A week ago today I attended Techmunch, a one-day blog conference in the big apple. I took the day off of work and hopped on a train at 5 am on a very cloudy and dismal day to be there. Luckily the space at 873 Broadway was light and bright and welcoming, in contrast with the continual drizzle outside.
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Well if you follow me on instagram or twitter you probably noticed that I made a trip to Philly to attend the Blog Connect Conference that was put on by none other than Chrystina of Chrystina Noel. This lady always impresses me, she’s like an energizer bunny just going, going, going, and checking things off her list as she goes. Seriously she balances a full time engineering job, a blog, a greeting card shop, planning PHL Bloggers meetups, and now a conference?! Man I’m lucky if I have clean laundry between work and blogging.
Needless to say I was pretty exhausted when I got home on Sunday afternoon, but it was so worth it. I was super stoked to be there to help her out and learn some stuff, but never expected to meet so many completely awesome and amazing people too. I could gush for the rest of the post about some of the awesome people that I met, but I’ll spare you for now and talk about the conference itself.
We arrived at Saxby’s headquarters at 8 to start setting up, and guests started showing up around 9. I just want to take a moment to mention how freaking awesome the location was. The room looked like something out of a movie scene, so bright, chic and hip. It was way to cool for the likes of me. After registration, and getting headshots done by Mountain Gap Photography (omg I’m so excited about this, but seriously girlfriend needs a tan) we got to enjoy some bagels, coffee and tea while meeting new people and digging through our goodie bags.
I’m not going to go into detail about all the speakers and sessions, but I loved them all and had pages of notes when all was said and done. The only thing is that with multiple sessions going on I had to make some choices, but I really wish I was able to attend them all.
I left the conference with a lot of ideas and new knowledge as well as hopefully some awesome new friends. Now the big task is finding time to implement it all.
All in all I’m super happy that I went to this conference, and would really love to attend more. I cannot explain how exciting it is to talk to people who actually understand what you are talking about when you talk blogging. Seriously just that camaraderie is enough to make me go back for more.
On a slightly different note. . .
Something kind of huge happened at The Blog Connect Conference, and at the time it seemed so small but as the day’s rolled by this one thing that Michael from Click.Go.Review said kept popping into my head. He said something like “If you are passionate about it you should write about it”. It’s a duh statement but it was the context that hit me we were talking about gardening and hunting, and where my family gets much of their food from and the thing that struck me is that he recognized that just by talking to me for 5 minutes I am super passionate about it.
Here’s the thing I know I’m passionate about the homesteader/foraged and hunted lifestyle that we lead but I really never knew how to write about it. Where do I start? Chuck and I are still learning how to do these things ourselves, how do I, as an armature tell you guys how to butcher a goose?
I take my own advice and just start. I heard myself saying that so often to people when they asked me about gardening; just give it a shot, start small, but start. That’s what you have to do. That’s what I have to do. I have to remember that this year for me is about being BRAVE.
Transitioning my blog to be more about the things that I am actually passionate about terrifies me. I mean do you guys really want to know about venison marrow and duck gizzards, and growing mushrooms in my closet? Ahem, yeah these are things we actually talk about like it’s completely normal. I feel like everyone is going to run for the hills as these things start popping up more, but I’m going to do it anyway. Don’t worry there will still be plenty of recipe posts, crafts, and daily life sprinkled in, because really I’m not about conforming anyway. Just stick with me for a little while through all of this and I’m hoping that by this time next year we are both super happy about the place this blog has gone.
Just like last year I am doing another income report. Again I think transparency is important and I want you all to know that I do make money from blogging, though for the second year in a row that number is pretty darn small.
I know some of you have seen Pinch of Yum, Smart Passive Income, and a slew of other website posting their monthly income reports, and this one is going to be laid out pretty similarly to those, albeit a little shorter, and less technical, because lets be honest, I don’t have much to report.
Income:
Contributor Work: $227.66
Sponsored Posts: $65.99
Dealspotr.com: $48.97
Affiliate Sales: $9.50
My Recipe Magic: $7.50
*unfortunately My Recipe Magic stopped paying me money I have been owed since June and refuses to provide an explanation, so I have discontinued working with them. I would not recommend them to anyone as their site is riddled with problems, and they have no customer service to speak of.
TOTAL INCOME: $359.62
Expenses:
Switch to WordPress: $225.00
Domain/Hosting Fees: $65.17
Learning tools: $34.95
Advertising: $7.00
TOTAL EXPENSES: $332.12
Net Income: $27.50
Notes on this report:
This year I made money, that’s a huge increase over last year’s -$29.59, but it’s also not allowing me to pay my bills.
This year I chose to make the switch to wordpress from blogger, which in tern meant my hosting & domain fees have gone way up, and will continue to be at their current rate for the foreseeable future. You can read more about my domain and hosting set up here. For the actual transfer I used High Note Designs because sometimes it’s worth going with the professional. In this case it definitely was and I couldn’t be happier with the results.
The income I made from sponsored posts was manly through product reviews, so while I still have to count them at their dollar value as income “you cannot eat product”, so keep in mind more than half of those dollars are not actual dollars at all.
I lumped all of my affiliate sales into one category because I am a part of several affiliate programs and have only made minimal amounts at each. It didn’t seem useful to list all of those dollars separately. The affiliate programs that I am a part of are AvantLink
, Shareasale.com, Amazon and Pinch of Yum. Also there is quite a lot of money sitting in a number of these affiliate accounts, but since they only pay out at larger dollar values I cannot count them as income. I will count them as income once they are actually paid into my accounts.
In 2016 I hope that I can improve on these numbers and increase my income. Any income that I do make will go right back into the blog. I am excited that I might finally be able to spring for new photography equipment or a blogging class this year. This blog is my hobby and it’s a hobby that I am passionate about and I want to learn more. Making money here allows me to reinvest it in the blog, and learning tools so that I can then supply you guys better content that is free to you.
I also want you to know that I appreciate each and every one of you that stopped by my little corner of the internet, even for a second. Every single view, comment, question, and share counts.
I realize that it should be 2014 income report but the image is finished and I am lazy.
I think transparency is important; especially for this little space. I want you all to know that I do make money from blogging, albeit not very much (Not really anything as you will see). I thought it might be good to give you guys a rundown of how I make money from the blog, and how I have done this year.
Sponsored Posts: $25Total Income: $249.70
Total Expenses: $279.29
Net Income: -$29.59
, Shareasale.com, Amazon and Pinch of Yum.Isn’t that what you want, good free content? I appreciate every single one of you who has stopped here, commented, lurked, made a recipe, wrote it down, or maybe even clicked on one of my links. It makes my day every day when I can come here and see this space growing. I want you to know how much I appreciate you all, and I hope that understand why I do this.