My March 2009 Monthly Income Report

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I know I said I'd continue with part 7 (about how ebook prices) of my series, but since it's the turn of the month, I decided to fit in my Monthly Report from March.

This is the sixth installment of my monthly report, which I use to summarize my income, where it came from, and anything I did or learned that may have had an impact (or will make an impact) on my earnings.

Important Goings-On in March

A lot of March was dedicated to a new addition to our family. No, it's not a baby, but it feels like I'm taking care of one sometimes. It's a puppy! My wife April and I decided to purchase a Maltese puppy and spend a good amount of time and energy training him while he's still young. Luckily, we're both at home most of the time so he's learning really fast. In just 3 weeks, he's already potty trained, can sit, down, up, shake hands, wait, come, and he's in the middle of learning roll-over right now. Oh, his name! It's Gizmo!

Other things that I should mention is that my friend and I, who are developing iPhone apps together, are almost ready to submit to iTunes. We filed for an LLC and a DBA, so we could do business as LOLer Apps (laugh out louder apps). We're in the middle of finishing up some websites and we're also filming “commercials” for youtube for promotion purposes. I'll give you the websites and video links once it's all good to go, hopefully by mid April. I'll be counting on you to help us out too!

Lastly, I should mention that I'm pretty sure that my earnings will go down for the next few months. The reason is because LEED, the test I wrote a study guide for, is going through a drastic update. There will be new versions of the exam coming out this summer, so the version I wrote a guide for will be obsolete by then. Registration for the exam ended yesterday, so I expect to see a decrease in customers as summer gets closer.

This wasn't a surprise to me, which is why I'm not worried. Although I may have a few months of decreased earnings, I will be working hard to create new and better material for everyone during the transition. Also, I have the iPhone apps on deck, as well as my continued affiliate, Adsense and eHow earnings.

Here are my numbers from last month:

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Definitely another record month of earnings! I attribute the increase to the fact that a lot of people want to pass the current version of the exam, which as I said before is expiring very soon.

I'm going to copy and paste a portion of my February Income Report that I would like to reiterate here for you because I think it's really important:

“Even though I’m earning a lot, our spending habits have not and will not change. Basically, we get to save more! We view it as being able to get to our goals and dreams a little faster, not changing our goals and dreams.”

Time Spent

Again, I spent probably around 10 hours on my GreenExamAcademy.com business, which earns me the most income. As before, it was mostly customer emails and sending out newsletters. Ahh, the power of automation.

I think it's also important to note that my eHow earnings have increased each month as well, without spending one single minute writing any new articles. That is pretty awesome and shows the power of writing good, keyword friendly articles on eHow. I think I might try and write at least one new article a day, just to slowly increase that income source.

I have been working 3 to 4 hours each day, but mostly on the iPhone app stuff and writing for this blog. Hopefully, this will pay off in the future just like before.

Important Things I Learned in March

• When you're in any business, it's EXTREMELY important to know the latest news about what's going in your niche. Sign up for newsletters from related sites and look up related keywords in Google News every once and a while. This is very important. Not only will you know about changes in your niche/industry (such as me knowing that the exam I wrote a guide for is updating), but you can take advantage of the news as well. For example, because I knew the current exam was ending soon, I sent out newsletters and emails to all of my subscribers letting them know about the change and to act soon. I included links to my sales page, of course, and coupon codes for a small discount that was only available to my subscribers. My subscribers think I'm helping them (which I am), and I get a little more income—everybody is a winner!

What's Next

In April, I'm focusing on my iPhone application work, as well as starting to write new material for the new version of the LEED exam. As far as if I want to do an ebook and audio guide format again, I'm not quite sure. I have a few ideas, which I'll go over with you in a post or two, and maybe you can give me your opinion and help me decide.

Again, I'll let you know exactly what's going on with the iPhone application stuff (I know you're all interested), once it's all completed. I'll tell you how much we paid to get the apps done, how much we're making, how we're marketing it, everything. It should be a fun little experiment.

Also, I'm going to do something special with my ebook series here on this blog, but that's all I'm going to say about that. Hehehehe!

Thanks for all of your support here on The Smart Passive Income Blog. I appreciate every single comment, email, link and shoutout that you've done for me. I hope you're diggin' the numbers and you feel motivated to start something online as well.

Cheers!