This income report was originally shared inside my private membership for bloggers (which no longer exists) and is now being republished here on Substack as part of a growing archive for paid subscribers. The publish date reflects when it went live here, not when the report was created, and I’m bringing these over to keep all my behind the scenes content in one place, where bloggers and creators can see real numbers, decisions, and lessons, and use them as inspiration to take action in their own business.
This post turned out to be 5000 words with a LOT of value! So make sure you’ve set aside some time and have no distractions around you if you’ve decided to go through it now. If now is not the time, you can always come back to it later. Thanks for reading!
Hey, guys and welcome to the first annual income report I’m publishing here. I believe that to be a really valuable piece of content that you can come back to over and over again.
You can use it as a source of inspiration. You can use it to understand what’s going on inside a blogging business over the course of one year. You can use it to get ideas for income streams, and things to do or not do in your business. It’s also a good reminder of the challenges you will have to overcome as a business owner (low income months, or sometimes years - as was the case for me in 2023) and why it’s absolutely worth it to persevere and stay 100% committed to what you’re building online.
What you’ll read below is a behind-the-scenes look at how I navigated a difficult period as a full-time blogger without giving up, getting a job, or abandoning the business I’d spent years building.
Inside, I share:
My complete monthly income breakdown for the year;
The exact projects, strategies, and experiments I worked on each month;
How I revived traffic through content updates, Pinterest, and SEO;
The systems I built to stay consistent during low-income months;
The metrics I tracked, including page views, ad revenue, email growth, and Pinterest performance;
Why I doubled down on blogging again after years of chasing other opportunities;
The lessons that mattered far more than the revenue itself;
Personal life updates;
Screenshots with numbers.
If you’ve ever wondered what a real blogging business looks like during a rebuilding year, this report will give you an honest answer.
Let’s dive in.