2010 Annual Report and a Month: a Year in Review
Income reports aren’t anything new in the online world. Many bloggers have begun to publish consistent monthly and annual reports in order to provide their respective audiences with an idea of just how their income has fluctuated month-after-month dependent upon what actions they do (or do not) take. For most, these reports aren’t presented necessarily to brag, but rather to serve as continual documented learning experiences. Online, “taking action” is a mantra that you’ll hear echoed repeatedly: it is the beginning of great things, however, without the proper guidance and direction, it can leave one with little to show for their online endeavors. Those words can simultaneously be the source of great success, or a shrill annoyance. While I’m certainly not a pioneer in publishing these reports, uniqueness and originality can definitely be derived from the thorough analysis of these earning reports as treated like very valuable data.
One thing is for sure: No two people’s online experiences will ever be exactly the same.
Despite some stances that are clearly against bloggers sharing their earnings with their audiences, online trends in the blogosphere appear to show that readers are generally fascinated by these earning’s reports. This fascination is further compounded and reinforced when these earnings reports provide great value in distinguishing between effective tactics and non-effective tactics.
Among the many bloggers who share their earnings, here is a list of Top and Middle tier bloggers who do:
- Darren Rowse, of Problogger.net
- John Chow, of JohnChow.com
- David Risley, of DavidRisley.com
- Yaro Starak, of Entrepreneurs-journey.com
- Pat Flynn, of Smartpassiveincome.com
- Zac Johnson, of Zacjohnson.com
You may have heard of some of these bloggers, and may have even read their blogs.
In accordance with my detailed planning behind TCF, I made it a priority to thoroughly analyze the income reports of as many leading bloggers as I could in cyberspace. As their earnings increased, I began to take note of two consistent elements that stood out to me like a sore thumb.
- #1: The income disparity between what they earn, and what their readers earn, only seemed to be widening. While blog post comments would reveal readers who were either just beginning to earn online, or were realizing tremendous difficulty, the blogger’s earnings continued to sky rocket. These earnings are quite impressive and truly reflective of the great income that can manifest when the capitalistic spirit meets creative marketing strategy and tactics. In the end, though, a huge chunk (usually, not all) of blogger’s earnings come from the reliance on readers to click on, and purchase through, affiliate links. There are a variety of reasons WHY people don’t earn online — lack of motivation, skill, time, and the list goes on and on. It’s not always the blogger’s fault if their audience doesn’t earn like they do, however, not only do I strongly believe that TCF can give reader’s the tools, resources, and information to succeed, but if executed the way I envision: revenue sharing can also offset significant monthly expenditures (the natural costs of running a business) that will be necessary for my readers to incur in order to succeed.
(While the following screenshot was posted on Elite, 6-figure bloggger, Darren Rowse’s blog in 2007, I strongly believe that this income disparity has only continued to increase to where we are today in 2011. This particular poll had 3,054 responses, with 854 responders saying that they did not earn any money blogging. Further analysis of this would require another very detailed thread. In the end, however, I believe it is the perfect time to introduce a legitimate revenue sharing arrangement, into TCF. Dependent upon how much momentum this arrangement gains, it is my strong hope that it’ll provide TCF readers with the funds needed to purchase a variety of paid tools and resources that I believe are critical to their online success.)
(As mentioned in the comments’ section, there appears to be good reason to believe that the $15,000 figure is skewed quite a bit by people who just clicked on that response, yet do not earn that amount.)
- #2: None made it a priority to allocate a segment of their earning’s report to giving back monetarily to their readers. Even though most do provide great value through their blog posts, and paid products, common accepted business practice online seems to completely rely on readers to continually display loyalty by commenting, spreading word virally through various social media outlets, yet it gives very little back. This loyalty, I believe, should not go unnoticed. I believe that even more “value” can, and should, be given to readers. What do YOU think?
(I have searched relentlessly for bloggers who allocate a portion of their monthly/annual income reports to their loyal readers. If you know of one, please…please….let me know in the comment’s section here. Thank you! ~ Howie)
*NOTE: The previous mentioned bloggers are just a small cross-section of bloggers who earn quite a bit online. I have spoken to, and/or emailed, some (not all) of them. They are decent people. I respect these bloggers immensely and have learned quite a bit from them that I hope to synthesize into this blog. I do, however, see a void. My desire to institute a revenue sharing arrangement on TCF was the result of seeing a great opportunity to genuinely care, give back, and present something somewhat unique to the blogosphere. It is a Win-Win. I tend to believe that the reason that others haven’t instituted such an arrangement is simply because of the sheer execution and management difficulty, as well as the fact that success will require a huge amount of continually sustained momentum.
