We are now at the end of the third quarter of the year. It’s time to add up all the passive income I’ve received in the last three months and to look ahead to see where my business is going.
I publish my results (along with cat photos) every quarter and, I’m pretty sure, this one’s going to be a biggie so let’s get going.
My passive online income
Passive income, for anyone who doesn’t yet know, is when you earn money in your sleep or income that isn’t exchanged for time β so it can be interest on savings, rental from a property or, in this case, money from digital product sales, affiliate income and advertising revenue.
Every quarter I set passive income targets and my target for the three months until September 30th 2014 was a ridiculous $15000. Let’s see how I got on.
Udemy
Udemy, the online learning platform, was my first big passive win and it remains my biggest passive earner.
Here is my Udemy revenue:
Period | Revenue |
---|---|
2013 Q4 | $3127.69 |
2014 Q1 | $4777.50 |
2014 Q2 | $6382.89 |
2014 Q3 | $11017.98 |
Boom! My Udemy courses have brought in $11017.98 this quarter. I actually nearly made over $5000 in September alone.
At the beginning of July, Udemy changed their instructor commission and promotion rules again. This meant instructors get a generous 97% of their coupon prices. This means I can promote my courses at around $20 (which is a nice reduction) and get most of that sale. This is primarily the reason for the increase in Udemy revenue.
Skillfeed
Skillfeed is another online learning platform where I have my courses. This is a very passive income source. On Udemy, I get a few questions from students that I spend a bit of time answering whereas, on Skillfeed, I just load up the courses and leave them.
Period | Revenue |
---|---|
2013 Q4 | $168.25 |
2014 Q1 | $670.47 |
2014 Q2 | $1196.32 |
2014 Q3 | $1100 (estimate) |
Unfortunately, I’ve had to estimate the Skillfeed earnings as I don’t get the last month’s figure until the middle of the next month.
I thought I was going to be earning less on Skillfeed as, up until now, only new courses seemed to do well there. However, in August, I did quite well. Skillfeed pays you per minute watched. And the amount per minute varies according to how much Skillfeed made and how many minutes were viewed in total across the platform that month. It’s complicated but I’ll be interesting to see if it settles the $400/month mark.
Amazon Kindle
Despite making more money from video courses than e-books, I’m continuing with self-publishing. Here are my Kindle books (including my new release):
- Running A Web Design Business From Home: How To Find and Keep Good Clients and Make Money with Your Home Business
- How To Sell Video Courses Online: How I make $2000+ passive income every month
- From Freelancer to Entrepreneur: Escaping work and finding happiness. Buy this one. No one is buying it. It’s really good. π
- New book launched in July: Build a Brand, Create Products and Earn Passive Income
A lot has happened this quarter in terms of my Kindles. I had my most successful launch to date as I held the number one spot in an entire book category. Yes, folks, I’m an Amazon bestseller. π You can see the sales increase during the launch period below.
Also, Amazon began lending books more heavily through Kindle Unlimited (the blue line below is borrows and the red line is sales).
I’ve messed up a bit as I’m giving sales between July 4th and October 2nd, so not strictly last quarter but I hope you’ll forgive me. Some of the previous Kindles figures are guestimates as well but I’ll get better at this. They’re reasonably accurate.
Period | Revenue |
---|---|
2013 Q4 | $200 |
2014 Q1 | $600 |
2014 Q2 | $965.09 |
2014 Q3 | $1800.04 |
I sold 1229 books this quarter (compared with 478 books in the previous quarter). An average of 13.3 a day. Although I’m disappointed to see the sales drop off more recently and, remember, I still get paid for the borrows which are increasing.
Anyway, I’m really pleased with my Kindle sales in Q3 2014: $1800.04.
Sales of my PDF e-books
My first foray into self-publishing, in fact my first foray into digital products, was selling PDF e-books from my site. At first glance you would think this would be a better idea as you can sell e-books from your site for $9 to $99 and keep most of the sales price. Whereas my Kindles are sold at $2.99.
My product | 2013 Q4 | 2014 Q1 | 2014 Q2 | 2014 Q2 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Running a Web Design Business | $157.87 | $178.79 | $123.52 | $94.07 |
How To Get Clients | $42.40 | $72.93 | $103.13 | $111.04 |
Total: | $200.27 | $251.71 | $226.65 | $205.11 |
I know you can make huge amounts from selling books on your own site. You can bundle them with audio files and other resources and tier the price points to $9, $39 and $99, for example. But I just don’t have the heart to do this at the moment when I’m selling 14,000 word books on Amazon for $2.99. And, Amazon sells to the world not just to my audience.
