[This was from October 2018] Well, here we are. Two months into this income-generating crochet blog and I’m already earning income and posting a blog income report first month and second month!
I had no intention of posting an income report this early in the journey (two months in). But after spending time on social media and hearing crocheters lament about how impossible it is to earn an income from crochet, I decided to show how it really is possible to start earning even this early in the process.
I am paying it forward and showing throughout this blog (more detail below…click the links) how I have been able to set up a crochet blog and generate an income from what was formerly just a fun hobby. YOU CAN TOO!
Start a Blog for any Niche
To be sure, it’s not a jaw-dropping amount, but it is absolutely growing very consistently on all fronts. This “start a blog” business model calls for multiple streams of income. In my case, all crochet related. That happens to be the niche I chose for myself. However, this start-a-blog business model can be used for anyniche!
Multiple Streams of Income
For this crochet blog income report the multiple streams of income (as of this writing in mid/late 2018) encompass Google Adsense, affiliates, YouTube tutorial videos and Etsycrochet pattern sales.
The business model also calls for sponsored posts and sponsored ads. This won’t happen until I have bigger traffic, but is absolutely doable. Other bloggers using this business model (more on that in a bit) for travel niches manage to snag sponsored travel almost immediately.
The Start a Blog Business Model
Before I started CrazyCoolCrochet.com I delved deep and studied numerous crochet blogs that were putting out incredible income reports. I also studied many other niches. I wrote quite a bit about this here: Start a Crochet Blog
They all had the same things in common. They were all from different niches, but were generally following the same “model”.
The same as I do here, they have their niche as their main draw. For CrazyCoolCrochet.com it is teaching crocheters how to sell their crochet creations (using options other than the typical craft fairs and onesietwosie sales). I also offer free crochet patterns that they can use in their product lines. And of course, my crochet patterns can be used for just personal use.
Other niches use this model to teach followers how to paint furniture or how to live the “farmstyle” life, or how to use essential oils, or how to travel on a budget…and on and on. The possibilities are endless.
The “money making” part of the equation comes when you are able to show others how to do the same…create their own money making blogs. In the case of CrazyCoolCrochet.com, I also show crocheters how to use streams of income to strictly sell crochet if they are not interested in following the entirety of the business model.
Let me be clear…there is nothing to buy into. There is no multi-step network of any kind. It is strictly good old fashioned hard work to build a money generating blog. Some of these blogs do offer courses to learn how to do this, but it is in no way required or in any way network or multi-level (MLM) marketing.
When I refer to the business model, I mean the overall, general methods which are the same:
- Attract traffic to the blog with your main offering
- Set up affiliate sources
- Use ads
- Create tutorials or other original resources for free or for a price
- Seek out sponsorships
- Encourage and show othershow to start your own website/blog for income
That is the gist of the business model. Now for the actual income report!
Income Report
This crochet blog income report is for month two (October, 2018). I also earned income for month one. I won’t detail it because it was small ($43.13). It was mostly Etsy pattern sales and a little ad revenue. Let me tell you though…those Etsy sales coming in so soon after launching both the blog and the Etsy shop (which I had never done before this) were a huge thrill! It drove home immediately that I was on the right track. The blog traffic sends readers to my Etsy shop; the blog is instrumental to my Etsy sales. Keep in mind, my average Etsy sale is only $2.99. But it adds up! Look at that number below. That’s a lot of sales at $2.99 each! And I am a total newbie on Etsy!
Note that the second month crochet blog income report below grew by six times from the first month! Six times! In one month! Holy smokes!
Income
Affiliates: $154.95
Etsy: $74.77
YouTube: $0
Ads: $33.42
Since my YouTube channel is brand new I don’t qualify to be able to monetize yet. I need 1000 subscribers and 4000 viewed hours! Yeow! Please help me out with that folks! Click on the YouTube link here and SUBSCRIBE (and let the video run its length to count toward the viewing hours 🙂 ) : Crazy Cool Crochet YouTube
I actually am expecting a Google Adsense payout of over $100 for this month. Yes, I only earned $33.42 for this month, but I had some commission dollars that had accumulated but never paid out from a long ago blog (that did NOT use this business model and never went anywhere). So, combining that, plus last month’s and this month’s earnings, I qualify for the payout! You need to reach a minimum of $100 to be paid.
