Whomp.

So much has changed I don’t even know where to start.

As I discussed in the September post I wanted to be completely transparent here at YUM eating.  On my writing site, Self Employed Writer I’ve never discussed blogging income but I have discussed some of my residual income from revenue share.  There are so many food bloggers out there and I am finding many of them are discouraged because they don’t know how sites are pulling in $1000s because so many bloggers just don’t want to share. If you check out my “Bloggers Who Share” you will find many do.

If you checked out the September post you will see quite a bit changed. I made a whopping $0.94 my first month. YUM was brand new and I was just getting started. Last month I made $13.94.   I am still pretty new and I had a lot going on. Building a website is just like building a business. Just because your website is up and running doesn’t mean your business is finished. You can’t just sit back and wait for people to find you. In order for your food blog to be successful you have to actively participate. I’ve been participating my butt off.  Because of that, I have not been writing as many posts. I’ve been working a lot behind the scenes.

Last month I wrote and published “Food Bloggers Tax Guide.” During the month I did a freebie promotion. The guide got into the hands of 107 people for free and I sold 2 copies. This month I slacked BIG TIME and did not do a whole lot of promo work because I was working on another book, “Blogging for Dollars: Bloggers Tax Guide.” I won’t be including that income here, but rather on my newest site WAHLiving.com.

I did have a decent sized expense this month and that was paying Julie at White Lights on Wednesdays to make my header and pretty social media buttons. She did help me with some web design and custom colors, but we had to change my theme and that particular theme was not playing well with my cache plugin. So, now I am on the theme you see with a background I made. I was picked up my Glam Media ad network this week and I needed a sidebar that would fit the 300p ad and skyscrapers. Unfortunately the Genesis StudioPress Balance theme sidebar wasn’t working and the Lifestyle Pro theme wasn’t playing nice. So now I am using the Focus theme. I think I like it. But I am sure my OCD is going to kick in and I am going to change things again. I want the site to look a certain way and it will drive me nuts until it does. (LOL)

Ok, lets get to the nitty gritty shall we?

Income:

Lijit – $2.70

Adsense – $2.88

Swoop – $1.92 (these are the little ads you see in my recipes)

Infolinks – $1.88

Glitter Network – $0.20

Amazon Associates – $0.24 (affiliate)

Total Income: $9.82

My results are a lot less than what I expected but I also produced a lot less content. Last month I did a comment-a-thon and that brought up my traffic. I also posted every day during the week. Lijit, Adsense, Swoop and Infolinks all saw an increase in revenue. Glitter Network is a new addition to YUM.  Amazon Associates saw a decrease and there were no book sales for October. That is the reason for the decrease in the monthly total despite the increase in the ads.

I completed 80% of the videos that I needed from Food Blogger Pro. I learned a lot from Food Blogger Pro. I knew this site was going to take time. All great blogs do.  I finished my updates last week for “Easy Accounting for the Self-Employed.”

Our YouTube is up and running. Woo hoo!

There is a reason for this all and my $9.82 makes a big difference.

There are some big changes coming. I believe getting singed with Glam is going to help out a great deal. Media.net who is the advertising for Bing and Yahoo (like Adsesne is to Google) approved YUM when they approved my pet blog. I’m going to try their ads as I am hearing their pay is much  better than Adsense.  I’ve also starting doing link swaps and exchange parties. I see how important posting more than 3 days a week is, but I am not sure I can keep up with a 5 day a week schedule, however I am willing to do my best.

Until next month,

~Chrystal M.