Welcome to my passive income report for the second quarter of the year 2015. This has been a difficult quarter for me in many ways and [spoiler alert] the figures are down.
These income reports consistently generate the most interest and discussion amongst my audience. I hope you can learn from my successes and failures here.
My passive income
Passive income is income you earn without having to work – the best sort of income. In terms of my business it comes from the sales of digital products (such as e-books and video courses) as well as from affiliate commissions and advertising.
Last quarter I made $23,118.12 passive income profit. The target for that quarter was $30,000 and it is for this quarter as well. Let’s see how I got on.
Udemy
We’re going to start with a bit of bad news. For at least a year Udemy has been the “star performer” of my passive income streams.
| Period | Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2014 Q3 | $11,017.98 |
| 2014 Q4 | $15,473.59 |
| 2015 Q1 | $15,659.30 |
| 2015 Q2 | $11,381.66 |
Udemy had been extremely consistent, averaging over $5000 per month. But, this quarter, we only got $11,381.66 – that’s a drop of over 27% from last quarter. Why?
As you can see from the above earnings chart, the drop came from my coupon sales (the green – Your Promotions). In the past I’ve made over $1500 by sending a couple of announcements on Udemy. Now it seems as if the announcements aren’t as powerful as they once were.
Skillfeed
Skillfeed is another online learning platform owned by Shutterstock. The income has remained remarkably consistent.
| Period | Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2014 Q3 | $1,090.78 |
| 2014 Q4 | $1,177.43 |
| 2015 Q1 | $1,190.05 |
| 2015 Q2 | $1,201.46 |
Skillshare
Skillshare are another online learning platform that is a real slow burner. Look at the trajectory: April revenue: $301.40; May revenue: $310.77; June revenue: $240.10. Up and down. The total for the second quarter of 2015: $852.27.
Other online learning platforms and deals sites
Quite a while ago I put my courses on an online learning platform called Stone River eLearning. This quarter it made me: $173.10. Dealfuel is a “Deals” site and this quarter I made $116.39 in revenue from them.
There are loads of places you can sell digital products. Here’s an article I wrote about alternatives to Udemy.
Amazon Kindle
I’ve also seen my income from Kindle books drop. The fact that I didn’t publish a book for six months has a lot to do with that. However, I’ve just published a new self help book. Here are my books:
- 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
- Build a Brand, Create Products and Earn Passive Income
- Create the Website You Want with WordPress
- Free Your Thoughts: How I Re-programmed Myself For Happiness And How You Can Too
| Period | Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2014 Q3 | $1800.04 |
| 2014 Q4 | $2410.45 |
| 2015 Q1 | $1694.01 |
| 2015 Q2 | $1301.56 |
As you can see, the sales figures have been dropping since the high at the end of last year.
| Period | Number of books sold |
|---|---|
| 2014 Q3 | 1229 |
| 2014 Q4 | 1662 |
| 2015 Q1 | 494 |
| 2015 Q2 | 1119 |
The books sold figure is higher because I was in a couple of BuckBooks promos and because of my recent book launch. Sadly, this doesn’t translate to income because the books were sold at $0.99 during the promos and the launch instead of the usual $2.99. So I’m disappointed with my Kindle sales in Q2 2015: $1301.56. (I’m going to write three more Kindles by the end of the year.)
My membership site
My membership site is where I sell more video courses. I have 16 courses there at the moment – 5 free courses and 11 paid ones.
| Period | Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2014 Q3 | $331 |
| 2014 Q4 | $974 |
| 2015 Q1 | $3,681 |
| 2015 Q2 | $851 |
Back in Q1, I did a “Jeff Walker style” launch of my newest course: Earn $5000+ a Month Passive Income Selling E-books and Video Courses. But this quarter I did very little with it so it only picked up $851 in sales.
