Disclosure: OneHourProfessor is reader-supported. When you buy through links on my site, I may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

October was one of the most EXPENSIVE months I’ve ever had.

Why?

I hired a bunch of video editors and transcribers to help me finish up my new course and the good news is, I was able to get it done!  Not only that, but I also created a FREE Mini Course called Authority Website Basics.  All in all, an incredibly expensive, but productive month.

Before I begin the income report, if this is your first time on my website let me explain why I write a detailed income report each month that outlines the money I made (or lost) and the time I spent working each month.

I’m doing this for a number of reasons:

1) I strive to be transparent about what it takes to make money online. Unfortunately the “make money online” industry is full of scammers that make ridiculous promises like “Work 10 minutes and make $5,000!” The reality couldn’t be further from the truth, this online business gig is a lot of hard work and these reports show you how much time I put into my business and how much income I make from that effort.

Bottom of Form

2) These reports help me keep track of my own progress. By creating these reports every month, I’m able to see where I’m spending money and how much time I’m spending doing various tasks.

3) These reports hold me accountable. Each month I list goals I have for the following month and my hope is that my audience will hold me accountable.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s dive into the report.

How much time did I work this month?

PRODUCT OR SERVICEREVENUEEXPENSESNET INCOME
Legal Match$2.50$2.50
Shutterstock$7.64$7.64
Google Adsense$32.01$32.01
YouTube Channel$40.65$40.65
Udemy Course Sales$49.50$49.50
Bluehost$65.00$65.00
Indeed.com$75.71$75.71
Consulting$760.50$760.50
Aweber Email Platform$14.40$29.00
Hostgator | Tutorial$9.95-$9.95
Hootsuite Social Media Platform | Tutorial$10.00-$10.00
Call Rail$35.74-$35.74
Ahrefs$79.00-$79.00
Upwork.com (Formerly Elance)$1431.68-$1431.68
TOTALS$1047.91$1595.37-$547.46

Discussing this month’s time worked

My focus this month was to make sure that I got my entire authority website course created. To be honest with you, I’m surprised I was able to pull it off. I worked a ridiculous amount of hours on the course and also built out a full sales funnel which I’m still waiting to see the results on.

Below is where I spent my time this month.

BLOG – Stop Learning:  In October I was able to write about a personal struggle that I was having while trying to build my own online businesses. Simply put, I spent a bunch of time learning and not enough time doing. This blog post explains something that every aspiring entrepreneur needs to learn.

BLOG -Why my Email List Sucks:  If I could sum up this post, I’d say “It’s not you, it’s me”. Though I have a large email list on OneHourProfessor.com, I’ve come to realize that it isn’t the best list I could build and in this blog post I explained what I did to make that happen and why it’s my fault.

BLOG: September 2015 Income Report: As always, I reviewed my income from September and it was definitely a good month.

Facebook Twitter | YouTube | Google +:  Next we had the typical social media account which is never a large amount of time. I tried to better track my social media usage in October and was able to do so. I knew that I was underestimating a little bit, so now this figure is realistic.

Website 1:  I was able to cut down the amount of hours that I worked on Website 1 this month substantially. In total, I worked 12 hours myself and most of that was concentrated on proofreading guest blog posts and sending out weekly emails, but I also had a professional voiceover read my entire free guide as an audiobook.

I’m not sure how this is going to work out, but I previously asked my email list on that website if they’d purchase a audiobook if I made one and over 30% of them said yes. Originally I was going to sell the audiobook for $10, but I’ve opted instead to go with a “pay what you want” model.

I’m requesting that people pay $20 for their copy of the audio book, but letting them pay as low as $1.  I read a lot of case studies that have said you tend to make more money when you have a low-price product and use the “pay what you want” model.

I send the email out tomorrow announcing the audiobook, so we will see how it goes.

COURSE: Building a Successful Authority Website:  I spent an obscene amount of time working on my new course in October. Beyond the actual full course, I also created a mini course and added everything on Udemy as well.

I have to be honest with you when I say that I never knew how much work went into building a sales funnel.  The majority of the time that I spent working this month was on that sales funnel and making sure that my messaging in the emails made sense.

We’ll see how successful it is, but hopefully I have a lot of income to report for November.

By the way, if you are interested in check out the FREE mini course, click here.  I’ve had 4 reviews on it so far and every one of them is 5/5 stars!

General Website Maintenance:   As always, I had some General website maintenance items related to responding to comments and fixing a few tweaks here and there for the new authority website.

How did the income report turn out this month?

PRODUCT OR SERVICEREVENUEEXPENSESNET INCOME
Legal Match$2.50$2.50
Shutterstock$7.64$7.64
Google Adsense$32.01$32.01
YouTube Channel$40.65$40.65
Udemy Course Sales$49.50$49.50
Bluehost$65.00$65.00
Indeed.com$75.71$75.71
Consulting$760.50$760.50
Aweber Email Platform$14.40$29.00
Hostgator | Tutorial$9.95-$9.95
Hootsuite Social Media Platform | Tutorial$10.00-$10.00
Call Rail$35.74-$35.74
Ahrefs$79.00-$79.00
Upwork.com (Formerly Elance)$1431.68-$1431.68
TOTALS$1047.91$1595.37-$547.46
Income By ChannelConsultingOHP WebsiteWebsite 1YouTubeUdemy
October 2015$760.50$89.54$107.72$40.65$49.50
September 2015$1112.32$113.10$102.95$27.46$17.49
August 2015$1463.75$51.75$39.68$25.09$12.05
TOTAL$3336.57$254.39$250.35$93.20$79.04

Discussing this month’s income

Overall, my income this month was pretty solid. Though my consulting and OneHourProfessor.com income dropped, all of my other passive income channels increased and I was happy to see it.