I just knew I was onto something. I am up for the challenge….
My income reports won’t contain exaggerated figures, or 6-figure Google Adsense checks. You may see my earnings, realize how miniscule they are in comparison to those 5-figure-a-month earners and vow to never return. I understand. Rest assured, these earnings don’t adequately reflect the long term tactical positioning I have been establishing. Never one to make excuses, my earning’s aren’t nearly as high as other guru’s earnings because of a few intentionally self-imposed choices I had made.
But, isn’t the ultimate goal to make as much money off of people, in the shortest time possible? hm….
Thinking tactically, like a skilled tactician, doesn’t just take into account the passivity of income, but, it also considers thorough analysis of trends and tactical brand positioning for longterm success. Much like the careful and deliberate planning and execution of the Tet Offensive, my experience online has been very similar.
Here is exactly why my earnings aren’t multiples of what they are in this income report. Please, take the time to read this. Embrace these points and you’ll understand why “Tactical CashFlow” was birthed.
- I work. Beginning in August 2010, until February 2011, I attended my basic U.S. Army Officer course, which consisted of early mornings and late nights. Much of my online endeavors were pursued with a pen, and a notebook, in my car during breaks between training events. For as much as I love doing what I do online, I am not pursuing my online goals as a result of being unemployed. A warrior spirit can certainly emerge as the result of being job-less and feeling as if you have no other option but to earn online. My experience isn’t one about being unemployed, but, rather about the tactical steps I took to earn online while having a job. What I do is something that everyone, whether you have a job or you are unemployed, can do.
- Bombarded by countless emails from people who had wanted my InfoBarrel Success Course, but were unable to pay for it because of economic conditions, I gave close to 200 copies away for free. In my first month of selling it, I reduced the price to an unreasonably low $10. Because of feeling deep empathy for people, as well as, our need to test different price points anyway, Jason and I intentionally sold our course for next to nothing. In this sense, our strategy and tactics had shifted to simply hoping to help others by forming longterm relationships, despite there being little (immediate) upside return for us in a business sense.
- To complicate matters, my course was written after a monumental amount of research was conducted into various Web 2.0 revenue sharing websites online. As some of the highest ranked websites in the world, with hundreds of thousands of members and search engine authority that results in millions of daily unique visitors (seriously….), it became my goal to deconstruct the business models of up to 18 of these similar website platforms. Not only did I want to find the best website to write for for myself, but I had also wanted to be a good steward of other’s time by providing unbiased, 3rd-party, research into such website elements as: monetization methods and strategies, website functionality, ownership, revenue sharing arrangement allocation, and core business practices. At the top of the search engine world, was/is currently (at the time of this writing) a website called eHow. With mass article deletions, and a series of what many had considered to be severely morally and ethically compromised decisions, I began to also take notice of an exodus of writers from that particular platform. Intricately embedded into controversy, this, I had thought would be the perfect time to release my InfoBarrel Success Course. My earnings are not nearly what they could be simply because Jason and I made the joint decision to give our course to many of these people for free.
We had violated the number #1 rule in business: Don’t let emotion get in the way of business decisions. We did. We didn’t care. It was the right thing to do.
- Because of my research, I have had a noticeably borderline infatuation with InfoBarrel (but, for good reason). In order to share my discoveries with the world, I began to feed many bloggers detailed documents I had written, as well as images, and many began to see what I was seeing. They began to post about InfoBarrel here, here, and here, just to name a few. My relentless promotion of InfoBarrel came as a direct result of being just a tad bit self-centered: For a very long time, I had really wanted a website to emerge that prided itself on transparency, as well as, operating with fundamental ethics in how it generally conducts business. I had wanted to be heard, and I wanted a website whose ownership actually listened and displayed traits deserving of being a top-ranked website in the world. Fortunately, I was able to tactically align my personal goals with the strong desire to helps others realize what I had been seeing online for so long.
