It’s been six weeks since I updated Scraping Pennies. I wrote about what I did in these Six Weeks on my personal blog How to be an Original. In part it had to do with making money online, because I wrote an e-book and published it. It’s for sale now through the E-Junkie interface. I’ll post about my experiences and the results of the e-book on Scraping Pennies in a couple of weeks.

If you’re interested in reselling my e-book, there’s an affiliate program available that pays 50% of revenue. The book sells for $14, so you’ll earn $7 for each sale. Check out the e-book announcement here, and the sign up for the affiliate program here.

I paused my Google Adwords campaign at the beginning of the six weeks period. I’m going to restart it this week, there’s plenty of credit left for a lot of impressions!

For now, here are the numbers for Scraping Pennies. The numbers are cumulated over six weeks:

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

Monthly payment for hosting ($8.32) is deducted from the budget, for July and August.
Total cash-out: $16.64

Money earned

None.

Hours spent

No hours spent

Budget status (this week)

This week I had virtually zero activity online. Not on my personal blog How to be an Original, not on Scraping Pennies and not even on Twitter. The biggest reason is because I started to write an e-book, related to How to be an Original. I’m going to use E-Junkie to sell it. When I set it up, I’ll post my experiences here.

My Google Adwords campaign is interesting. Massive numbers of views for the advertisement, but not that many clicks. Somehow I’m not too unhappy about it, because the blog is shown to a lot of people. I know that there’s a lot of people that don’t even see Adsense ads, but still the name is out there and helping to build the brand.

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

No cash out.

Money earned

No cash in.

Hours spent

• Creating Content: 0.25 hours
• Monetization: 0
• Design: 0
• Technical: 0
• Marketing: 0

Total hours: 0.25 hours

Budget status (this week)

This week I spent most of my time creating content. The OIO Publisher tutorial took a lot of time to create, but I learned some more about the plugin while writing it.

I also started experimenting with advertising using Google Adwords. I had $25 worth of credits, because GoDaddy offered that with the sign-up of this account. I have set it up, but it ended up costing me $10 nevertheless, because you can’t start without paying. That was unexpected, but I decided to go ahead with it anyway. I’ll report on it later.

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

$10 payment for signing up with Google Adwords.

Money earned

No cash in.

Hours spent

• Creating Content: 9.25 hours
• Monetization: 0
• Design: 0
• Technical: 0
• Marketing: 1.50

Total hours: 10.75 hours

Budget status (this week)

I worked on implementing OIO Publisher this week. Took more time than I anticipated, partly because I got interrupted too many times. It’s really a job that needs a certain amount of concentration.

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

Monthly payment for hosting ($8.32) is deducted from the budget.

Money earned

No cash in.

Hours spent

Some design tweaks this week, and backing up databases and upgrading WordPress. But mostly implementing OIO Publisher.

• Creating Content: 2.75 hours
• Monetization: 6.25
• Design: 0.50
• Technical: 2:00

Total hours: 11.50 hours

Budget status (this week)

This report is for two weeks, since I skipped the income report last week. I was taken out by an elbow injury (bursitis), which effectively prevented me from doing any typing. So there was hardly any progress on either of my blogs.

Anyway, this week I’m back and reporting on the finances. More content is coming this week.

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

Cash out this week: $37. I spent it on OIO Publisher, a blog monetization suite that’s going to help me in making money from the blog. As an ad-manager at first, but it is packed with much more options.

Actually I already owned this for my other blog, but I decided to use it here too. Once you own it, you can use it on as many (of your own) blogs as you like so technically it doesn’t cost me any money now, but for the purpose of transparent reporting I will deduct the $37 from the budget here.

Money earned

Despite the lack of page views, I actually made another $0.02 from Kontera This blog is living up to it’s name! It’s all still virtual, since there’s no cash flowing in yet.

Hours spent

This is for a two week span.

• Creating Content: 2.75 hours
• Post on OIO (not yet published)
• Income report

Total hours: 2.75 hours

Budget status (this week)

I put more hours into Scraping Pennies, but haven’t invested more money yet. There is a surprise income this week, although it’s only a fantasy until it hits a payout minimum. Cash flow is what I focus on. Earnings are only earnings when they hit your bank account (or paypal for that matter).

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

No money out this week. Only hours.

Money earned

After I was surprisingly allowed in the program by Kontera, they also have the honor of earning the first pennies for Scraping Pennies. Two pennies to be exact, and with a payout minimum of $100 it’s a long way from becoming cash, and real earnings.

The same goes for the affiliate program of the SEO Book. If you apply to it, you will get $20 bonus in your account. But with a payout minimum of $50, it’s a gift that needs to be earned.

Nevertheless, there’s $20.02 in virtual earnings right now. Which would mean this site is profitable already Well in a fantasy maybe… cash is king, remember that one.

Hours spent

• Technical: 0.25 hours
• Changing redirects
• Creating Content: 7.75 hours
• Three posts, and preparation for two more
• Monetization: 0.25 hours
• Setting up accounts at the SEO Book and SEOMoz

Total hours: 8.25 hours

Budget status (this week)

This week I invested hours, not money. This caused an increase in the money/hour figure, but only fictional. There’s no money inflow, so I’m only diluting the loss with hours. It’s still a loss at a little less than $1 per hour. This week I’m setting out strategies, and I’m probably going to invest some money.

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

I did not spend any money this week. I mainly put in hours, using free resources. Check the credits page to see what resources exactly.

Money earned

Nothing…yet.

Hours spent

• Technical: 0.75 hours
• Creating hoplink pages
• Creating Content: 3.75 hours
• Three posts
• Credits page
• Design: 10.5 hours
• Browsing free themes
• Finding and editing images
• Changing the design in CSS
• Monetization: 1.5 hours
• Setting up account in affiliate program Amazon
• Applying to Text Link Ads, ReviewMe and Kontera
• Affiliate program e-Junkie

Total hours: 16.5 hours

Budget status (this week)

Key Performance Indicators

Money spent

• Domain registration (GoDaddy): $10.19
• Hosting May Deluxe Plan (GoDaddy): $8.32

Total spent: $18.51

Money earned

Nothing.

Hours spent

• Technical: 2.5 hours
  • Domain registration
  • Setting up hosting
  • WordPress configuration
  • Feedburner integration
  • Google Analytics integration
• Creating Content: 0.25 hours

Total hours: 2.75 hours

Budget status