#49 | How I made $5K PER DAY in April

When I was a kid, I heard a famous quote from supermodel Linda Evangelista.

She said of models: “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day.”

When my friend became a child model, we used to talk about what kind of mansion she’d have when she eventually became a supermodel.

(Obviously, it would have a slide from the bedroom to the living room).

I thought that being a model was the only path to $10k days.

And then, they invented the internet…

Okay, okay, the internet was already invented.

I’m not THAT old.

But I only used it to chat with my friends on MSN Messenger after school.

(Do lonely kids talk to Chat GPT instead now? Oh my. What a depressing thought.)

Fast forward…

And in April 2023 I made $52,409 of profit, on the internet, while working only 10 days.

So that’s $5K per day.

I’m halfway to that crazy supermodel figure!
Mindblowing!

Why only 10 days? Well, I spent the rest of the month travelling in Greece and Norway.

I do take photos and videos and post them to Instagram but I don’t count that as work.

Now, my thinking is that the more info I share, the more I can help anyone who is a few steps behind me on the path to reach this too.

After all, I learned all of this from people who were a few steps ahead of me and I’m super grateful to them for sharing their knowledge.

So, here’s the breakdown of what I made last month and how.

This site is growing nicely, with a 5% increase month on month.

Revenue is flat though, but April RPMs are always lower than March because it’s a new quarter so that’s cool.

Focus for this month

Last month I said that I wanted to hand over the news production to one of my writers, ramp up my emails to twice per week and launch a digital product.

Well, I didn’t actually do any of that because instead, I decided to launch a new website.

(Bloody shiny objects!)

This site was hit hard by an update in September, but it’s been in recovery for a few weeks now (although it still has no snippets).

It’s still behind year on year, but I’m very happy with a 26% increase month on month!

My writer updated and improved every single article over the past three months.

This was their checklist:

Add a Key Points summary at the top
Mention personal experiences
Use Query Hunter to optimise for more keywords
Add more FAQs
Check and update affiliate links
Add internal links
Replace stock photos with original

Focus for this month

There are still a few stock photos to be replaced with real images, then I’ll leave this one to sit and be passive until any new games are released.

This site isn’t a focus for me right now.

I’m just dripping in a couple of good articles per month and collecting the passive income.

I kinda want to sell it but also can’t be bothered selling it.

Well, I can’t be bothered dealing with the tyre-kickers is what I mean!

It’s probably worth somewhere around $25k.

If you have cash to invest in something like this and want to know when it goes on sale, just reply to this email and let me know.

Here’s the Google Analytics screenshot for it…

I’ll be honest, it’s pretty seasonal with a big chunk of content that only gets traffic in the winter.

If I were smarter I wouldn’t have waited until spring to consider selling, doh!

This site is growing nicely despite me completely ignoring it.

I’ll keep adding a couple of new posts each month.

Site 5 – New Site!

This is a brand new site on a fresh domain that I’m building out with 100% AI content.

I say 100% AI, but really it’s AI-written and human-edited.

I’ve edited some myself and I’m also testing out a service whereby humans fact-check and edit the content for me.

Why start a new site when I’m ignoring the ones I already have?

Well, aside from being a fricking MAGPIE,

I wanted to test out AI tools some more.

A new site is a fairer test.

I know how my past 5 sites have grown, so I can see how this sixth one compares.

Plus, if it doesn’t work, I’d rather wreck a new site than one that’s making me money.

How did I choose the niche?

I Googled a question and couldn’t find a good answer.

So I Googled a similar question and they weren’t covered either.

Honestly, that’s how I’ve found every single one of my niches!

I’m not into the niche yet, but I’m looking forward to learning more about it and having a few days out taking photos.

What tools am I using?

I’m using Koala Writer to write the content.

I like it.

I’m currently paying $49 month which gives me up to 100,000 words of GPT 3.5 (or 20,000 words of GPT4).

Honestly, I’m using Koala because Anne Moss said she loves it, I tried it and I agree.

I trust her.

She’s shared all of the details of how she’s pivoted her $200k/month content business from human writers to AI.

You can read her story here.

It’s easier for me to copy Anne’s method than come up with my own!

Like I said,

I am where I am because I followed the path of people who are a few steps ahead of me.

Expenses.

Of course, this isn’t all profit.

That said, I’m a tightwad who struggles to delegate

So my profit was 96%.

I’m sure I’d make a LOT more cash if my profit was 80% but there we go.

My expenses in April were $2,487.

Here’s what I spent that on…

Writers – $1,893

This is usually double that but I never have anyone working to deadlines, people can just write when they want to. This month people took time off. I’m cool with it.

VAs – $206

Same story.

Email software – $240

I have about 50k subs and I use Mailerlite.

I’d been thinking of switching to Beehiiv or Convertkit but then I read this comparison by Jared Bauman and saw that the grass isn’t always greener.

Hosting – $99

I use BigScoots and I’m very happy with it.

If ever I have a tech issue, they help me out, even though it’s rarely their fault!

Theme – $0

I bought the lifetime deal for GeneratePress a while ago.

It’s so fast and easy to use that I can’t ever see myself switching.

Product links – $43

I use Genius Link to send people to the right country to make purchases.

It’s like Amazon’s One Link (which is free), but it also works outside of Amazon and it does more things, like A/B tests.

AI – $49

I’m using Koala Writer.

I pay monthly so will adjust the amount up and down as needed.

Speed – $12

I use WP Rocket to make all my sites nice and fast without me needing to learn the tech behind it.

Images – $13

Canva is where I get any stock photos I need and I use to edit images and make YouTube Thumbnails.

Those are all of the tools I pay for.

There are a few others that I use regularly that I get for free – usually because I’m an affiliate, a friend lets me use theirs or I just use the free version.

All of the tools I use on the regular are listed here.

Phew!

That’s a long one, but I had a few suggestions that people wanted to see included from last month’s income report so I tried to include all of those.

Have a good month!

NSL

Site 1 – Travel

Site 2 – Gaming

Site 3 – Environment

Site 4 – Leisure

Site 5 – New Site!

Expenses.