Financial Statements!
Financial statements abound on the internet. Two of the sites that I visit on a regular basis are laying it all out there (I actually think one is giving an awesome compliment by mirroring the other site). They have itemized their earnings and gave a brief explanation. Thats what I am talking about, full disclosure. I mean isn’t that what we all need? I think at least 75% of us are in the website business on some level for the money. I must admit I have always wanted to write so this is a sort of medium for me to put what I have to say out there. Am I also hoping to earn some along the way? Hell yes I am. So I guess this is my disclosure;
Understand I operate four websites that are up and running. They are;
Open Road Biker dot com
Open Road Biker dot Net
JT Music Review
and this site. I also have a few domains out there that are in some stage of construction or that are parked. Here is a list of those;
under construction
Couch Potato Gamers
Couch Potato Gamers Too!
Open Road Biker Top Sites
Fitness Link
Cool School Rodz
parked
Media Tech Review
Lofty Height and Lofty Heights
Open Country Trails
Shop and Tool
and then I have the dot com for this site and another site I will be setting up for my mom to blog on called Lady J Speaks.
Okay so there you have it. That is the extent of my web enterprise. Oooh I almost forgot about my myspace page but it doesn’t matter anyway but here it is just in case;
My Myspace.
Now that you know what I have out there I can begin talking about money.
I started my web sites in December of ‘06. Since then I have spent these amounts;
$89.38 for 14 domain names for 1 year and 1 for 2 years
$82.43 for 13 months of shared hosting
$100.00 for graphics
$5.00 to setup a microsoft adcenter account
All for a grand total of $276.81
Add on top of that the countless hours of working on the websites. By countless I mean probably 1000 hours into Open Road Biker dot com alone. You can’t really put a price on that though, right? Now here is the moment you have been waiting for, the big payout right? I am going to include everything paid or waiting to be paid. I will put waiting beside those and maybe a brief explanation.
$94.81 Google, waiting: It has to reach $100 for a payout.
$119.00 Pay Per Post
$44.33 Pay Per Post waiting: I get paid when a post has been up for 30 days.
$39.41 Commission Junction waiting; Payments are locked on the 10th of the month and I should get paid by the 1st of August.
$1.51 AdBrite waiting: I guess I will be waiting for this for a while, $25.00 payout will take some time to reach.
$.91 Auction ads waiting: I don’t remember what the minimum payout is but I am sure that it isn’t 91 cents.
$.16 Sedo domain parking waiting: $20 is the minimum payout
So that is a grand total of $119.00 paid and $181.13 that I am waiting on. Now the largest portion that I am waiting on should be paid out sometime around September but some of that I am not sure I will ever see the minimum payout on. I guess I will have to wait and see.
So there you have it, the full disclosure from a starting web business. Now don’t be discouraged, I started with just the goal of paying my website expenses in the first year and it looks like that will happen. I may even have enough to pick up a six pack of beer but the first year should be about building and I believe that is what I have done and still doing. I still have some work to do to improve those sites that are up and running and then I will get busy on some of the others. I seem to have so many ideas and very little time to accomplish them. Maybe I will take a little leave from the army to get some of it knocked out. Until next time good luck and I wish you success in your blogging.
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It’s helpful when you refer to other sites that you are visiting or getting inspiration from that you mention/link to those sites. I’d be interested in following them as well. I’m taking a similar policy/approach to my new site.
If you haven’t made use of it, I like Google Docs which allows you to create word processing and spreadsheet documents online without downloading any software. They are accessible from any computer and you can elect to share or publish any individual document you like.
In regards to Personal Finances, NetworthIQ offers the same thing.
One of those sites everyone who blogs knows about or should ( I did a review for him). One of the sites was www.johnchow.com and the other was www.blogaboutyourblog.com
Thanks for the advice though.
Thanks for laying out the financials. I’ve been doing this a few months, and was beginning to wonder when the cash would start rolling in. Now I know, it won’t. Thanks.
I don’t think this will be a get rich quick thing, I also don’t think I will be able to support myself on it anytime soon but I do believe that it is a good investment that will pay off in the end as long as I continue to put forth an honest days work. Who knows, I may get lucky but you never can tell. What some don’t realize is that people like John Chow have had websites for some time now. Most of the people who are making big money on the internet are embedded into the market. We have to do the same but with less time to spare.
Good luck on your blog,
James