October went as expected. I kept up with posting the daily lists of writing job ads throughout the month but wrote little else. I finished a long overdue quest guide for Bright Hub’s MMO channel and wrote a book review for a delightful zombie book written by the husband of a friend/co-writers at Canadian Invader. If you like zombie books you should check it out, it was a great read. It’s called Lies at the End of the World by Phil Wolters.

Here is my word count:

In some respects I am pretty pleased with my earnings from writing this month, in other aspects not so much. I am pleased with the Triond earnings. Thirty-nine cents isn’t much, in fact it’s a piddly amount, but it is an improvement and that’s what I was aiming for. Bukisa is still averaging the same amount every month and I have yet to upload the additional pieces I wrote for Triond last month so this isn’t all bad. This tells me that the articles I have on Bukisa, although making very, very little every month, at least have staying power. I can count on the amount I make there to be constant, at least to a degree. My Red Gage earnings are up despite my lack of uploads and my Bright Hub earnings are also up even though the improvement is marginal. The one big disappointment is my Adsense earnings. A lot of effort was put into the Online Paycheck this month with very little monetary gain. At the same time it’s not overly surprising, it takes time to bring money into a blog. Earnings or no earnings I am happy with the Online Paycheck as I have almost doubled my readership again this month.

Earnings from writing online:

Tis the season for stock photography and it shows in my earnings. I must admit that it still surprises me that I still sell as many photos as I do considering the size and age of my portfolio. I am not getting rich off of photography, of that there is no doubt, but my portfolio is now three years old, I have barely added to it in that time, and I still make money from it every month without fail. Earnings are much lower in summer but I do always make something. This month is only a little less than the last but I didn’t get an EL this month. This means sales are up even though I have earned a little less. I am also glad to see that the earnings are spread out a little. Instead of making most of my earnings off of one or two agencies I made decent amounts with some and a little almost everwhere else. This bring each payout just a little closer and that is always good.

Photography earnings:

And that is pretty much it for this month. I plan on writing as much as I can over the next month but since I am preparing for a move into another province on December 1^st I have idea idea how much that will actually be. Only time will tell. I am looking forward to getting settled in a new home so I can get back to writing more often and setting up a photography space. These two changes in my life will help me really start working on my online paycheck.

The second new section is a list of online and print magazines who pay, and list their writers guideline on their website. This new addition currently has 21 publications. Content varies from fiction to poetry to non-fiction. I started, for the most part, with markets that interested me: travel, fantasy fiction, technology and poetry. I will be adding to this section regularly. Thus far I have only looked at guidelines for writers. I will be adding another section with magazines who have their photographer’s guidelines listed on their website sometime in the near future.

Well, it’s time to give you guys some numbers. They will be pretty skewed this month for a number of reasons. I spent a lot of time designing and researching for this blog instead of writing. Since I still have bills to pay, I am still also desperately looking for a regular day job. Much of this month was also dedicated to learning and using social networking sites. Anyway, here are this months numbers.

I’m going to start with my word count for the month. This is as much for me as it is for you. I want to get faster each month, without compromising the quality of my writing, and this is one statistic I will use to track that.

All in all, I can’t say I’m impressed with my word count. I hope to double this in September and I think that is achievable, especially since I only really dedicated half of last month to article writing. There is also no new photography being added this month. My wife and I are looking for a space to set up our studio again and shoot. A studio setting is where I thrive. I can shoot outdoors but to really do this well, I need to be in an area that I find inspiring. This city, the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, just does not provide for me in that capacity. As soon as we have a space to shoot in, we will start adding photos to the monthly tally.

Now on to the dollar count.

Obviously I won’t be living off this months earnings, but it’s a start. Now let’s move to photography earnings.

Agency	Number of photos	Earnings
Shutterstock	143	$30.30
Dreamstime	213	$10.53
iStock	44	$3.85
StockXpert	134	$3.10
Fotolia	200	$3.19
BigStockPhoto	194	$1.50
StockPhotoMedia	248	€2.50
123rf	184	$0.36
Canstock Photo	222	$0.75
Scandinavian Stock Photo	187	€1.00
		Total: $53.58 & €3.50

This, I am more impressed with. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not near enough to live off of either, but considering this is the off-season for microstock sales and that I haven’t been uploading new photos, I am happy with this months results. I did sell an extended licence with Shutterstock this month for an extra 28 bucks, but even without the EL I would have been happy. I hope over the next month, if we are unable to gain a space to start shooting, to at least upload five more shots. If we can gain a shooting space, to upload more than five.

We’ll see what the coming month brings. That’s it from this front, it’s time for me to start my next Bright Hub article.

I’m going to give it a go. This is not my first attempt, but it will be the most dedicated attempt. I’ve been studying online income for the past four years whenever I get a chance. Now I sit, jobless and with very few job prospects. Not only do I have no choice but to make this work, but I’m excited about having something to pour myself into.

I’m not totally starting from scratch though. I currently have 250 photos on various microstock photography websites, although I’ve barely uploaded anything new in the past 2 years. This has been passive income at it’s best, and what made me sure that a living could be attained at home via the internet. I consistantly make around the same amount each month, 8 months out of the year from these photos. Stock photography sales plummet over the summer months. I also started writing again which was a hobby in my teens. I’ve been publishing articles online since June of this year.

Each month I will highlight where I’m earning money, and how much I’ve made. Using me as an example you can see what works and what doesn’t to help you on your journey.