Every month I publish an income report…why? Good question

1. Accountability

With all the shiny objects out there it’s easy to spend WAY more than you’re earning. Luckily I realized this early on and I’ve kept detailed records of my expenses ever since. That being said, I know that there are certain expenses that are NECESSARY when running a business. As much as I don’t want to pay for them, I need to pay for my email autoresponder, website hosting, and iTunes hosting every month. It’s just a part of doing business. There are other things that I buy as well, but I try my best to keep my expenses SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than my revenue. If I can do that then I’m ahead of the game.

2. Integrity

On my show I ask my guests a lot of personal questions. One that frequently comes up is “How much do you make?”. I feel like I need to reveal my own income if I’m going to be asking others the same question. It only seems right.

3. Perspective

There are a lot of online marketers out there who fake-it-till-they-make-it. In other words, they fudge their numbers and exaggerate their earnings in order to establish false authority in their niche. My goal is that by watching my income grow slowly over time you’ll realize that there is no get-rich-quick button.

Here are my results for August:

Traffic/Audience

11,729  page views (+1,520  from July)

2,010  iTunes downloads (-138 from July)

6,860 Youtube channel views  (+263 from July)

51,921  minutes watched (+6,194 from July)

Aweber subscribers:  5,031 (+540 subscribers from July)

Twitter followers:  5,500(+95 followers from July)

Facebook Fans:  501(+20 from July)

Expenses

JV Gift Expense: $51.74

Libsyn: $75 – I host my podcast with this so I can put it on iTunes

Aweber: $49 – This is my list building software that allows me to email everyone when there’s a new interview

Hello Bar: $5

Skype: $10 for premium

Storm on Demand Liquid Web Hosting: $100

WuFoo Forms: $14.95

Parallels: $60 – I bought this so I could use Arbitrage Underdog on my Macbook Retina

Optimize Press 2.0: $197 – This is the new version of a theme for building sales pages, squeeze pages, and membership sites

Safe Swaps: $29.99 – A place to do ad swaps without having to worry about getting ripped-off (to an extent)

Jing: $9.95

Fiverr: $95 – This is where I get a lot of my work done very inexpensively

Vagex: $10 – A tool for increasing your Youtube video rankings

Facebook Ads: $17.03 – I did a couple of ads with Facebook

Offline Business Themes [VOL 5]: $27

Mobile Renegade: $37

Warrior Forum Ad: $5

Solo ads: $796.50

Total expenses: $1,590.16 (+$516.10 compared to July)

Revenue

Arbitrage Underdog: $428 from interview with Tom E and review

Lead Pages $197 from interview with Clay Collins

Click bank Atlas (CLOSED): $176.25 from interview with Wyatt Jozwowski

List Frenzy (CLOSED): $86.96  from interview with Andre Stoelinga and Daryl Austman

Simple Novice Profits (CLOSED): $85 from interview with Vinny Boccalino

Email Secret Weapon: $70.52 from interview with Matt Bacak

Instant Header Presence (CLOSED): $67.55 from interview with Bertrand Diouly

Keyword Cash Plugin: $67.50 from interview with Walt Bayliss

Reverse Blogging (CLOSED): $62.99 from interview with Mark Thompson

Affiliate Takeover (CLOSED): $53.88 from interview with Denis Balitskiy

The Money Tree (CLOSED): $50.47 from interview with Russ Ruffino

Image Snap (CLOSED): $46.97 from interview with Caleb Spilchen and Lina Trivedi

Covert Store Builder: $46.70 from interview with Cindy Battye

Video Curation Pro: $46.53 from interview with Peter Drew

MemberSonic Theme: $45 from interview with Andrew Hunter

Project X Tube (CLOSED): $35.84  from interview with Cliff Carrigan

Plagiarism Avenger (CLOSED): $32 from interview with Neil Napier

Video Promo Cash (CLOSED): $28.80 from interview with John Banks

Magnetic Marketing (CLOSED): $28.76 from interview with Amanda Craven

Inner Circle Solo Ads (CLOSED): $23.30 from interview with Rob Stafford

Operation Solo: $17.97 from interview with Anthony Tilley

Youtube Ranking Software (CLOSED): $14.25 from interview with Jimmy Mancini

Video Slayer (CLOSED): $13.50 from interview with Bertram Heath Sr.

Ping Fresh: $13.50 from interview with Sean Donahoe

Project Meteor Shower (CLOSED): $10.20 from interview with Jonathan Green

Secret Millionaires Traffic Source (CLOSED): $9.89 from interview with Dave Gruber and Matt Bacak

Video Tube Station (CLOSED): $8.78 from interview with Andy Moore

How To Create a Squidoo Lens in Under an Hour (CLOSED): $8.14 from interview with Trevor Dumbleton

Tube Takeover: $7.48 from interview with Josh Zamora

Kindle Syndication Tornado: $7.17 from interview with Andreas Quintana

Total revenue from interviews: $1,790.90 (+$388.30 from July)

Quick and Easy Cash Blueprint: $281.67  – These are earnings from using Simple Novice Profits. I’ve created a detailed report about how I do this if anyone is interested.

Kindle earnings: $10

Text link ads: $24– I make this income from an old website of mine.

Whoosh Traffic (CLOSED): $17.90 – A keyword tracker for monitoring multiple keyword rankings

SocialAdr: $5.60 – A hands-off way of getting more likes and tweets for your posts

Product Launch Confessions: $280

Optimize Press 2.0: $45.60

Total from OTHER streams of income: $664.70 (-$904.75 from July)

Total Revenue: $2,455.60 (-$516.45 from July)

Total Profit: $865.44 (-$1,032.65 from July)

Only $865.44…what’s going on???

Is it the end of the Mike From Maine Show???

Not even close.

So what happened in August?

I spent A LOT on solo ads…but unfortunately I was doing it the wrong way.

Yup, that’s right, I pretty much WASTED  about $800 on solo ads.

“Smart move, Mike” is something you might say, but actually I am in the process of making a smart move.

What is it?

I got fed up with spending money on solo ad advertising and getting minimal results.  I knew that there must be a better way…and there is.

Ok, then, what is it?

Solo Ad Confessions is on it’s way to stores near you!

That’s right, I’m at it again with another interview product. I’m currently interviewing 10 solo ad experts about starting and running  solo ad business. Thank GOD I did this because if I had kept on buying solo ads using the method I used in August I would have just kept on blowing through my hard earned profits.

What else happened this month?

I’ve added a new source of revenue to my income. After doing an interview with Vinny Boccalino about his Simple Novice Profits course I decided to give it a try myself. With my first try I was already turning $45 into $87 over and over again. I’m even in the process of creating my own mini-course about it that I’m thinking about releasing to you all for a really reasonable price. I’ll finish it up today and it will be a perfect complimentary course to Vinny’s.

The end of summer 🙁

I’m actually happy and sad about Summer ending. Yes, of course I like to be in the sun and go to the beach, but I’m also excited to get back to work. I ACTUALLY enjoy staying at home and working on my business. I enjoy doing my interviews, and I enjoy learning more about Internet marketing every month.

But, yes, I love the sun too!

Here are some pics from August: