September is Income School’s Content Warrior Challenge month. The challenge is to write at least 60,000 words of content for your website(s). They count a video as 2,000 words (no matter the length).
And, as ever since I joined Project 24, I participated. Spoiler: I won another badge. Because apparently virtual badges are hugely motivating. Well, that and I didn’t want to write another report like last month’s. Even if August’s report showed how nice it was to be able to take a much-needed break from the business!
September 2021 Statistics
This month I’m going to share a few new statistics. Some are related to the content warrior challenge. But one isn’t – it’s how much I invested in content published this month.
- Articles published: 22
- YouTube videos published: 1
- Published word count: 51,343
- Words written (not published) but counted in the challenge: 25,296
- Total word count for September 2021 Content Warrior Challenge: 76,639
- Total Page Views: 89,698 (up from 81,858)
- Total cash earned (paid to me this month): $1,099.57
- Total invested in published content: $987.76
Looking at a Profit and Loss kind of scenario, this month boasts a positive net income of:
$1099.57-$987.76=$111.81
And a few more statistics on stories.
- Stories written this month: 0
- Stories submitted to publications this month: 0
- Stories edited: 0
- New stories outlined or plotted: 0
- Writing groups missed: all of them (I was bummed)
My oldest son is particularly disappointed that the Writers of the Future story still isn’t on my website. And I haven’t made his suggested edits to it yet. The main suggestion is that it needs to be longer. 🙂
With working so much on the blog content this month, creative writing got the shaft. Again. Then we had some family stuff going on, so I missed my creative writing group. I was really bummed about that. But life happens. You do your best. And you keep going.
Month 26 of Project 24+
September was my 26th overall month with Income School’s Project 24. It still rates as “totally worth it!” in my book. Ricky and the team do a great job of providing a solid starting point. From there, I definitely recommend you find a mastermind group to join – and that will really catapult your blog from there.
In any case, here’s the financial proof that it’s worth the cost, based on the rule that any course you take should have a 10X ROI within 12 months of finishing the course. Keep in mind, that I “finished” the course at month 24, although I’m not to “full-time-earner” income just yet. July 2022 will be the 12 months after finishing the course, so that’s the final litmus test.
- 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: $9525.38
- (for reference, here’s August’s ROI: $8425.81/$847 = 9.95 )
- ROI: $9525.38/$847 = 11.25
Translation: Income School’s Project 24 is officially worth the investment.
It’s passed the 10X ROI rule by month 2 after the class for me – and 10 months to go! I can’t guarantee your results, but I have found the class to be worth the investment for me.
Teamwork and Systems Report
This month, I made a huge adjustment to the system. So far, it seems to be working really well. It took us from a backlog to running a lot more efficiently. So that’s super exciting because an efficient company will do much better.
Speaking of efficiency, there were some major issues with my sites at the end of September that pulled me away from a lot of things.
- Our hosting disk space became an issue.
- Ad revenue went wonky, indicating a problem.
Both of those are huge issues, and can’t be ignored. Thankfully, I’ve got a great team who helped me handle these issues quickly – and they managed their assigned areas so that I could focus on fixing the issues that were in my area.
Niche Sites Report
This month was a good step forward for most of the sites. They’re all continuing to grow, and I can’t wait for the snowball effect of that to hit.
However, since it turned out that images were one of the big issues related to our hosting disk space problem, I am going to skip those for this month – just until we get it fixed.
I’m kidding, of course! Here they are. We got the image problem fixed, remember?
Now, I am going to go ahead and make one switch. As things get larger, I’m going to go ahead and move away from sharing the URLs and names of each of these sites. That way, they can be coded moving forward.
For those of you who’ve been here for a while, though, you’ll immediately know which site is which. Or you can just look back at old reports to figure it out pretty quickly. You’re a smart cookie. You can do it!
Niche Site #1
This site continues to grow well. Hitting post #160 on this one felt like a huge accomplishment!
Niche Site #2
This new niche site is still very much a baby. It has yet to hit “pizza” day (while I like curry, I’ve always refused to update to the newer “curry day” branding of Project 24).
Niche Site #3
This site is also growing well. It’s a slower burn, but I’m pleased with its growth overall. This niche site is run with a partner. We’re working to increase the publishing routine.
Niche Site #4
This one doesn’t have a graph yet, so let’s not get our hopes up.
Niche Site #5
Another no-graph niche site, but it’s getting going.
Niche Site #6
Okay, I’ll spill the beans. This is this site. This site used to cover all the topics – and it didn’t do any single niche well. So I changed my approach – and now I’m doing so much better, both financially, emotionally, and with business.
Niche Site #7
This site has had some slowing down in revenue growth, but the traffic growth surprised me. I’d thought there was some ceiling there – but it continues to inch past what I thought was some max possibility for that niche. So, we’ll keep going.
On a more personal note, I’ve also been getting a lot of emails from readers, who absolutely love this site. I’m tickled – it started as a pet project designed to help people. I am so glad it’s working as intended – and that people get helped for free (the site is primarily monetized with ads and affiliate links).
Diversification Reports
Again, diversification of revenue continues to be a problem. However, I knew this would be the case going into things. I am working to diversify where possible, but it’s still going to be a while before I get this to where I want it.
- Ads account for 95.3% of income
- Affiliate revenue generates 4.7% of income
Of that, here are how the niche sites contribute to the revenue.
- Niche site #1 generates 67.5% of revenue.
- Niche site #3 generates 7.7% of total revenue.
- Niche site #6 generates 2.1% of revenue.
- Niche site #7 generates 22.7% of revenue.
Profit and Loss Report
I included a profit statement for the first time this month. That’s because I’ve finally found a way to track investments each month. I only track it for published articles, though, so articles that were written but not published aren’t included in that total.
I’ll need to catch up and publish the articles I did receive last month, but then once I do, all statements moving forward should be spot-on for a decent profit and loss statement that I’d be comfortable sharing.
Because while I guess I could post a screenshot of my ledger, I’m not going to. That’s just a little too personal.
Suffice it to say, that a look at a rolling 3-month average profit and loss statement (as generated by our accounting software) does detail an overall net profit. It’s still quite marginal, but we’re working in the green (black? Who decides these colors, anyway? Point being, it’s not red).
September 2021 Final Thoughts
September was a pretty amazing month. Not only did we get back on track for publishing, we rocked the Content Warrior Challenge, and we got another project planned. Don’t worry – we’re taking it slow. And you all won’t hear about this new project again for a while. We’ve got a LOT to plan for it. But if it materializes? Oh, it’ll be awesome.
In any case, thanks for reading. If you’d like to get more of this right to your inbox, then make sure you subscribe to the newsletter – and I’ll keep you updated when I publish cool things like this.
