Behind the Scenes at My Digital Freelance Business, September 2017

This post is part of a series about how I make money while traveling the world. For a deeper look at how I started my business and began traveling full-time, start here.

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Welcome back to the monthly behind-the-scenes peek at my on-the-road freelance business, in which I discuss how I make money while traveling full time.

In September, I planned to take the whole month off to hike and rest in the Slovenian Alps.

Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans, and it rained relentlessly for something like 20+ of our 30 days in Kranjska Gora.

Which meant that about two weeks into my so-called vacation, trapped indoors and feeling stir-crazy, I gave up on relaxing and went back to work.

And thus September became a month of half-working, half-not. Which also means that, as you might expect, I spent more than I made—a fact I was anticipating (though it still always makes me cringe when I do my monthly tallies) and have the funds to cover.

When I was working, I spent my time adding the finishing touches to my new DIY Website Workshop (which, by the time you read this, will be launched!), helping a client make sure their website is totally ADA-friendly, and actively pursuing new projects and clients.

Anyway, you’ll want more details. So here’s the breakdown of my half-work September:

September 2017 Income Sources

:: Copywriting and content strategy (38%)
As usual, copywriting and content strategy work make up the bulk of my monthly income. Since I didn’t work much this month, this is actually a writing project for a single client.

:: Website consulting (31%)
As you know, from time to time, I help clients with everything from WordPress customization to SEO questions or even build start-to-finish websites. In August and September, I did more web consulting than usual, so this percentage is unusually high.

:: My unique series of local-centric travel guides (24%)
Every month, I make money from my 11 travel guides. I don’t spend much time promoting them (though I have been doing some guest posting on other blogs lately and that always seems to drive up sales), but happily they continue to be a fairly steady source of income. This month, they’re holding steady and helping me stay afloat. Thank god for passive income.

:: Travel writing for magazines/websites (7%)
This is not income I actively pursue anymore, but I still have good relationships with a magazine or two, so I somewhat regularly write travel articles for those. This percentage represents a single article published and paid.

I also got some super exciting news on this front: I’ve been hired to update a guidebook for one of the big guidebook companies later this year. So I expect this income line item to increase greatly a couple months from now.

:: My new DIY Website Workshops (0%)
In September, I put the final touches on my new tiered DIY Website Workshop course. It launched on October 9th, so there’s no September income from it, but I’m hopeful that it’ll be a super useful thing for clients and will start bringing in more passive and active income in the months to come.

If you’re a solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, or artist and you’d like to launch or re-design your own website, I designed the program for you, so definitely take a peek.

:: Affiliate sales/advertising here on the blog (0%)
As anyone who’s been reading for awhile likely knows, this blog is more of a passion project for me than a money-maker. Certainly, it has led clients to me and supported my business in a variety of ways, but in and of itself, it’s not really an income source. Next month I should get a little affiliate check when I hit the requisite minimum for check issuance, but this month nothing was actually paid out.

The view from my workspace

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Are you a freelancer or business owner? Tell us about your month! Feel free to drop any questions you might have in the comments. And you’re welcome to join my Facebook business group where we talk all things entrepreneurship, business, and web.

Is there something you wish I’d cover in these monthly reports? Please let me know! I want them to be as useful as possible, so if you have a suggestion, drop it in the comments or reach out to me on Facebook anytime.