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August 2018 Income Report

Welcome to my very first income report!

Originally, I planned to do my first income report later this year, probably either in September or October. But since I have been tracking the income I earned last month, I figured, why not start with the August 2018 Income Report? And sure, I didn’t meet my goal of earning $47 a day, but I still made a little bit of money. Not a lot, but enough for a couple cups of coffee, if I were still drinking coffee.

The August 2018 Income Report is the benchmark that I will be measuring future income reports on. One day, it’ll be nice to look back on this post and see how far I’ve come.

So, let’s break it down.

During The 31 Days Of August, I Earned $11.61 in Completely Passive Income

Where did this income come from?

Two sources. A majority of my income came from the writing prompt ebooks I have for sale on TheFakeRedhead.com. That’s my creative writing website, where I post writing tips and writing prompts for creatives, usually novelists. I’ve had the ebooks up for a while, but haven’t made a lot of attempts to actively promote them.

The rest of the passive income came from Google Adsense.

Here’s where I think the numbers get interesting. With only two sales on TheFakeRedhead.com, I made $7.96, which means I only made $3.65 all last month from Adsense.

August 2018 Income Report: What I Learned About Passive Income

It’s clear with the traffic I have that Adsense is not going to make me my zillions (at least, not yet). I knew that going into it. If you don’t already know that you really do need an absurd amount of traffic to make an entire living of Adsense, you do now.  That’s not feasible for 99% of bloggers. Worry not, there are a ton of smarter ways to go about generating passive income. And this website ALL about working smarter, not harder.

One of the ways to do that is by focusing on selling my ebooks. Not only that, but looking at my Google Analytics traffic report, I can see that most of the people who come to TheFakeRedhead.com are new visitors. So, I need to find a way to really target those new visitors toward my ebooks. Google Analytics and the importance of monitoring your traffic is something I will cover in a future post.

Passive Income Plans

I spent the long Labor Day Weekend focusing on ways to improve the sales of my current ebooks for sale on TheFakeRedhead.com. Not only did I give the ebooks a refresh (and raise the prices), but I also am taking advantage of the flexibility I get with my theme, Divi, from Elegant Themes, to put those front and center on the pages of that website that get the most traffic.

The other thing I’m going to do is really do better at promoting those ebooks through my Pinterest account. Pinterest is a critical factor toward the amount of traffic I get to TheFakeRedhead.com, and once I really establish the Pinterest account that leads to QuestFor47.com, I know that it will be a critical factor toward getting eyes on this website too. If you don’t know my now that Pinterest is the best way to get free traffic to your website, you do now!

Along with working hard to get this website off the ground, I also did a lot of personal investment. I worked through an online course that I will talk about in an upcoming review, and have also purchased what I know is going to be a home run of an online course that will really get my business up and running. This is what is going to take this website, and my business, to the next level. It’s going to get me from not reaching my goal of $47 a day to reaching that and beyond. More to come.

If you’re on the fence about online courses, remember what I said in 8 Keys To A Successful Side Hustle: you must always be prepared to learn. Side hustles take time, take effort, and take an open-mindedness to understand that you do not know everything. Be prepared to learn and to invest in learning.

What I Posted In August

I posted a lot in August, because during this soft-launch phase, I know that getting content up is very, very important. As I’ve mentioned, you should have between 15-20 posts on your website before you launch. You want to take  the best advantage you can when you launch. That means creating enough content to keep your new readers around. You want them to both stay AND come back whenever you put up a new post. And to get them coming back, you need to make sure you have them sign up for your email list. If you haven’t already signed up for mine, you can do so by clicking here.

The August posts include:

Start Here: Introducing My Passive Income Journey To $47 A Day
Passive Income Goals – Six Questions You Must Answer
Start Your Side Hustle In Five Easy Steps
Hosting Your Hustle – Why I Use Siteground To Host My Websites (And You Should Too!)
8 Keys To A Successful Side Hustle
3 Things To Do Before Launching Your Side Hustle
5 Ways To Maintain Your Side Hustle
Required Reading for Entrepreneurs – Why Dan Lok’s F.U. Money Is A Must-Read

Inspiration From Required Reading


Last month, I read (and reviewed) Dan Lok’s F.U. Money for Required Reading for Entrepreneurs. This book was incredibly transformative for my moneymaking mindset. It helped me think of a lot of things very differently. The link to that review is in the section above and I highly recommend that everyone picks up a copy.  In Chapter 17: The Power of Setting D.I.G., Lok writes about not just setting a Daily Income Goal, but also having that daily target front and center, in a place you’ll look at every day. And guys, his D.I.G. is mind.blowing!

While I do have an Excel spreadsheet that I use to track my earnings, I also bought a giant, stick-on wall calendar that’s now hanging above my couch. I need my goals to be out there and for me to see each and every day, and while the Excel spreadsheet is great, I can minimize and forget it. But I can’t avoid looking at a giant calendar on my living room wall.

August 2018 Income Report Wall Calendar on Quest for $47

My motivational calendar hanging above my couch, accompanied by my budding Build-A-Bear collection!

I got my calendar from Amazon, the Whiteboard Restickable Dry Erase Monthly Scheduling Calendar for Wall 24 x 36. I really like this one because it has a completely adhesive back, and once it sticks, it doesn’t move. Not only that, but the calendar is large enough that there is plenty of room for me to write in my passive income goals, so I can really see how much I made.

The calendar comes rolled up the box, so I left it on the floor and weighted by some books for a few days to flatten out. With how sticky the backing is, I don’t think I needed to, but I figured I might as well make sure it’s not going to fall off the wall and terrorize the cat. It comes with a dry-erase marker, but I threw box of colored markers in my shopping cart to mark up the page at the end of the month. You’ll see the result in the September 2018 Income Report.

Coming Up In Required Reading For Entrepreneurs

Later in September, I plan to write about my experience reading the book The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. It’s a quick read (only 91 pages), and I’m seven chapters in. This is definitely a book I could read in a day or two, but I’m taking it slow. And it’s written in a way that you should take your time. More on that in a couple weeks. Have you already read The Science of Getting Rich? Let me know in the comments what you thought of it.

More Goals For September

I’m not quite ready to full-on launch this website (if you’ve stumbled upon it so far, welcome, there’s more to come!) and most of it is related to getting more content up and posted. So for September, I’m going to try post the same number of posts that I had in August. I also am working a Facebook page and beefing up my Pinterest presence.

Upcoming posts include the Required Reading for Entrepreneurs review I mentioned above, a post on how it’s possible to both follow your passions AND make profits, and a comprehensive week in the life of a busy side hustler.

Me. The busy side hustler is me.

Additionally, I plan on posting reviews on two online courses that have helped me get this new website concept off the ground. I will also post about the hard truths of passive income, and what volleyball can teach you about blogging. Volleyball? Yes, volleyball.

Excited for my upcoming posts? Sign up for the email list to be the first to hear about the newest posts on QuestFor47.com.

Is there something you’d like to see me write about? A book you think I should feature in Required Reading for Entrepreneurs? Leave a comment below and tell me what you’re curious about.

Check Out My Other Income Reports

September 2018 – How I Earned $18.20
October 2018 – How I Earned $13.23
November 2018 – How I Earned $24.84
February 2019 – How I Earned $32.02

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