My membership site
Woohoo, this quarter, after much analysis paralysis and procrastination, I launched my membership site at learn.robcubbon.com.
It’s the new kid on the passive income block and, for this reason, we have to go easy on it. In its first quarter my membership site netted me $331.
Google advertising income
This is revenue from ads onΒ my YouTube channel as well as the ads here on my website. I’ve no idea why this has dropped off in the last two quarters.
Google revenue | 2013 Q4 | 2014 Q1 | 2014 Q2 | 2014 Q3 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Total: | $498.30 | $561.89 | $315.54 | $311.66 |
Affiliate sales
I am an affiliate for certain products that I recommend or mention here. I get a commission if a sale is made through one of my affiliate links.
Affiliate product | 2013 Q4 | 2014 Q1 | 2014 Q2 | 2013 Q3 |
---|---|---|---|---|
GenesisΒ WordPress theme | 0 | $356.78 | $471.45 | $307.76 |
WPMLΒ WordPress Multi-Lingual plugin | $283 | $453 | $376 | $440 |
GoDaddyΒ domain name registration | $27.54 | $27.54 | $0 | $0 |
E-JunkieΒ shopping cart system | $7.20 | $7.20 | $0 | $0 |
AweberΒ email marketing and delivery | $47.90 | $43.20 | $46.20 | $63.90 |
Others | $234.66 | $138.98 | $250.35 | $170.00 |
Total: | $600.30 | $1024.72 | $1144 | $981.66 |
So the affiliate stuff just sort of ticks over.
Totals
So, if we add it all up. My passive income in the third quarter of 2014 was (duh duh duh dah): $15,435.79
Comparison with previous quarters
Period | Revenue |
---|---|
Q3 2012 | $2447.10 |
Q4 2012 | $2611.03 |
Q1 2013 | $2036.93 |
Q2 2013 | $3,949.05 |
Q3 2013 | $5191.36 |
Q4 2013 | $4626.56 |
Q1 2014 | $7215.82 |
Q2 2014 | $10230.49 |
Q3 2014 | $15,435.79 |
So, as always, even though the figures are going in the right direction, I’m not counting my chickens.
Business targets
Specific business targets
Here are specific targets that I set three months ago and more targets for three months’ time.
Target | Q3 2014 target | Q3 2014 actual | Q4 2014 target |
---|---|---|---|
Passive Income | $15,000 | $15,435.79 | $20,000 |
Monthly unique visitors | 17,000 | 17,945 | 20,000 |
Last quarter was my first five figure quarter so I’m delighted I exceeded $15,000 this quarter. I’ll go for $20,000 for the last quarter of 2014 and we’ll see how we get on.
At last, I’ve hit a traffic target. The target was a low one. π
General business targets
Last quarter I had three huge business targets. Here’s how I got on:
- Create two more Udemy courses (on Photoshop and Illustrator) X Target Missed! I only did the Photoshop one.
- Write and publish two Kindle books X Target Missed! I only published one, my bestseller.
- Have my membership site up and running with over 100 paying members! X Target Missed! I created the membership site but it has barely had 20 paying members. π
I’m sitting here in a co-working space in Chiang Mai, Thailand and it’s forcing me to reflect on my business. Before I got here I was thinking that I should create more books and more courses. Now, I’m seriously wondering if I’ve been working too much
So, here are my targets from now until the end of 2014:
- Chill out and have a bit of a holiday
- Write a personal development book
- Think more seriously about helping people and less about numbers and business, business, business
Indicators
Here’s the bit that I keep doing because I keep doing it. More numbers …
Indicator | 31st Dec 2013 | 1st Apr 2014 | 1st July 2014 | 30th Sep 2014 |
---|---|---|---|---|
My Twitter followers | 2523 | 2596 | 2742 | 2842 |
My YouTube Channel, subscribers | 964 | 1221 | 1477 | 1843 |
My YouTube Channel, video views | 322,185 | 373,423 | 428,668 | 486,948 |
Facebook page Likes/Fans | 585 | 638 | 720 | 822 |
Subscribers to RobCubbon.com | 6491 | 5948 | 6276 | 6692 |
Personal goals
As mentioned already, I’ve come to Thailand for a few months.
I absolutely love Thailand and it’s such a pleasure to do this amazing job in such an amazing place surrounded by amazing people. I really am very grateful for this situation I’ve found myself in.
Already the change of scene has had many effects:
- I’m happier (who’da guessed!)
