September Review

Side hustle update from the month of equinox! October's gonna be huge!

Hi, I’m Monica! I run an online portfolio service for writers that I created off the back of my own writing career. Here I share my personal experiences as a freelance writer, the highs and lows, and how I’m progressing with my myriad side hustles that allow me to make a living as a sole trader. Visit Writer’s Residence to create a writing portfolio of your own, and Subscribe here to keep reading and support my work!

I’m practicing two things today with this latest post:

• Creating quick content, time boxed to 30 minutes of writing time

• Reflecting on the month gone by - as Ferris Bueller famously said…

I embrace the idea of progress over perfection. In this way, everything’s moving forward, some things more slowly than I’d like.

Writer’s Residence is growing. I successfully launched an affiliate program. But I less successfully started my outreach plans to actually get affiliates on board. I have found myself in a bit of a LinkedIn spiral, trying to fine tune my profile to make my offer compelling before engaging in that dreaded task of “cold outreach” (here’s a good step by step plan for LinkedIn if you’re interested!). I’m overthinking. It’s time to be bold and start getting it out there.

I also had high hopes for launching Facebook ads in September but that’s been on hold to do complications with Covid (boo) and travel. On the plus side, I had an amazing week in Scotland learning about the Geology of the northwest highlands!

I talk about progress over perfection, but it’s hard to know you’re progressing if you’re not measuring progress (I studied math, I should know this!). So with thanks to Dorothy - who does not have an official title yet but is a vital part of our small team! - for the gentle butt kick about KPIs. I’ve now got a spreadsheet of core metrics that will be updated weekly and used as the basis for measuring progress and setting goals. It’s a start, and it’s not too complicated, and something we all should do to track progress towards a goal… some example KPIs if you’re interested:

• Monthly Recuring Revenue

• Active Paid Subscribers

• Trial Subscribers

• Lapsed Trial

• New Subs (Last 30 Days)

• Cancellations (Last 30 Days)

• Unique visitors to the website

• Organic search visitors

• Referrals from other websites

• Total Affiliates

• Outreach messages to Affiliates

• New Affiliates Acquired

• Affiliate referrals

I’ll be adding data on Facebook ads when we get there and who knows, maybe I’ll start sharing the details so you can see what it takes to progress these things!

In other more personal news, Mark and I have made great progress with our future life here in Scotland. Last month we finalised the purchase of a property in Assynt, and in less than two weeks we move! (This is huge!)

We love the van but are looking forward to having a little more space than this!

This will mark the end of our van life experiment and the start of a whole new thing. We’ll not only have a home, but also an annex we will run as a self catering cottage / rural retreat - an actual Writer’s Residence! We intend to run this alongside the guided hikes and astronomy nights that we currently advertise at Eat Sleep Wild (see Mark’s recent Substack about his observatory!). Plans are also in the works for an outdoor kitchen for foodie fun and events.

This October has turned out to be a significant month for us and I feel boundless excitement about the future. I can’t wait to write my October review!

Written in less than 30 minutes! Success!