Side-Hustles From Scratch #18 — It All Comes Back

created by HungryMinded using Midjourney AI

Intro

Another Thursday and another progress update. No miracles, just real, slow progress. Get future updates e-mailed to you every Thursday by signing up for my mailing list.

And if you missed the previous updates, here is a complete list for you:

Hopefully, in a year or so, we can look back at this list as a roadmap to a successful side hustle.

Update #18

Last week I experienced a minor setback, but this week has brought a small victory. Last week one of my affiliate commissions got retracted. But this week I had some new ones. Although my progress is slow. It’s steady growth and I intend to keep it that way.

Success is compounding. And I begin feeling a snowball effect from all the work I’ve done previously. I have created an audience on Medium. My earnings are growing steadily and the income from other side hustles is doing the same. Next week I will also be publishing my income report from my writing side hustle.

I must say that this journey hasn’t been easy. But I am not going to quit. I will keep writing, creating content, and experimenting with other side hustles.

Last week I also shared my plans to focus on YouTube in 2023. But I will probably start experimenting earlier than that. In fact, I have something in the works already.

But for now, you can show some support by subscribing to the channel. I haven’t published a new video this week. But here’s an earlier experiment I made using Midjourney.AI:
Video here

In the future, I am planning to make video-essay-type videos.

Earnings

Total: $98.07

Breakdown:

Print-on-demand: $0.61

Affiliate marketing: $58.81

This Week:

Affiliate marketing: $38.65

Accomplishments

Series started — April 21, 2022
First photos accepted to Shutterstock — April 26, 2022
First video published on Youtube — May 5, 2022
First sale on RedBubble — May 10, 2022
First referral on Medium — May 12, 2022
First actual affiliate sale 34$ — August 7, 2022

Affiliate Marketing

Last week was a bit sad with the retracted commission. But It all came back to me this week with a new commission from Pictory.AI (affiliate link).

screenshot by HungryMinded

I also contacted Pictory about the 0.16$ recurring payment. As I didn’t understand why I am getting such a small amount. And it turns out that somebody has parked their subscription for 1$ a month and I am getting a commission from that.

As I have explained before all of this comes from one article featuring pictory.AI affiliate link. Here’s the article if you are interested:

I Turned My Medium Stories Into YouTube Videos and You Can Too!

In total, I have made $75.76 from this affiliate offer alone. And the article has also earned me more than $140 through the Medium partner program.

I also got a new Medium referral this month increasing the amount to 9 in total. I will be earning $19.91 for as long as these users keep their subscriptions.

screenshot by HungryMinded

Although the amounts I am getting paid are small, I do love the recurring nature of these payments. And it does keep adding up over time. As well as putting new content out there brings in more referrals. Creating a snowballing effect.

Print-On-Demand

At this point, I really don’t feel like this is working out for me. But I have some more designs ready to be uploaded. And I will do so when I have some more free time. For now, I feel that my time is better spent focusing elsewhere.

My designs keep getting more likes. And I keep getting new followers. But no new sales are coming in.

screenshot by HungryMinded

And the margins are quite low anyway. I feel like the marketplace is getting extremely saturated with all the new AI tools out there.

Check out my store here:

HungryMinded Shop | Redbubble

Goals For The Week

Overall goals:

Get back into making YouTube videos.

Work on other new ideas (Newsletter, etc)

Affiliate marketing:

Look into some new possibilities for using affiliate marketing to generate income.

Print-On-Demand

keep uploading more designs

In Future updates:

A transparent look at my progress
I will share what I have learned
I will share other valuable sources of information

Here is a list of all articles in the series:

Feedback

If you have any suggestions or questions or want to share your thoughts, leave a comment below.

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This article was originally posted by me on Medium