The editorial business is starting to make up for the money lost in the publishing enterprise.
The Copyeditor’s Desk, surprisingly, is not flat broke yet. I figured that if the many books we’ve published didn’t sell, the bank balance would reach $0.00 along about March 31. That hasn’t happened (mirabilis!), though it’s at about half of where it was when I decided to take a cruise down the Amazon.
It was a calculated risk. Really, I’m surprised I’m not flat broke. Last month Amazon sold one (1) of our amazing books. We sell more when I advertise the erotica at a website frequented by people who like erotic romance, but not enough to cover the cost of the ads. Fire-Rider has 5-star ratings but no one has bought it in months. The cookbook has sold one (1) copy on Amazon since it came out.
Meanwhile, though… The Copyeditor’s Desk has billed $1047 in the past ten days. It has another $2200 pending from academic institutions, traditionally slow to pay, for a total of $3247 earned over the past month.
About $2,800 worth of work is in house, in the “unhatched eggs” category.
Since I only need to draw down about $1320 a month ($1100 + $220 in taxes) to replace my piddling teaching income, this is good news.
Last night I calculated what I would need to pay myself a salary and cover all the business’s overhead, not counting occasional computer purchases. It looks like this:
So, about $1600 a month to cover ordinary expenses. That comes to about $19,390 a year, total gross income needed to pay me and cover overhead.
If I could earn that much, I could keep the wolf from the door. Not exactly a living wage, is it?
If I made $3200 a month consistently, the result would be $38,400 a year. Then I could afford a cell phone! 🙂 Wouldn’t that be nice?
The truth is, I don’t especially want to make that much. The amount of work I’ve done over the past few weeks has been pretty crushing: starting around 5:30 or 6 in the morning and working through, most days, until 8:30 or 9:30 at night. I’m not getting any exercise; I’m lucky if I get the dogs out for a walk every other day; and I’m wearing off my nose at the grindstone. I’d rather have a life than $38,000 a year.
But I sure as heck could do with enough to replace the piddly adjunct teaching.
I have this tab open and my other tab is Robert at The College Investor bragging about how he made $11k selling a blog that he never even really put much focus into. Some people make it look way too easy, I tell you.
Y’know, that may be so. But I no longer buy those stories lock, stock, & barrel. Everybody told us how rich were were gonna get with AdSense. How rich we were gonna get with Amazon Affiliates. I made a grand total of less than ten bucks in all the years I hustled products for Amazon. And AdSense? What a joke!
The only riches-from-the-Internet story that’s even faintly credible is Budgeting in the Fun Stuff’s. But you’ll notice that she works like a horse. She and her husband both cobble together their income from a variety of income streams, some of which, like the rental properties, COST them to the extent that they have to work that much the harder to maintain their investment in them.
That’s awesome for younger folks…but me, I just don’t want to work that hard anymore…5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. is a long enough workday.
Anybody that says the rental biz is easy….don’t know what they are talking about. Aaaand there are PLENTY of folks explaining how “easy” it is and how wealthy they are….Baloney….I have always wondered how folks “monetize” their blogs. To me anyway, it seems to do it right, one has to put a bunch of time in researching and constantly coming up with new ideas. And putting up with the “knuckleheads” and “haters” is just a bonus. As they say…..SHOW ME THE MONEY…..
Well, we know some people have succeeded in making a PF blog make money. Trent Hamm apparently did, with A Simple Dollar, which he sold some time back. And J.D. Roth’s Get Rich Slowly is now a going enterprise. Both those guys were techie to start with, and both of them sold the sites when they were making money. Additionally, J.D. was an exceptionally good writer — his posts were always interesting and well written.
Some of these sites have sold for over a million dollars: http://www.doughroller.net/make-money/list-of-personal-finance-blogs-that-have-sold-for-1-million-or-more/
Here’s an interesting story — by the man himself — about Get Rich Slowly and his decision to sell it: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/01/31/how-and-why-i-sold-get-rich-slowly/ And more on the subject here: http://www.oregonlive.com/finance/index.ssf/2012/01/get_rich_slowly_founder_jd_rot.html
Crystal Stemberger escaped a miserable job by parleying Budgeting in the Fun Stuff with several other side gigs to create a more than decent f/t income: enough that her husband could join her in self-employment.
But the fact is, none of these folks let any grass grow under their feet.
I, on the other hand, am not techie, not young, and I don’t want to work that hard. Like JD, I found myself feeling burnt out on personal finance as a subject: there are only so many ways you can say “get some training, get a job, get a side hustle, live below your means, pay off all your debt, and save every penny you can.” Instead of selling FaM — was probably a salable commodity at the time it was among the top 100 PF blogs in the English language — I drifted into writing about whatever the hell I feel like writing about. That would be is mostly lifestyle stuff, my little business enterprises, and the passing scene. I think of myself as Herb Caen trapped in a Monty Python Show. Or maybe a Kurt Vonnegut novel. 😉
I’m with you Jack and Funny. People almost always inflate the good parts of their lives and play down the difficult. I take, with a sack of salt, all claims of great riches and fantastic relationships.
I’d rather have a life than a huge income, too. I’d also like to be given the opportunity to prove that making a lot of money WOULDN’T change me. 😉
LOL! Now there’s a thought!