- Exercise, diet and meditation routines are harder to maintain
- Teething troubles getting work done but nothing major
- I’ve met interesting people who are further down the business road than me
- I’m realising that my business is lacking systems
- The people I meet may actually add work as new projects and joint ventures come to light
But, as you might imagine, it’s all good.
I must keep my eye on the main goal, though. Make sure that helping people is a priority rather than the numbers.
Previous passive income and business reports
H1 2012
Q3 2012
Q4 2012
Q1 2013
Q2 2013
Q3 2013
Q4 2013
Q1 2014
Q2 2014
You can do it
Look what we have proved here! You can make money blogging. People said you can’t but we’ve proved them wrong.
If you build a brand, run an authority website, collect email addresses and create products (Kindle, Udemy, PDF e-books, etc.) then you can create a reasonable monthly income after a few years.
What’s more, by doing this, you will also create a name for yourself as an authority within a particular niche which will help your business in other ways.
And, I have you to thank. Without people reading this blog, subscribing, sharing, commenting, etc., I would never have had the confidence to go ahead with it all. I am extremely grateful to you for this reason. Thank you for your inspiration. With that we are inspiring others.
You can do it! I was a disaster at school and my “career” was a car crash for two meaningless decades. If I can do it, anyone can. Just go for it.
But not now, first you’ve got to leave a comment.
Oksana Frewer says
Well done, Rob! Awesome post, awesome job, awesome new goals! I think you deserve an awesome break!
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Oksana, those beautiful emoticons you sent came over by email but didn’t arrive in the comment here. Too bad! Thanks for your awesomeness. π
Naima says
Congratulations Rob! It is sooooooo inspiring to read your blog, and love the specifics breakdown.
Looks like Thailand is good for you in all respects, and I wish you even more success.
Now, off I go to make it happen … π
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Naima, so glad it’s inspiring for you. I wouldn’t have thought you were too far away from great passive income. Yes, Thailand is suiting me pretty well at the moment.
I’ve downloaded your new book. Now I’ve got to find time to read it!
All the best!
Erin E Flynn says
Awesome job! And glad you’re enjoying Thailand!
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Erin, I wonder how sales of your excellent new book are going?
Carmia CronjΓΒ© says
Hi Rob, it’s always inspiring to read your passive income reports. It just shows hard work does pay off! I hope you enjoy Thailand, you deserve a break!
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Carmia, although I don’t feel like I’m getting a break so far. But I promise to down tools and chill out a little soon. π
I wonder if you’ve ever thought of doing income reports? I’ve loved your shop and I’ve been really interested in what you’ve been doing. You’re an inspiration to me!
David Moore says
It’s great to see your passive income stream moving healthily in the right direction! Congrats on the successful move to Thailand & if you ever want to Skype just let me know π
Rob Cubbon says
Hey David, congrats on your marriage and I hope you had an excellent honeymoon. I’ve been listening to your podcast recently and you’ve had a few excellent interviews, including the one with John Colley (where I was mentioned).
Always good to Skype with you, David. π
Shalu Sharma says
Great statistics. Well done. I am sure you can go further. I am not sure how this borrowing on kindle is working out but as long as the net result is more revenue then its fine.
Rob Cubbon says
Hello Shalu. I hope I can go further as well. And I’m sure you can too. The one thing we can be sure of, Shalu as you know, is that things will change. Amazon will keep changing its charging and royalty structures. Yes, I don’t know how borrowing is going to change things but we are still getting paid. π And it’s probably worth sticking with Amazon.
Divesh says
Congratulations for meeting your target Rob! Keep up the good work!
I am in the process of creating a course on Udemy in accounting. The passive online income model is all a bit new to me, however, with enough time and effort invested, I guess it will all pay off.
Thanks for sharing this, it is a great motivator for people starting out like me!
Regards,
Divesh
Rob Cubbon says
I’m glad it’s a motivator, Divesh, that’s why I keep doing it. It’ll work if you keep at it. Get a gravatar for your image when you are leaving comments and a website to link to here as well. These are amongst the first steps.
Divesh Nair says
Thanks for the tip Rob! I have finally got my Gravatar!
Currently I have a coming soon page on my website with an Opt in form. I plan to launch in December this year (I want to have enough content first!). I will be adding an animated promo video shortly.
Anyways – Hope you’re enjoying your time in Thailand!
Rob Cubbon says
Yes, Thailand is going great, thanks. Congrats on getting your Gravatar and for setting up the site with an email capture form. The image on your site looks like Thailand! π
Luke says
Well done Rob, awesome improvments each and every quarter
What are the courses you had built on udemy & what are the tools you use to build the video tutorials & screenshots?