- In anticipation of the mounting search engine authority that I expect InfoBarrel to achieve, many many of my 364 articles (currently) were written with “short-tail” keywords: knowing full well that they would earn little to nothing now. Online, you will hear quite a bit of talk about the importance of using “long-tail” keywords. This is because, outside of expending a significant amount of monetary resources, it is extremely difficult for everyday people, like you and I, to even compete for those words. Corporations and large scale businesses have the manpower and resources, that everyday people just don’t have, to essentially stake perpetual claim over those keywords. Instead, over time and with a little backlink construction, in relation to InfoBarrel’s growth, I truly believe that my articles will naturally be able to outrank the content of elite websites online.
I strongly believe that the sweat equity I have tactically applied to my online endeavors, in accordance with mounting search engine authority, will naturally grow my content to at least $2,000-$3,000/month (even had I not done a single thing from this day on).
Such articles include:
- http://www.infobarrel.com/people — This article was the first in a long series of “short tail” InfoBarrel articles that I wrote after discovering that InfoBarrel was openly offering these titles to be written. Acceptance of these articles underwent a more stringent review process, however, it was necessary for InfoBarrel to begin filling their database with them. Currently, this article is ranked on Page 11 in Google. At the time of this writing, a Google query for “People” return 5,410,000,000 (yes, billion) results. The very placement of this article, in itself, embodies the presence of that tactical nature of online endeavors: while this article earns very little now, if/when I get it on the first page of Google search results, I will be able to retire off the income generated.
- http://www.infobarrel.com/Actors
- http://www.infobarrel.com/First_Aid
- http://www.infobarrel.com/Aerobic_Exercise
- http://www.infobarrel.com/Military_Ribbons
- http://www.infobarrel.com/Military_Medals
- http://www.infobarrel.com/Beverages
- (See More….)
Some of these articles earn a little money each month, while others don’t earn a dime…yet.
The “Tactical” nature of this blog and my approach takes into account the injection of elements of patience, restraint, partnerships, maneuver, surprise, as well as, a few other militaristic elements that are required to gain a decisive advantage over opponents. As InfoBarrel continues to gain tremendous search engine authority, you will find that those previous articles, that I have sewn into the InfoBarrel platform, will really begin to rank high (and earn quite a bit) over time.
I encourage you to approach some of the foremost SEO authorities online today and ask them what they think. While some will urge you to completely avoid websites like InfoBarrel, even as such a young website with only a fraction of the search engine authority as many elite players online, writers are already beginning to earn quite significant amounts (It’s pretty awesome that every single one of these people have read my InfoBarrel Success Course!).
(NOTE: I have been working on this post for the last 3-4 days. Since this is my first time doing an income report, I really value any feedback you can give! I have yet to complete this post, but I will! Please let me know in the comment’s section here if there is any particular information that you want me to include and/or expand upon. I am still working hard at reviewing past transactions and analyze things I did (and, wish I would/wouldn’t have done) so as to provide you with the best possible lessons learned. Stay tuned!)
Income Breakdown for 2010
January 2010
Squidoo: $22.11
Gross Total: $22.11
February 2010
Squidoo: $24.62
Expenditures:
PayPal Payments Pro: -$30.00
March 2010
Income Sources
Squidoo: $33.01
Expenditures
PayPal Payments Pro: -$30.00
April 2010
Income Sources
Squidoo: $13.47
InfoBarrel Success Course:
(42 Sales)
–Gross: $993.90
–Net: $865.93
Expenditures
PayPal Payments Pro: -$30.00 ($15/each)
e-Junkie: -$5.00 ($2.50/each)
Warrior Forum Membership: $37.00 ($18.50/each)
Warrior Forum WSO Bump(s): -$20.00 x 20 = $400
Lessons Learned:
- The Warrior Forum can be a great place to launch and test a product. Upon reflection, I would encourage others to be cautious about just how much they spend to “bump” their WSO (Warrior Special Offer) threads. We spent quite a bit, and it all probably wasn’t necessary. We had wanted, however, to gain our WSO as much exposure and feedback as possible. Reviews and testimonials are essentially the “social proof” and driving force behind WSO success, as it is very difficult for one to architect their sales copy in such a way that it stands on its own (without any kind of ‘social proof’). Since we did this, the WSO “bump” price has since gone up to $40, per “bump”. A Warrior Forum membership is also required in order to do this, which would require a total investment of $77 in order to launch a product on Warrior Forum.
