Monthly Report: April 2008

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel."
~Steve Furtick

I have always related to the above quote because it reminds me of the way we compare ourselves to-- and typically fall short of-- other people's success stories. We learn about "writing online for money" and then read about someone who has monetized their blog to the tune of $10,000.00 a month and we go "oh wow!"

I've already been doing this gig for about 10 years, and whereas these grand result may be true... they are only true for 1-in-50,000 who start down this road.

Most almost all writers' results are more modest negligible.

And for that same reason, they stop.

"Well, I thought at least I'd be able to make $1,000 a month!" they say, at the end of their 6th month of making $8.77.

Anyway, this being "The Lazy Writer's Blog," I thought I would start publishing candid monthly updates, neither hiding anything nor "exaggerating,"

You know, "just the facts, ma'am."

So, without further ado, the results from the month of April 2008 were as follows:

Ad revenue from Google Adsense: $0.59.

No, I'm being dead serious, here. This is the sum total from last month. I guess there's no place to go but "up," from here. Stay tuned for future reports!

Of course, as I start expanding my horizons and writing on other "revenue sites," those will be added in.

How I Admire those... Ambitious Writers

There is a part of me that envies those writers who seem to be "making it" by having blogs, web sites, articles and content "all over creation."

I wonder where they get the energy to do all that.

One of my challenges in becoming a "serious" writer is (and always has been) that I generally lack the ambition and drive to create a lot of content. It's not that I am lacking in ideas... I'm just not a very "energetic" person, and I really never was.

On some level, I feel slightly envious of those who are able to do all these things.

I have a lot of viable ideas, and I often feel like I could be "One Of Them" if only I had the stick-to-it-iveness to carry my plans to completion. For example, I had some really nice ambitions for my Inner Reflections web site... but I have barely managed to get the "HSP Section" completed, and it's a constant struggle to not make the site look perpetually abandoned and out-of-date.

Of course-- in complete fairness-- I've never had the financial wherewithall to be able to just "take a month" to do nothing but create a "writing empire." I'm lucky if I can "afford" to steal 20 minutes now and then to write a short blog post like this one. So I guess what I am really envious of is being able to feel something other than "totally exhausted" when I have completed the daily task of "making the money to pay for electricity and food."

I expect what holds many writers back is precisely the fact that writing is so often a "long term" income proposition... you "write now" and then gradually get paid over a long period of time. That's both the beauty-- and drawback-- of royalty income.