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Luke, I hope the improvements inspire you to do something similar. You can find out about my courses here: https://www.udemy.com/u/robcubbon/ and here’s a post about how to create the courses: https://robcubbon.com/tools-creating-video-courses/
Hope this helps π
Angela McCall says
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! I’m so happy for you Rob. Although there weren’t very many paid members in your site, still everything, the overall statistics is a success!!!
Glad you’re enjoying Thailand. Looking forward to read your personal development books.
Cheers,
Angela
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Angela. And thanks for your encouragement with my membership site.
The book is coming soon. π
Wendy Bromilow says
Hi Rob,
Wow! it is fantastic to see your firgures and all going up which in this economy is an amazing achievement. Congratulations to you.
Hope you are enjoying the relaxing time in Thailand.
Wendy
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Wendy, trying to relax but in 2014 there’s internet everywhere and it’s difficult to disconnect! Hope the figures inspire you, Wendy. π You can do it!
Jane says
Hey Rob thanks so much for the inspiring report! I am preparing for more Kindle and e-courses that I sell on my website.. But you have made me also to think about Udemy! I’ve just bought your “How to sell video courses online” Kindle e-book π
Thanks for the inspiration π
Rob Cubbon says
I’m so glad this has inspired you, Jane. Let me know if you need any help with Udemy. Thank you for buying the book! π
Victoria Virgo says
Congratulations. These numbers are very inspiring. I am taking my own baby steps towards building up my own online business. Always like to read where people are making this a reality. Good for you π
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Victoria, best of luck with your business. π
vinodh says
Hi,
you are a passive income maestro.
great post.
regards
vinodh
Rob Cubbon says
Hey, Vinodh, thank you π
Fela Darlong says
Hi Rob!
Congrats and inspiring to see your quarterly report.
Its always a pleasure to read your blog post. Keep it going.
Great job!!!
Fela Darlong
Rob Cubbon says
So glad to know that I’m inspiring you, Fela.
Lee Johnson says
Hi Rob
For me, your work is to things:
1) a motivator – your passive income model works well and is diverse enough that if one area’s sales dips, the others will hold firm; if it peaks, all the better.!
2) an inspiration – my mind is already coming up with possibilities, some possible, some not so much….
Keep up the good work, I look forward to see whatever you try next!
Lee Johnson
Rob Cubbon says
Hey, Lee, the purpose of these income reports is to inspire and motivate, so I’m delighted if that is the effect. You might not use exactly the same channels because we’re all different but if it helps you with ideas then that’s cool too!
Dan says
Inspirational stuff Rob; I’ve been following you for a while now (figuratively speaking, not literally of course!) and love reading your blog. I’m a contract Web developer currently working in London and have been meaning to put together a PDF / video course to share my skills for a while now. Great to see that with time and effort, you can make a decent income from it π
Rob Cubbon says
Do it, Dan! (simple as that) Thank you π
Angelica says
Thank you, Rob, for all that you are doing to help others. Your information is simple and easy to understand. You are right when you put some time into your business and do it consistently for a few years, it does eventually pay off. Great job!
Rob Cubbon says
Yes, Angelica, most of this stuff I worked on for one hour a day.
atif says
Great Sir,
Your articles are always best. It really inspired me.
Rob Cubbon says
Glad it inspired you, Atif
Sergio Felix says
Hey Rob, you’re making a killing on everything you have been doing man, congrats!
I’m pretty sure your learn.robcubbon.com membership will start to get more and more successful as more people know about it, that’s 100% happening!
Hope you’re having an amazing time in Thailand, I know you have been hanging out with Cody too so I’m sure you’re in very good hands with that companion, dude is an amazing friend and marketer as well! π
Sergio.
Rob Cubbon says
Hey Sergio, I wouldn’t say I’m killing it on everything, but you can see that these income reports go back over 2 or 3 years now so you can see it’s taken a certain amount of time.
Yes, I’ve got plans for the membership site.
Yes, I’ve hooked up with Cody a couple of times already. Love that guy! π
Thank you for your support, Sergio, I really appreciate you. π
Mark Narusson says
Glad you are enjoying your well deserved break and liking the Impressive stats for your passive income. I really must start doing some of this stuff myself. π
Rob Cubbon says
Do it, Mark. You could do some really good courses. π
Kelvin Scoon says
Rob your report is like an adrenalin surge.
I signed up a a Udemy Affiliate some time ago..
Do you have any articles on how to get the best results promoting Udemy?