Here’s how I made my money this month:

Legal Match: This is the service that connects people with lawyers for free. As of now this comes from one blog post I created but I have also included this on my authority website as a resource as well.

Shutterstock: It looks like I got another sale from my affiliate partnership with Shutterstock.  I still prefer to use them for all of my paid image needs if you want some good images for a low price.

Google Adsense: My revenue here continues to grow just as my Authority Website does.  Though I don’t think this will ever be a huge contributor to my income, it’s good to see that I’m able to keep making extra money in this channel.

YouTube Channel: I saw a really nice increase in my YouTube earnings this month and that’s because I’ve added a few new videos. I plan on continually growing out my channel any time I get a chance because it seems like many of the videos that I post easily rank within the top five search results on YouTube.  I have no idea why that is, but I’m happy about it!

Udemy: It was cool to see my Udemy earnings more than double this month. I’m hoping that this trend continues, but truly have no idea how much money I’ll end up making from this platform on a month-to-month basis.

Bluehost:  I had another person create a website this month and I’m always happy to see when these commissions come in because it means I’ve inspired somebody out there to finally create something.

Indeed.com: My income from Indeed dropped a little bit this month which was a huge surprise. But that’s okay, now that I’m getting around 300 people per day to the authority website I’m pretty sure this month it will increase.

Consulting: My old company asked for some help with a project that they’re working on so that should give me a little bit of extra cash this month, but nothing substantial.

Aweber: I am not sure if you realize this, but AWeber has recently launched a campaign option that will make it rival the much more expensive and more powerful email solutions out there. I’m excited to see if I get more people signing up using the service because they’re really focused on making it better now.

Discussing this month’s expenses

Expenses this month were really high, but I’m okay with that because I have a lot of things to show for it.

Aweber: Even though I made money with this platform, I still have my monthly fee that I have to pay.

Hostgator: This is my recurring hosting fee.

Hootsuite: Everyone talks about social media and how important it is, but have you taken the time to look in your analytics to see how many email sign-ups or purchases social media is accounting for? In most cases, the answer is none. This is why I use HootSuite.  At $10 a month and auto scheduling my posts, it’s well worth it.  Here’s a video showing my strategy.

Call Rail: This is the platform that I’ve been using to record my client calls for my paid search consulting gigs.

Ahrefs: The cost of this and link building activities is just a little too much without enough return right now.  I have cancelled this service for November and will get it again when it is necessary.

Upwork.com:  This is the most I’ve ever spent on freelancers in any given month. As brutal as it is to know that I spent $1500 on freelancers, I also know that the time was well worth it and I’m really hoping that I can recoup these expenses with my new course and the audiobook that I’m launching.

Did I Meet my Goals for October?

1) Finish my Authority Website Course

I’m working hard on it, but by the end of the month I want to be DONE with my authority website course.  I am 100% certain I can do this, just can’t get sidetracked.

DONE and I’ve gotten OUTSTANDING reviews from it so far.  I’m psyched about this one, I think it’s a winner!

2) Finish my Authority Website mini course

Everyone keeps talking about how effective mini courses are to drive students into a flagship course.  Well, I have decided to make one.  While some of the content will be pulled directly from my full course, I think this is the right opt-in to offer people now that I have successfully built my authority website.

DONE and I have gotten some unexpected positive reviews here as well.

3) Find ways to increase passive income

Whether it be creating some YouTube videos, selling more of my current courses, or coming out with a new product quickly, I want to find ways to increase my passive income as well.

DONE.  Aside from Indeed, my income basically increased across all passive income channels.

Goals for November:

1) Reduce Costs:  Not much to say here except that I have to reduce the amount of money I have been spending.  It’s all because of the course and the audiobook, but I can’t keep funding this stuff if it doesn’t pay off.  So this month I am aiming to reduce my costs.

2) Redesign OneHourProfessor.com (Depending on Course Sales)

I’ve been kicking around a website redesign for awhile, and if the course sales go well enough that I am totally fine with actually doing it.  You see, thus far OHP has been a model based on affiliate marketing and for whatever reason, I can’t seem to get that tactic right.  SO now, I want to make a shift and concentrate on selling my own courses/products because I sincerely think that I have a real talent for teaching people.

3) Guest blog posts (Depending on Course Sales)

As long as I make a decent amount of course sales, I am going to go through with a handful of guest posts that I’ve been holding off on.

To sum everything up, I have a LOT riding on this course and even though I have gotten outstanding reviews so far, you just never know how much of that will equate to real sales.  If you’re on the fence, please join the mini course to get a preview of what it’s all about.

What are your goals for the month?  What questions do you have?  Let me know in the comments below!

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}
>