September 2022 Writing Report

I’m shocked that it’s already September, but here we are. No amount of denial will change that fact. I’m working hard on all of the fronts:

• getting the kids into the current year’s school schedule,
• continuing to build and scale the business,
• coming to grips with the fact that everything keeps changing,
• focusing on eating and living a healthier lifestyle (it’s a work in progress),
• And trying to keep moving forward.

While doing all this, I’ve looked back at how August 2022 went. Ready to dive into the reports for this month? Let’s do it.

August 2022 Recap and TLDR

If you read last month’s report, you’ll remember that I’m struggling (big time) with the summer heat. That’s continued. It’s made it difficult to get outside to the garden (which is one of my happy places).

It’s also been a weird month of realization.

The first realization is that my work schedule has changed, and it’s time to accept that fact.

My working schedule has gone to the birds; it’s no longer a reliable, buttcrack-of-dawn thing. There are important reasons for this, so I’m not fighting it but rather trying to find alternative work schedules that will work better.

We are continuing to homeschool our kids for this next school year, albeit with a twist: they’ll be attending two days (full-time from 9:30 to 3:30) at a local homeschool co-op that’s run like a school.

So yeah, it’s changed. I’m still working on figuring it out. It’ll likely take me a few weeks to get it smoothed out, and that’s probably being optimistic since we got a second cat.

Here’s a cat tax picture because he’s a cutie.

Hopefully, he’s cute enough to distract me from the fact that I think I met absolutely zero of my goals in August – even after I adjusted them.

The second realization is that motivation changes, and that’s also fine.

I’ve wanted to get sites to a big enough point that we could do whatever we want as a family, but that’s my goal. It’s not my family’s goal. That’s been hard, just as I realized that having a backyard farm was my goal – and not theirs. So I’m working on adjusting my motivation for doing all this. This leads to the next realization.

The third epiphany was that slow and steady is still progress, even if I want it all done and performing great by tomorrow, thanks.

Working as fast as I can (just because I can) – has led to some burnout. This is a lesson I probably learn at least once a year, and it never takes. Because here we are in September, and I’m diving into the content warrior challenge.

My friend Renee brought up a great point, though. Don’t just do the content warrior challenge – set up the processes so you can work towards meeting and then exceeding the content warrior challenge each month.

So, in September, I will hit that 60,000-word mark. Then, I’m going to build up to that each month. Then, I’ll keep going. Scaling will be key, of course.

The final realization is that this has to keep being fun, or else why do it?

Seriously. I love doing the reports, which is great. I may have had too much fun building a new spreadsheet in August. It’s killer. I’ve got all the metrics I need – and I’ve eliminated a ton of very cool fluff (but still fluff).

So let’s go into the reports by sites.

Site Reports: as of September 1st

Translation: I struggle in August. That’s good to know. But I did better this August than I did last August! So even though I massively felt like I was struggling this year, I did a pretty good job keeping things on course. That’s a huge relief!

Here’s the obligatory data recap for income.

• Going from $0 to $1000 monthly took me 24 months 26 months from when I first implemented this Income School style website strategy. I’ve been blogging since 2013 and had never hit the $1,000/month mark until this point.
• Going from $1000 to $2000 for the first time took 4 months.
• Getting to above $2000 monthly consistently took another few 3 months.
• I’m close to the next mark of $3000 monthly, but I’m not there yet. Still skirting that line but haven’t crossed it just yet.

Here’s how the sites look individually.

Sites 7 and 8 are still in the prep and initial writing phases. I know. I’ve got website problems. This is how I self-medicate, I suppose.

Other Reports: team and finances

My team continues to grow and do well. It’s always slow training your team, but it’s been highly worth it. I’ve also been reading a lot of management stuff because I want to be a good person to work with. After all, my whole team is freelancers, so they could choose to go elsewhere if I’m a turd.

Regarding finances, I’ve officially out-earned 2021 already, and it’s only September. That’s freaking awesome! I’m also regularly socking some money away into a business “vault” (it’s a savings account) to have some funds on hand to cover operational expenses if I ever need them.

Late last year, Ezoic offered me a fantastic opportunity, and I took it. I don’t regret it, even coming up on almost 9 months with them into a 3-year deal.

They’ve been a fantastic ad network partner for me, and I highly recommend you check them out if you need a good ad network partner.

However, if and when I switch some of my sites to another ad network partner (part of my diversification plan long-term), those sites will have a natural delay in payment because Ezoic is one of the few networks that do 30-day payments. The others do net-45 or net-60.

That’s fine, but that’s going to mean up to 2 months in delayed payment if and when I move those sites – so having an operational expenses rainy day fund is a must.

If I’d tried to move my sites to other ad network partners this year, I wouldn’t have been financially solvent to keep working with my writers. That’s scary! That’s part of why I signed with Ezoic – financial security was hugely important to my business’s growth this year.

And that gets me back to the goals for this next month.

September Goals

September is content warrior challenge month with Income School. I’m working on hitting that this month – it’s 60,000 words’ worth of content. I’m about 10 to 15% of the way there already, and I’m working my way through it as well as possible.

For this month, that’s my only real “goal.” Ideally, I’ll also have north of 25 articles published, but I’d like to make sure I’ve got everything in place to keep scaling up each month, even if it’s in much smaller quantities than I’d dreamed of earlier this year.

And that’s it for this month, friends. I’ve got a good-sized backlog of articles to read, write, edit, and/or publish on my to-do list, as well as plenty of other articles to prep, send to writers, or write.

I’m excited about having some larger chunks of working time when the kids go to their homeschool co-op during the week, too. I’ll let you know how it goes next month. See you then!