We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
The last time we did an income report for our British TV site, it was for the month of July. The site brought in $5627.45, which is really not too bad for the middle of the summer. As we get into autumn, however, income tends to trend upwards. As the weather cools, people watch more television – so it makes sense that search volume and overall interest go up.
September was a great month for this particular site. Between the seasonal increase and the pre-order launch of a new product, income reached its highest point since last Christmas (when we launched a different product).
Around the middle of the month, we opened up pre-orders for the 2019 British TV Year in Review magazine, and people seemed very excited. We had quite a lot of orders coming through almost instantly when we emailed our list. We prefer to launch books with a pre-order because it lets us better estimate demand AND make sure the demand exists at all. If we don't get many orders, we can always explain, refund, and send out some kind of fun bonus item for those few who did order. It's never come to that, but that's exactly what we would do if we found we were working on a huge project nobody actually wanted.
September Earnings:
Amazon – $1281.36 (-$443.01) – The drop is not unexpected because we're comparing to July, which included Prime Day and a huge surge in bounties
MediaVine – $3979.06 (+$1736.87)
Shopify – $4017.85 (+$2746.70) — this amounts to roughly 45-55% profit, though it varies a bit based on coupon code redemptions and specific items purchased
Blurb – $0 — almost no one orders our books here anymore, but we keep it enabled for people in non-US locations
Amazon FBA – $274.89 (-$74.97) — only around 20% of this is profit because the fees are incredibly high
Shareasale – $0
TeePublic – $49.77 (+$10.89) – We have a few designs now and we include them at the end of newsletters. We generally see a couple of sales anytime a newsletter goes out, or any time we post about a new design on Facebook
VigLink – $30.18 (+$30.18) – We've been using this to promote Hulu, and while it doesn't generate a lot, it's still money for clicks that weren't monetized before
Total – $9663.11 (+$4035.66)
Following (as of October 16, 2019 and comparing to early August 2019):
Facebook Likes: 20,075 (up 963)
Facebook Group: 20,316 (up 971)
Instagram Followers: 4648 (up 82)
Pinterest Followers: 2.3k (up ~100)
Mailing List Size: 8552 (up 1845)
OneSignal Followers: 3.8k subscribed (up roughly 100, but users fall off all the time, too)
Site Content:
Total Posts: 196 (up 28)
Total Words: 262,060 (up 32,442)
Keep in mind, the site content increases are between July and September – so those are definitely not one month figures. We'd love to be able to put out that much content in a single month, but at the moment it's just not do-able, and I'm not quite ready to give up a lot of control on this site yet.
We've been hiring out a post here and there, but it may be a bit before I'm ready to bring in multiple additional writers, even though I know I should. But hey, we all have our weak areas, and mine is giving up control on projects I really like. I (Stefanie) originally started this one because my grandma and I like to watch British shows together, and it was never actually intended to make money – so it's a little more personal than the average blog we would build.
What's Next?
Although September included a pre-order launch in the store, October is the beginning of Q4 and we expect to see revenue levels that are nearly as high as September – maybe just slightly lower. We'll be pretty busy finishing off the magazine, and if there's any spare time after that, we'll be focusing on blog content and additional products. Both have great potential to bring in money during the holiday season, and we definitely want to maximize the earnings for that time of year.
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