the financial proof.
A wise friend once told me that the best way to see if a course is worth it is to evaluate its ROI 12 months after finishing the course. It should be at least a 10. July 2022 will be the final litmus. But I’ve been evaluating it every month anyway.
- Investment fees to date (new dues were paid, so the yearly membership dues are paid through August 2022): $847
- Cash earned and on-hand solely attributable to Project 24: $8425.81
- (for reference, here’s June’s ROI: $$7515.29/$648 = 8.87 )
- ROI: $8425.81/$847 = 9.95
Translation: Income School’s Project 24 is officially worth the investment.
Niche Site Porfolio Analysis for August 2021
Ready for more awesomeness? Let’s do this.
Backyard Homestead HQ
This site is currently the best-performing site within my portfolio.
It’s continuing to grow well, so I’m quite pleased.
Genealogy Pals
This site is also doing quite well. It’s not as big as BYHHQ, but for a small niche, I’m pleased with its growth.
Kimberly C. Starr
This site is back to being “small potatoes,” at least compared to some of the others. Growing it will take time, building up my systems so I’ll have more creative writing time and a lot of work. That’s okay, though. I look forward to the challenge.
Sleep Training Kids
This was my first niche site project with Project 24. It’s still plugging away and growing, which is awesome.
Publishing good content really is the key.
Other Niche Sites
Okay, so I’m still not revealing all of my new niche site projects. But I will give you this sneak peek at data from one of them.
Diversification Reports
To date, diversification still isn’t amazing. Even so, I’m working on making sure that I expand the income sources and streams. Because that way, I’ve got eggs in baskets all over the place. Which sounds like a disaster waiting to happen – at least to the eggs. Oh, wait. They aren’t real eggs. So we’re good!
So revenue source continues to be a bit of an issue. This should self-resolve over time and as traffic increases – and affiliate payouts come in. There was only one affiliate payout this month (from Amazon), so it’ll look better in other months.
Teamwork and Systems Report
My team of freelancers is seriously amazing. They’re making things happen behind the scenes all the time. Like this report, for example. My virtual assistant, Liza, compiled the data and charts for the reports this month.
It’s so nice to be able to create the systems needed to keep the ball rolling – even while I’m at home taking care of sick, vomiting, not-sick-with-Covid children. It went through the whole family one at a time. It really was quite awful. In any case, we’re all better, thank heavens!
The systems I’m currently tweaking are in the order of how things go. I was noticing a bottleneck at the editing phase – so I’m trying a few new things there to get the process flowing more smoothly.
I tested hiring an editor, but I don’t think I communicated what I wanted clearly enough because none of the candidates was able to deliver exactly what I wanted. I’m still working with one who’s got the best potential, but I shelved hiring an editor otherwise.
So instead, I’m tweaking other things while continuing to work as the primary editor on the business myself. It isn’t ideal, but sometimes you have to evaluate and communicate better with a step back in order to run forward some more.
One step forward at a time. Then one or two back so you can take five more, right?
Fiction Report
A whole lot of goose egg going on here. Taking care of sick children and cleaning up vomit pretty well exhausted my creativity last month. I wasn’t even able to attend my writing group, which is a total bummer.
August 2021 Final Thoughts
Not every month can be a super-amazing, record-setting productive publishing machine. That’s okay. And I used August to rest, recover, and relax – and to prepare for this month. Because September is another Content Warrior Challenge month at Project 24.
So look for me to be publishing at least 60,000 words of content across all of my sites. I’ve already got a good jump on it, too. This is good because publishing good, helpful content really is the key.
So stay tuned, because there’s more awesomeness coming your way. Or if you don’t want to miss anything, make sure you subscribe to the newsletter – and I’ll keep you updated when I publish cool things like this.
