How I Made £12,946 ($20,126 USD) in 3 Months

Let’s check in to see how business is doing for the second quarter of 2015! The expenses in June are pretty scary, but let’s start with where we left off last time—April.

April 2015

Sales: £5,113.17

April was a great month for sales! You can see that I did a lot of custom work in April and it was my biggest source of income.

Expenses: £1,463.71

April was a little high in terms of expenses for two reasons:

1. I had some BookExpo America related expenses (business cards and coupons). That was an extra £123.44.
2. I factored in all my home expenses. This was because April was tax season so I had to file my self assessment. As part of that, I got to calculate a certain percentage of my broadband bill and other home expenses (rent, water, etc.) that went towards my business, since I work from home. This was all logged in April as £425.47, but it actually covered the whole year, from April 2014 to April 2015.

Total profit in April: £3,649.46 GBP ($5,681.99 USD)

May 2015

Sales: £4,852.83

Another pretty good month, as it involved finishing up some of the web projects I started in April. I took deposits in April and most of the final payments came through in May, which is why they’re so similar.

I sold a lot more pre-mades in May than April. May saw £1,595.41 from pre-made products, whereas April only brought in £1,088.36 from pre-mades.

You can see there’s a small sliver there for “Refunds”. I started logging refunds as negative sales, but they actually show up in the pie chart as a positive number. Sooo just ignore that.

Expenses: £912.63

Holy cow, this was so much better than April! Remember, April was nearly £1,500! But I guess that makes sense since I didn’t log my home expenses in May.

There’s nothing super out of the ordinary this month. There were a few more expenses related to BookExpo America, including:

1. One night stay in a London hotel while on the way to New York.
2. Transportation to the airport (trains).

That added up to £185.85 in convention/events expenses.

Total profit in May: £3,940.20 GBP ($6,134.65 USD)

June 2015

Sales: £2,980.68

Sooo you can see June was kind of rubbish.

I blame at least part of this on BookExpo America. I came back from BEA and felt like I was in SERIOUS need of a staycation. I didn’t book any new projects for June since I was so sluggish and tired. Plus, pre-made sales dropped down again (to £1,022.84, compared to the £1,595.41 from May).

Expenses: £2,856.33

HERE’S WHERE THINGS GOT NUTS!!!

See that massive amount of £2,229.89 in Conventions & Events? That’s from my hotel bill for BookExpo America. OUCH! LOL! This brings my total profits in June to… drum roll please…

Total profit in June: £124.35 GBP ($193.61 USD)

Let’s talk about how I made £12,946 in sales last quarter

Only £7,714 of that was actually profit, but £12,946 in sales is still a pretty damn awesome accomplishment. My sales from the first quarter were £10,640.43, so I’m continuing to build my business, which is fantastic!

I think the #1 thing I did differently in Q2 compared to Q1 is adjust my prices. I’m starting to charge what I’m worth.

Pricing identity crisis—the struggle is real!

I’ve always been up and down when it came to my prices.

• I charged low when I first started out, which is understandable.
• I raised my prices by small amounts ever so often.
• After a certain point, I started to worry that my prices were getting too high. I’d catch myself lowering prices to match what I thought clients would want to pay. I was basing my prices on what I thought my clients would want to pay instead of what I deserved for my work.
• In Q2 I started making a big change. My prices are higher than they have ever been, but they better reflect the value I provide to my clients. Yes it would be nice if I could work with EVERYONE, regardless of their budgets, but sadly it’s just not realistic. I have bills to pay and I offer a valuable service—my prices need to reflect that.

Blog stats

Here are some blog statistics from Q2:

• 126,191 page views (up from 104,797 in Q1)
• 51,594 unique visitors (up from 47,250 in Q1)
• Top referrer: StumbleUpon (4,014 sessions) (up from 3,528 via Twitter in Q1)
• 246 new email subscribers (up from 120 in Q1)
• Most popular post: What Does “Purge Cache” Mean? (2,587 views)

I’m ready for an awesome Q3!