- Succeeding with a WSO takes thick skin. With 200,000+ worldwide members, you’ll find an assortment of membership there ranging from those who frequently contribute and help others to those who resort to extreme levels of shadiness. Both types of members should be expected. Some will want your product, will purchase it, and immediately upon download will ask for a refund or file a dispute with Paypal (no matter how much work or effort went into your WSO). Digital products inherently lend for this possibility. Be firm and decisive and believe in yourself and your product.
May 2010
Squidoo: $8.84
Chitika: $10.54
InfoBarrel Success Course:
( 20 Sales)
–Gross: $1,034.95
–Net: $981.23
Expenditures
PayPal Payments Pro: -$30.00 ($15/each)
e-Junkie: -$10.00 ($5.00/each)
Warrior Forum WSO Bump(s): -$20.00 x 8 = $160
June 2010
Income Sources
Squidoo: $8.88
InfoBarrel Success Course:
(20 Sales)
–Gross: $780.85
–Net: $750.98
Expenditures
PayPal Payments Pro: -$30.00 ($15/each)
e-Junkie: -$10.00 ($5.00/each)
Warrior Forum WSO Bump(s): -$20.00 x 0 = $0
April 2010
Income Sources
(MORE COMING SOON!)
Overall Reader Revenue Share
Amazon: $0
Barnes and Noble: $0
Borders: $0
Overstock: $0
PayPal Donate Button: $0
Awesome post, Howie. As an InfoBarrel writer, I know I speak for many when I say that I appreciate the dedication you’ve put toward promoting InfoBarrel and getting it onto people’s radar.
It’s contagious too – I still continue to promote InfoBarrel on a monthly basis, and it’s still the primary revenue-sharing site where I publish articles.
Keep it up, buddy. Looking forward to the future of TCF as well.
As always, thanks alot for the comment, Eric! It’s been great to see others really catch on to InfoBarrel. I know I’ve promoted it to the point of annoyance at times, however, I’m really passionate about my research….as well as, showing others an emerging site that operates under transparent revenue share and ethical business practices.
I’ve taken alot of heat for my views, unfortunately. My heart really goes out to users of ‘other’ sites, that invested a significant amount of time in writing and providing content, only to realize harsh realities existed. I really want to show people an alternative….and, based on what I’ve seen with InfoBarrel, I really predict it’ll be a top ranked website in the world one day.
People are already earning quite a bit there, and its still a relatively young site. That speaks volumes to its earning’s potential over time.
I’m keeping tabs on my4hrworkweek, as well! It has sure come a long way since I first began reading it. Great job, man! – Howie
Great post Howie, very detailed. I’m curious about your revenue sharing concept in terms of sharing revenue with your readers, and wondering just how that will work out both in theory and practice (as they may be two different things). Nice work!
Hey Erik! Integrating a revenue sharing arrangement into TCF is something I’m very passionate about. At it’s core, one reason I believe that other bloggers just simply don’t do this is because, I’m quickly finding out, is that it is extremely difficult to plan and execute this.
I’m always up for a challenge though….
If you go 2 or 3 posts back, you can see where I elaborate a bit on the revenue sharing arrangement. For all the monthly income reports that I read, I rarely see bloggers allocate a % of their earnings to their readers, in this manner. Outside of the occasional book given away in order to help further market and promote a brand, I actually see very little given to readers beyond the value inherent to the content. (Even then, things are typically being sold)
Another reason for this arrangement came about after thoroughly studying the income reports of other bloggers. Not only do the chosen retailers fall in line with my own personal story of spending hours at bookstores and purchasing $100′s of dollars worth of books, but they also have very loyal customer bases, and the propensity of people to purchase through, say Amazon, is really quite high.
Everything is coming along, but, I am also really trying my hardest to best structure and articulate this arrangement. Knowing quite a bit about products that will be necessary for new-comers to purchase in order to even set up a blog,I believe that this revenue sharing arrangement can provide 10-20 (and, hopefully this will grow) with at least enough to offset up to $50-$100 in necessary expenditures each month.
That’s what I’d like to see TCF be able to do.
