April 2022: Creator & Gig Income Report + Reflections
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An honest look at how I earned $2080 in revenue as a part-time small creator and freelancer.
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Income Report
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Vidya
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May 1, 2022
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5 min. read
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April 2022: Creator & Gig Income Report + Reflections
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An honest look at how I earned $2080 in revenue as a part-time small creator and freelancer.
If you want to read my previous creator and gig income reports, here you go.
April started out slow. I mean, excruciatingly slow. For the first 2 weeks of April, there was no action. Only $10.92 made till April 15th. If you thought creator life would be all about getting paid every single day, then you couldn’t be more wrong.
It was also one of my most productive months but mentally straining as well. Not because I don’t enjoy the work I do but because I got too excited about the work I do that I started (yet again!) to bite off more than I can chew.
Thanks to the routines I created in March I was able to stay sane and NOT burn out.
April was also one of the most high-earning and challenging months professionally. I’m entering into new waters to test and hone my skills. Hopefully, I’ll come out victorious. 🙂 We will know at the end of Q2.
If you want to look at my 2022 Q1 Review, here you go. I was super happy about the progress I made since the start of this year.
Let’s look at the numbers now!
Income Report for April 2022
What I earned and did in April this year:
A brief about my side projects and how I earn money as a creator:
- Newsletter - The Curious Bunch: I’ve started accepting sponsors for my newsletter since May 2021 when I crossed over 500 subscribers. Since then, I’ve been able to book sponsors (mostly inbound requests) for every weekly issue I send. You can view my current pricing structure on this advertising page.
- Info Products: WritingOS: A Notion Dashboard that helps you write consistently. Newsletter Checklist: Start a newsletter the right way with this checklist (free).
- Donations from Buy Me A Coffee and Tip Jar: I’ve been accepting donations from my newsletter readers since January 2021.
- I also take on freelance work from time to time. I help companies analyze their data, execute growth experiments, develop No-Code solutions, and occasionally write their newsletters and blogs.
- Affiliate Revenue: I recommend my favourite products and other tools I use in my day-to-day life to my newsletter readers and Twitter followers.
Net Profit: $2063.18
Net Profit ($2063.18) = Total Revenue ($2080) - Total Expenses ($16.82)
In April 2022, I made a net profit of $2063.18. This is about a 234% increase from last month’s net profit of $616.95.
Did I sell more info-products? No.
Did I do more marketing and be active on social media? In fact, it’s the exact opposite. I started being less active on social media.
So, how did I make so much more money compared to the other months?
I’ll break this down further in the next sections.
Total Revenue: $2080
- Newsletter ($283.50) — Sponsorships: $283.50, Classifieds: $0
- Info Products ($70.61) — Writing OS: $36.53
- Donations ($15) — Tip Jar: $5
- Freelance ($1750)
- Affiliate Revenue ($0)
In total honest, inbound sponsorship requests keep surprising me. I booked ad slots from 3 advertisers and the dates aren’t available until the end of July! 🤯
My highest source of income for April is the freelance work. This doesn’t exactly fall under the category of ‘creator’ income. That’s the reason I renamed this report as ‘Creator + Gig Income Report’.
I absolutely love working with my clients and my priority for the next 2 months is to direct all my energy, resources, and skills towards making them grow their products. In the mean time, I also get to work with few amazing creators while getting paid for the work I absolutely enjoy doing.
This re-direction of my energy could affect my side projects, my social media presence, and my marketing efforts for info-products I made in the past few months. I’m willing to let go of these for the next few months so I can concentrate on my other priorities for this quarter.
Expenses: -$16.82
I had to renew my Newsletter Guide domain which I was planning to use for the side project ‘Newsletter Guide’ Email course. Will probably release before end of Q2.
Although I purchase most of these subscriptions on yearly basis, I’m breaking them down as monthly expenses so it’s easy for you to understand.
- Website Hosting ($7.99) — MDX: -$7.07, Carrd: -$0.92
- Domains ($6.08) — Vidya.so: -$5.42, Writingos.co: -$0.66, Newsletter Guide: $2.16
- Email ($0.59) — Vidya.so: -$0.59
April Milestones
I love celebrating small milestones because they’re the ones that accumulate and make a huge difference at the end of the year.
- Done with exams and I passed with flying colours. Haha. Now I am one step closer to getting a diploma from IIT Madras in Data Science.
- Earned $1700+ as a freelancer.
- Crossed $2000/mo revenue goal.
- Landed a dream client.
- Ann Handley shared the blog post I wrote on Newsletter Glue.
- All the ‘official’ work that was needed to call myself a ‘Home Owner’ is now done. 😛 I now own a house!!! 🏡
- Met No-Coders in Hyderabad and attended a Birthday party of someone I admire.
- Started taking better care of my physical health.
- Spent some quality time with mom after a long time.
What I tried/failed to do
At the end of April, I couldn’t keep up with my Morning and Evening routines. This probably means that I need to reduce the number of “things” I have to do in the Morning. I also skipped writing Morning Pages and my reading sessions. This could have an affect later on my mental health.
Tried to juggle work without planning properly.
What I’m planning for May
- Continue taking care of my physical and mental health.
- Don’t skip weekly review and planning sessions.
- Keep up with Morning routines and make changes to the routine if it’s becoming too hard to follow through.
- Prioritize tasks using Todoist and finish them before the end of the day.
- Meet new people and indulge myself in new experiences.
Funny how the above things are not directly related to my revenue goals. However, they DO impact my revenue indirectly.
If you want to get in touch with me, I hang out on Twitter.