Kelvin
Rob Cubbon says
Haha, adrenalin surge, Kelvin, I like that. I’m not sure about promoting Udemy as an affiliate but I’ve written this about selling your courses on Udemy: https://robcubbon.com/sell-courses-online-with-udemy/
Meg says
Wow – really impressive. Congrats on hitting your target. We are just getting started, and it’s really nice that we can see that people are really achieving this every single day through online business.
Can’t wait to post our own success story one day π
Rob Cubbon says
Hey Meg, if you have a success story be sure to tell me about it because I’d love to hear about your success. π
Te-Erika says
You have certainly enlightened me! Thank you so much!
Rob Cubbon says
Glad to have enlightened you, Te-Erika. π
Gurwinder Singh Bhinder says
Congratulations Rob!! Hard work definitely pays off. I guess it’s time for you to celebrate it.
And I wish you best of luck for the last quarter of this year. I hope you’re able to achieve all the targets that you have set up.
Regards
Gurwinder Singh Bhinder
Rob Cubbon says
I’m not sure if I’m doing much celebrating. Best of luck to you for the last quarter of the year, Gurwinder. Thank you.
Guillermo says
Hello Rob,
Congratulations on your success and growth. At this time my course publishing goals are very humble. It really is at the ‘experiment’ point, where I just want to see a proof of concept.
I am to make $500/Month on Udemy and $100/Month on Skillfeed.
Based on your experience, how many minutes should I have published on Skillfeed to be able to get about $100 in income? It will obviously vary on subject,I know. I’m just looking for an idea on the ratios between minutes published-minutes watched minutes watched-income.
Rob Cubbon says
Hello Guillermo. My goals were exactly the same as yours on Udemy, and that was only just over a year ago. So think where you’ll be this time next year!
It’s a difficult question about Skillfeed. I would say at least 2-4 hours worth of content should give you $100 but Skillfeed can be good for the first month you upload and then drop.
David Hawkins says
Hey Rob, just come across your blog and had a good ol’ binge on a bunch of your posts π
I saw how many courses you had approved on Udemy and … Wow … You deserve every success. We can all be sure you’re nowhere near the 4 hour work week, heh.
On a personal note, I had my first course approved last week (yippee!). I’ve had some sign ups which is great (all free to stem growth) and I’m now waiting patiently for my Revenue Report to be generated. I know I’m still at zero but I’d prefer an empty chart over the message telling me it’s coming soon! Maybe that’s just me. Anyway, you’re doing great, keep it up. Get in a little down time and I look forward to following you on the blog π
Rob Cubbon says
Hey David, I do like a binge reader π I actually find it pretty easy to create courses on Udemy. Once you’ve made one or two the process gets easier and easier. I was at zero a year and a half ago. More stuff to come so keep following. π
Rich Page says
Very inspiring to see this Rob! Thanks for sharing. Hope we can connect soon – I’m a fellow englishman who quit the corporate world to figure out my own web business, including creating courses!
Thanks,
Rich Page
Rob Cubbon says
That’s why I put it up, Rich, so people can be inspired. Best of luck with your business. I answer all emails, etc.
Anna says
Hello Ron, I am a member of Pat’s First Kindle Book and I read your comments from time to time. This is my first visit to your blog (thanks to Nick Loper’s tweet about the podcast which I am gonna listen to as soon as I post the comment), and I am very impressed. What you do is awesome! Actually, it is double awesome because you share and teach others. Thank you, I am sure I’ll be a frequent visitor. And I just followed you on twitter.
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Anna. You’re double awesome! Actually I enjoyed talking to Nick and I think it’s a really good podcast: http://www.sidehustlenation.com/path-5k-month-passive-income-online/ β I hope you get something of value from this site.
Anna says
It IS a great podcast, Rob. I really enjoyed it.
HR says
Its my First visit π
Awesome Job Rob. This will inspiring me most.. Thanks:)
Rob Cubbon says
Glad you liked it, HR. That’s why I do it, to inspire!
Mary Shaw says
Congrats, Rob! And thanks for sharing such a detailed report. I’ve read all of your Kindles and they are ALL great, especially From Freelancer To Entrepreneur (which I am re-reading now). Keep up the great work. Can’t wait to see your year-end results.
Cheers,
Mary
Rob Cubbon says
Hey Mary, ALL of my Kindles? I’m truly honored! I’m so glad you like “From Freelancer To Entrepreneur” it’s probably my favorite as that I put a lot of myself in there but it sells the least out of all of them. π Yes, I’m about to get down to the year end results post now. Wish me luck!