I am pretty excited about this side income summary because February ended up being my best month yet for side hustles! It came at a price though, because I stayed busier than a Vegas hooker on Valentine’s Day*. So here’s a little bit about last month.
My Honey Wrote A Book!
Yep. It’s kind of a funny story, because January rolled around and because he does freelance work for an ad agency, he sometimes goes for stretches where he doesn’t get work (although when he’s not working, he’s constantly working on the boat or other projects). He tries to stay out of my hair during the day since I work from the boat, and I was trying to encourage him to go to the local library and write… you know, maybe a blog post or something.
One day he comes back and asks me to read the book he’s written… screeeeeeeech… what the wha? So like any good girlfriend would, I read it. And I loved it. It’s a story of how we came to the decision, in a terrible economy, to quit our jobs and fulfill our dream of moving onto a boat, because we were merely complacent with the life we were living. Something needed to change. Although it does talk about sailing (after all, how can you write a book about living on a sailboat and not talk about sailing), the book is essentially a testament to the fact that it is possible to make a change in your life if you’re unhappy… to live your dream, whatever it may be.
Once we launched the book, OH. MY. I cannot tell you how amazing the sailing community is. They supported us like we never expected. We hit the #1 Best Seller in the Sailing category on Amazon the day after we released the book. Now, the sailing genre is a small(ish) niche so it’s not like we’ve sold thousands of books in a month, but the response has been wonderful, and we have some things on the horizon that we’re excited about. This book was meant to encourage and inspire, and we’ve gotten emails from people around the world that tell us that this book has done that, and there is nothing that makes us happier than hearing that.
That being said, I won’t be publishing the book numbers or income from the book on here. There are several reasons for not wanting to do this, and I hope you understand. But we’re really proud and excited for how well it’s doing. One thing I’ve learned is that when you launch something like a book, promoting it is a LOT. OF. WORK. It can be pretty daunting. You want the message to get out there so that people know it’s there, but without being annoying. It was really hard to really push it because self-promoting is uncomfortable sometimes, but I have a friend who is a very successful jewelry designer and she once told me, if you make something that you believe in, don’t be ashamed to tell people about it. And she’s right! So there ya go. If you want to buy the book, you can get it here.
Secondly, I want some of you to realize that this is another way that you can earn a side income, or even a living. We know of several self-published authors out there who bring in extra money by writing and self-publishing books. It’s hard work, and the Field of Dreams rule does not apply here. If you build it, they will not come. You have to work really really hard to bring them in, but it can be done. We are proof of that. So if you haven’t read the book and you’d like to check it out, you can get it here: You Gotta Go To Know.
SO WHERE’S THE MONEY TALK?
Ok, ok – so I’m really excited because even without the book sales, it’s still my highest side income month yet, so without further ado, here are the numbers. These numbers reflect side income only and do not count the salary from my full-time job, and this is also the amount before I take out PayPal fees, taxes, or other expenses.
SIDE INCOME IN FEBRUARY:
Maggie & Milly (my online jewelry shop): $387.00
Virtual Assistant Work: $550.00
Affiliate Income: $61.12
Adsense: $3.45TOTAL: $1001.57
That’s over triple the amount of January’s side income! I’m very pleased with this number. I don’t think I slept much in February, between promoting the book, making jewelry, building websites and doing a little website consulting, typing part of an e-book for a customer, on top of a 40+ hour full-time job, but it’s nice to know that cutting the proverbial employment umbilical cord one day is doable. Truth be told, if I didn’t have my full-time job, I might be able to make more money because I’d have so much more time to dedicate to the above things, but I’m not quite ready just yet.
So we’ll see how March goes – I’m pretty competitive, so I always want to beat myself at my own game, but this one might be tough. However, I did have a talk with my boss at work about my workload and they are redistributing some things (I was putting in a LOT of overtime), so this month I’ll have more me-time to dedicate to side hustles and enjoying life. If anyone wants to hire me for any virtual assistant work, just contact me!
Got some tips or side income ideas? Any topics you’d like to see? Share them in the comments! Peace out, y’all!
*I don’t really know how busy a Vegas hooker is on Valentine’s Day. I just figure she’s probably pretty busy? Who knows. Maybe New Year’s is busier. Hmmm… can anyone out there shed some light on this?
