Moving Forward

As I was checking out my stats for the month of August so far, I realized just how much time I spent writing for direct pay sites/clients versus my own sites/revenue sites. Before I get into that, let me give you a little run down of what I was trying to do and how I ended up spending an hour making calculations & catching up my spreadsheets.

I recently posted about earning a full passive income from my own blogs and sites. Today, I had some time to kill so I decided to calculate the percentage of increase or decrease my sites were averaging. When I entered last weeks daily income amounts, I didn't like the way things were looking and I decided I had to dig further. I needed to know exactly where I stood so I could put my plan into action. I am determined to receive all of my income from revenue, specifically my own sites.

I use the income spreadsheet from No Job For Mom, but I tailored it to fit my needs. Here are my total earnings for the month of August.
 

	Residential Income	Direct Pay	TOTAL
August-11	$  778.81	$   950.50	$ 1,729.31

This means passive income was only 45% of my total income. Not too bad considering my totals at the end of 2010 showed only around 20% of my income was revenue.  But then, I asked myself how much of that was from my own sites? It ended up being a tiny, barely there 7%. I realized what a lonnnnnng way I had to go. Here's the breakdown:

August	Google Adsense	Suite101	Amazon Associates	Info Links
	$     21.33	$     94.27	$       7.17	$     26.02
Print &eBook Revenue	Examiner	Guest Blog Posts	Associated Content	Direct Pay
$    429.33	$     18.80	$     99.99	$     81.90	$    950.50

Google AdSense, Amazon Associates and Info Links are the residential outlets for all four of my sites which comes to a total of $54.51, of which $12.22 belongs to my sub domain at HubPages. I include my HubPage earnings with my own blogs because the AdSense, Amazon, etc on my sub domain there is directly reported to my accounts at the revenye outlets.

The figures do not lie. 55% of my monthly income comes from direct pay opportunities. The problem is I need the direct income to support my family. Right now, I cannot drop my active income sources. Baby steps is the key to change. Jumping into something head first usually leaves you with a painful knot! I knew what changes I wanted to make so I mapped out a game plan and a time frame. If I do not reach my goals in the time I set for myself, I will be confident in knowing that I am actively working toward them, getting closer day by day.

I am a 'write what you know' kind of writer. Whether I am writing for direct or residential pay, 99% of the time it is about the same 5 or 6 topics that I am passionate and knowledgeable of. Each of my four blogs covers these topics as well. By keeping my writing focused on just a handful of topics, I gain a broader knowledge of the subjects which leads to more ideas which in turn leads to more articles. No matter what type of income I earn, these articles can be published at any of the sites a regularly contribute to.

I won't go into all the details right now. I am creating a spreadsheet to detail my goals and my plan of action. When the "100% Residential Income (from my own sites)" spreadsheet is complete, I will post it and explain. Do you keep spreadsheets of daily, monthly or yearly totals? Do you add all of your income together or do you keep them separate and calculate percentages?