Now, let me assure you…$33.42 for the month, for a blog this new, from Adsense is actually quite good! Google doesn’t pay much for ads. Even after you get a crazy amount of traffic you might earn a few hundred dollars for the month; $1,000 or $2,000 if you’re super successful. Most bloggers, as soon as they reach minimum thresholds for traffic counts, graduate to more lucrative ad channels. They typically double and triple their earnings just by switching companies! For the most popular program, you need to have 25,000 “sessions” per month (about 30,000 page views). Click here to learn how to track your stats: StatCounter
Expenses
I don’t want to neglect the expenses side. But, I don’t want to detail it all here (yet). Start up expenses are always “high” to get the business off the ground. And by “high” I don’t mean hundreds or thousands…But, because everyone will set up their business differently, not all expenses will be the same. I don’t want to mislead anybody with my numbers; they will not be the same for you. For example, I bought a WordPress “theme” ($45). You can do this with a free theme. I bought a logo ($45) that turned out to be useless and ended up making my own. You can make your own or have one made more inexpensivley. I upgraded my Picmonkey and Aweber accounts ($7 monthly ea) but didn’t really have to. I paid for 36 months of hosting. See what I mean? And the ongoing monthly expenses will be much lower!
Growing Blog Traffic
While CrazyCoolCrochet.com is still quite new, and I tried so hard not to get my hopes up too high for the first few months (I do have high hopes for a few months down the road!), I still started to worry that I wasn’t generating the traffic I had hoped. I was doing everything I was supposed to do: Social media (joined several Facebook crochet groups), Pinterest pins, Instagram, good quality and frequent blog posts, email campaign. But traffic was slow to build.
All the social networking was brand new to me. I’d never used Pinterest or Instagram before this (oh the horrors!) and I’d never joined FB groups before this venture. I had learned early on that the mother lode of traffic for my niche was in Pinterest. So I concentrated a lot of time and effort learning to create cool pins and snagging invites to “group boards“. Still, I only had like 40 followers the early part of the month. I’ll be at 200+ by the end of October (this reporting month).
Then something miraculous happened (or maybe it was the persistent, consistent pinning (must be consistent!) and joining Tailwind (more on that later). Over the course of the 3rd weekend in the month, my traffic started to take off! My followers quadrupled. Traffic to the blog multiplied by 7 times! Etsy traffic tripled! YouTube views grew (it’s only been set up two weeks so nothing huge yet). EDIT: One video got 2700 views in one month and still growing. Crochet Poncho for Beginners
All of that growth and early earnings tell me that I am indeed on track to achieve my ultimate goal of world domination! Ha! Just seeing if you’re paying attention! I mean my ultimate goal of earning $2000 per month within the first year.
The hard work is paying off! (And paying out!) And I do mean hard work! Because I have been unemployed over a year and a half, and totally alone financially, I am working this, and setting this up, as my sole source of income. That’s a lot of pressure and a lot of work. I work on this business at least 12 hours per day (because I can…unemployed remember?). But, this can be done on a part-time basis. Absolutely it can be done working fewer hours.
EDIT: a few months later I now work on the blog business about 8 hours a day and often less than that.
EDIT 2: Four years of running this income producing crochet business and my schedule is so much easier! I post on the blog about once a week. I work on the business itself about 4 days per week, a few hours a day if I am working on a new crochet design. Aside from daily checking emails and YouTube comments, I often have entire days where I work on other interests. I am now a published author of fiction books:
Join Me
So if you are interested in getting started on a similar journey, head over to my Start a Crochet Blog page, strap on your wings and take the leap! I say over and over and with complete, total sincerity and honesty…I HAVE NEVER ENJOYED MY WORK MORE THAN I DO NOW! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE BEING A BLOGGER! Go ahead. Try it yourself! Follow my methods that I outline throughout this blog and change a life! YOURS.
Feel free to ask questions or comment below.
See how the journey continued: Make $5000 with a Crochet Blog