Thoughts?
Great post Howie! I really applaud your efforts to develop a new methodology of revenue share, it’s interesting – informative and educational as well!
I think the days of websites being filled with content from their user base for free are (gradually) coming to an end. In the early days, you wrote for an article site – they collected all the revenue and your “compensation” was a couple of links.
This became the standard and almost every variant there-after did the same thing (kept 100% of the revenue but compensated with links, profiles, etc.).
Eventually someone came along and started one that for all intents and purposes worked like all the others, but low and behold they shared the revenue they received from the site with those who contributed and wow – what a change!
While some of the giants are holding out (like ezine), many of the others have adjusted their model to follow suit because the contributorship was bailing like rats on a sinking ship.
The giants better beware though (imho) – you don’t have to look far (aka – Blockbuster and Netflix) to see how even a giant (Blockbuster) can tumble when they are resistant to see and accept a new/better way of doing things (Netflix).
This got me to thinking and looking around the web – what other user contributed sites are out there that are still stuck in the “we keep all the revenue” mode as these are ripe for a competitor to come along and do the same thing with a revenue-share profile.
There are actually several if you look around and it boggles my mind that they don’t have any (that I could easily find) revenue-sharing competition!
I think you’re definitely on the right track and I look forward to following your progress and learning from you along the way! Thanks Howie!
Kevin
Thanks alot for sticking around to see it all unfold, Kevin! (Despite how long winded I can get with my posts sometimes…lol…I have alot of “ideas”, but I’m still definitely learning how to best portray it on a blog)…
I do think that as the internet continues to evolve, that people are becoming keen to just how much money Web 2.0 sites (and blogs too) are earning off of content that those users, themselves, provide….up until now, they’ve received little to no compensation. In the arena of blogging, have you come across any blogs that attempt to share revenue Kevin? I have a list of about 50-100 of them, and none of them do. Not sharing revenue has pretty much become a bit of a norm…bloggers just don’t do it, for one reason or another. I’ll admit that executing it, and best articulating it, has been very very difficult…which, like I had said, could be exactly why people just don’t do it. Many would contend that bloggers provide a ton of “value” already through their posts, and paid content. I just think more could be given. See…see how you clearly took a bit of your own time to write that post for my blog? Way back when, I remember spending hours providing high quality comments…which are essentially “content”…nowadays, though, with so many things vying for our limited attention, I do think it’s becoming imperative to begin truly caring about people, being good stewards of their time, and incentivizing behavior.
We will see where this goes. Tactically, I already have quite a few posts written, that will be dripped to other high authority blogs in order to start getting word out about TCF….when the blog is ready to handle a load of new users coming to it. I’d like to have several pillar posts here written before I begin driving serious traffic this way. Thanks for hanging out and watching this all unfold, Kevin!
Howie – Holly Cow! That was such an informative/tactical breakdown. I’m curious…how did that take you to put together. Would have taken me an entire day! I can sense your passion for what you are writing about so I’m sure it wasn’t a chore for you.
I’m interested as heck to learn more about infobarrel. I’ll have to look into it.
I make nada on my blog – zip zero – but it’s not monetized at all. One day maybe – but as of current, it’s just a resource and a place to hone my skills. HOWEVER, I don’t mention that to say that I’m not interested in what you’ve laid out here. I want to learn about tactical cashflow – for could possibly stir up some ideas for me to build up on.
Last note…
The way your tactfully broke down each point of why your income is the way it is was laid out well. I didn’t feel like you were making excuses one bit – more so providing your thoughts and reasons behind your results. Great stuff Howie.
I look forward to connecting again soon. PEACE
[...] would have been an impossibility for me to devout more time to my online endeavors. As mentioned in my first income report (sadly, an analysis of all months is still a work-in-progress) my online endeavors were pursued [...]
[...] isn’t quite where it will be. As you can see in my first income report, my earnings are intentionally low because I’ve been setting myself up ‘tactically’ to compete with short tail keywords (as opposed to long tail [...]
[...] be inundated by spectacular earnings at least right now, there really is a logical method behind the tactical approach that I’ve taken to earning online. Rest assured, I’d be lying through my teeth if I [...]
If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information?
This is the type of material that really should gain worldwide recognition pertaining to its workmanship.