Google advertising income
This is revenue from ads on my YouTube channel as well as a little bit of Adsense on my website.
| Period | Revenue |
|---|---|
| 2014 Q3 | $311.66 |
| 2014 Q4 | $357.53 |
| 2015 Q1 | $372.84 |
| 2015 Q2 | $324.89 |
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. This article contains affiliate links!
| Affiliate product | 2014 Q3 | 2014 Q4 | 2015 Q1 | 2015 Q2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis WordPress theme | $307.76 | $253.53 | $777.95 | $240.28 |
| WPML WordPress Multi-Lingual plugin | $440 | $885 | $712 | $675 |
| Aweber email marketing and delivery | $63.90 | $72.90 | $77.70 | $86.40 |
| Others | $170 | $20 | $430.77 | $504.48 |
| Total: | $981.66 | $1230.90 | $1998.42 | $1506.16 |
WordPress Multi-Lingual plug-in had a good quarter. Others include GravityForms: $19.80; WishList Member $265.5; Dreamhost $213.18; Buckbooks: $6; Udemy via Linkshare: $138.29.
Total revenue
So, if we add it all up. My passive income revenue in the first quarter of 2015 was: $17,708.49 that’s down from $26,093.12 last quarter. However, there were a few “windfalls” last quarter (my membership site, DealFuel, etc.)
Expenses
Here are the expenses I’ve incurred for this quarter. Much more than last quarter!
| What? | How much per month? |
|---|---|
| Outsourcing (oDesk, Elance and direct) | $2000 (est.) |
| Hosting (LiquidWeb) | $300 |
| Email marketing (Aweber) | $400 |
| Cloud storage (Dropbox) | $30 |
| Video storage (Vimeo) | $30 |
| Audio storage (Libsyn) | $30 |
| Membership plug-in (DAP) | $800 |
| SSL (Godaddy) | $15 |
| Domain registration (NameCheap) | $25 |
| Kindle editing formatting, design and advice (PublishMyBook.Today) | $400 |
| Kindle promos | $100 |
| Total | $4,130 |
Remember that some of these expenses are company expenses that are incurred to support my active income. For example, web hosting is needed for my web design business which isn’t passive.
But I always like to err on the side of caution with these income reports as I’d hate to exaggerate here. So, bear in mind that these figures are always an underestimation.
This quarter’s total passive income profit
So the revenue ($17,708.49) minus the expenses ($4,130) is … $13,578.49 – ouch! 🙁
There are a number of factors that have contributed to this “perfect storm” of a bad income report:
- Drop in Udemy earnings
- No mailout to list of membership site product
- Lack of windfalls from “deals” sites
- Above average spending on software
Not good! And, if truth be told, it hurts to publish this figures. However I think that some of the work I’ve done in this quarter will result, hopefully, in a better third quarter.
Comparison with previous quarters
| Period | Revenue |
|---|---|
| Q3 2012 | $2,447.10 |
| Q4 2012 | $2,611.03 |
| Q1 2013 | $2,036.93 |
| Q2 2013 | $3,949.05 |
| Q3 2013 | $5,191.36 |
| Q4 2013 | $4,626.56 |
| Q1 2014 | $7,215.82 |
| Q2 2014 | $10,230.49 |
| Q3 2014 | $15,435.79 |
| Q4 2014 | $21,624.45 |
| Q1 2015 | $23,118.12 |
| Q2 2015 | $13,578.49 |
Target for next quarter
My target for next quarter, Quarter 2 2015, is: $25,000 passive income profits.
Previous passive income and business reports
H1 2012
Q3 2012
Q4 2012
Q1 2013
Q2 2013
Q3 2013
Q4 2013
Q1 2014
Q2 2014
Q3 2014
Q4 2014
Q1 2015
You can do it
You can make this much passive income if you just follow what I’ve done. All the details can be found here in my free mini course on passive income.
I’m interested to hear what you think in the comments.
Hey, you’re still doing really well, Rob, congratulations!
I love your site, your enthusiasm and your obvious expertise. Keep up the good work… “two steps forward and one back still gets you there”! 🙂
Neil.
Indeed, Neil. I guess we’ve got to keep on keeping on 🙂