June 2022 Writing Report

By Kimberly

Updated:

I’ve decided that sometimes math is weird. Looking back over the last year or so, I can see that I’ve been able to add a digit to my gross writing revenue. Dividing the new total by the year-old data, it would be easy to say that I’ve multiplied revenue by 10 times.

However, that’s not 100% accurate since you have to first do (new) minus (old) and then divide by the old. Isn’t math fun? So growing revenue by a whole digit only means a 900% growth or a multiple of 9X. Clear as a windy road in the woods, right?

In any case, let’s dive into a few thoughts and then the reports and data.

an image of a road in Tennessee

Notes on winding roads

Winding roads through the woods can be a lot of fun. At least, they are a lot of fun when you’re driving through Tennessee on the first real family vacation you’ve taken in several years (thank you, pandemic).

They’re fun until you realize your children all get carsick, anyway. Thank heavens for Dramamine and motion sickness glasses.

In any case, having a business (even a publishing and blogging business) is a lot like driving through winding roads. Sometimes they wind too much, or sometimes they don’t seem to grow enough. And sometimes you feel carsick.

Recently, Google had an update (the May 25th algorithm update). Only one of my sites was impacted by that. And mostly, I think it had more to do with a recent legal change in the industry. There were a couple of articles that had become out-of-date thanks to said legal change. I updated those, and the website is already on the road to recovery.

I know – using winding roads as an analogy for business isn’t a perfect one. It’d be better to compare winding roads to the various graphs in a business. Or maybe a roller coaster would be a better analogy. There are all sorts of loops, winding craziness, and highs and lows. But then we end up right where we began, so that analogy breaks down, too.

In any case, the family vacation was great. We had a lot of fun, even on the winding roads and roller coasters. It’s good to be back home and get back to work with a freshly rested brain.

Site Reports

To quote Ian Malcolm, “life finds a way.” The sites are all growing well, and thankfully no dinosaurs are outside of their pens to wreak havoc.

Note to self: look into having a dinosaur website. That could be fun – or super dangerous if I do any genetic splicing. If I do, be sure to make the dinosaurs smaller – not larger.

In any case, here’s the portfolio overview.

Month to month

  • Traffic: +5%
  • Revenue: -13%
  • Publishing: -9%

Year over year

  • Traffic: +121%
  • Revenue: +313%
  • Publishing: -32%

Year to Date

  • Traffic: +144%
  • Revenue: +555%
  • Publishing: +78%

In other words, things are continuing to grow well, even if revenue received in May was down slightly from that in April.

Total gross revenue is still over $2,000 monthly.

  • Going from $0 to $1000 monthly took me 24 months.
  • Going from $1000 to $2000 for the first time took 4 months.
  • Getting to above $2000 monthly consistently took another few months.

Here’s how the sites look individually.

Site #1

  • Gardening
  • New posts: 8
  • Total posts: 255
  • Monetization: Ads + affiliates

Site #2

  • Sports
  • New posts: 1
  • Total posts: 41
  • Monetization: Ads + affiliates

Site #3

  • Genealogy
  • New posts: 1
  • Total posts: 63
  • Monetization: Ads + affiliates

Site #4

  • Education
  • New posts: 0
  • Total posts: 1
  • Monetization: none

Site #5

  • Writing
  • New posts: 1
  • Total posts: 27
  • Monetization: Ads + affiliates

Site #6

  • Parenting
  • New posts: 10
  • Total posts: 120
  • Monetization: Ads + affiliates

Again, if you’re been following my reports, you’ll notice that they’ve definitely evolved over time. They haven’t gained any feathers or claws, but they’re definitely getting better over time. Smaller, too.

But that’s good, because I’m learning how to move forward by looking at fewer data points that actually hold more significance.

Some of the datapoints I’m using, going forward, are as follows.

  • Posts published
  • Revenue and costs
    • Revenue per aged post
    • Cost per post
  • Goals

I also track these numbers, but because I don’t have any control over them, they’re less important.

  • Visits (page views and sessions)
  • Income sources

ClickUp Updates

If you read my report from last month, you know that I restructured my organization and my ClickUp setup. It’s been a huge change, but it’s led to a ton more efficiency and my team has said they love the new change. They each know exactly what’s expected, when the due dates are, and they love having everything centralized.

There’s still a lot to do – I need to overhaul several more parts of the system. But the biggest parts are done, tested, simplified, and functional. It’s a huge step forward. It’s going to make upscaling a ton easier in the future – rather than trying to take an even bigger, more elaborate system and make it more efficient.

May Achievement: 70%

I hit 70% of May’s publishing goals. That’s not amazing, since I didn’t hit April’s, either.

However, given that I did take a week off for a family vacation (our first since before worldwide travel changed), our dog died while we were gone, and dealing with all those changes getting home, I’m not upset with how we did.

My team did amazing. It was definitely me that dropped the ball. I have adjusted the goals for the next few months, mostly to give myself some space while I overhaul the hiring systems.

I will need to do another hiring round here soon, but I’m excited to try the new system that’s still only partially built.

Goals for June

This month, my goal is to publish 35 articles. That’s still peanuts compared to publishing giants like several of my friends, but it’s going to be a good stretch for me and my team.

I’m also working towards my next revenue goals, although I prefer to focus on the publishing goal, because I can actually affect that. The only way I can impact revenue is by publishing, waiting for articles to rank, and then earning income. So income is more of a pointless vanity metric rather than a key metric.

So in addition to focusing on publishing 35 articles, I’m also going to be working on:

  • Getting a long list of articles prepared for my writers.
  • Keep moving forward with the sites and publishing.
  • Finish and test the new hiring system.
  • Make my friend Renee crazy with my wrong uses of statistics on my spreadsheet.
  • Enjoy the summer with my family, while also preparing for fall.
  • Get ready for Q4, because it’s going to be a wild ride.

So there’s a ton to do this month. I’d better get to it. I’ll catch you all here again soon.

Note: If you click on links in this post and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, we can earn from qualifying purchases. See our terms and conditions for details.

Related Topics