Purple Crayon Funding for 2005

This report covers the income that The Purple Crayon received in 2005. I'm working on bringing in enough income to compensate me for my time and expenses, and thus make the site self-sustaining in the long run. It's a time-consuming project and I can't do it on a volunteer basis, as I did for the first several years of the site.

	PC Editorial	Amazon	Google AdSense	BookCloseOuts	Other	Total
1st 1/4	$155	$755.77	$831.95	$361.76	$13.94	$2,118.42
2nd 1/4	$120	$558.28	$1,296.62	$150.97	$5.80	$2,131.67
3rd 1/4	$45	$553.30	$2,139.29	$126.08	-	$2,749.67
4th 1/4	$138	$557.79	$1,841.77	$103.50	$11.23	$2,652.29
Total	$458	$2,425.24	$6,109.63	$742.31	$30.97	$9,649.05

Comments: All of the affiliate programs on the site other than the main three listed separately above are now listed under "Other": this includes Alibris, Amazon Canada, and BookSense. I continue to note a "commission" on freelance work that came in via the web site. My hope is that I will do less and less of this and more work on the site itself as income from the site itself increases.

The site did very well this year with Google AdSense, meaning that the eggs are all in one basket, a situation which needs to be changed.

2005 Work: Having income from the site meant that I was able to spend more time working on the site this past year. According to my records (browse down through the What's New page for links), I updated the "Who's Moving Where" page 11 times (probably more often than that, as I don't announce every change). I added 10 blog entries, with a total of 51 items in them. I posted 12 of Margot Finke's Musings columns, on writing subjects. I put up 9 other new articles by myself or others, and 3 new book reviews. I updated pages all over the site. And I reorganized the site, adding several new sub-index pages. It was a busy year.

Next steps: I still have more work than I can keep with on the site itself. There will be plenty of new material on the site in 2006: more blog entries, more columns by Margot, contributed articles, and articles I've written.

To bring in more income, other than minor tinkering with what is on the site already, I know that what I need to do is work out ad rates so that I can offer text-based ads directly to advertisers, which will give me complete control over what is appearing on the site, and ideally provide a steadier income.

Please remember to come back to the Bookstore page on my site when you are doing online book shopping. In the long run, the more people who bookmark and then use that page, the larger the number of purchases that will be credited to the site. You can also promote it by linking to it from your site, or by linking to any other page or pages that interest you.

Funding The Purple Crayon: 2005 Report

Funding The Purple Crayon:
2005 Report