How I Earned $3,640 On a 28-Day Long Holiday

My advice to all writers and creators.

I earned $3,640 last month. I was on a holiday for 4 weeks and didn’t work at all.

I was supposed to make $2000 more, but that payment got stuck and was released this month. So since I’d rather be honest than try to show off the ‘$5k’ number. I’m going to stick to how much I actually made break down everything I did.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

I did not have my laptop for these 4 weeks
I did absolutely zero work
I didn’t hire anyone to work for me during this time

But I did a few things which are tricks I want you to use next time you’re on a holiday.

My entire reason for writing this article is that I am where I am because of other people who were transparent. It helped me carve a direction. So I hope it helps somebody out there who is where I was a year and a half ago.

This is my first time writing so bluntly about my earnings so I’m a bit too scared to publish this… But let’s hope it goes well.

What I Do

If you don’t know me, I’m a 26-year-old full-time writer and creative entrepreneur.

I quit my job at 25 and have been self-employed for 14 months.

Here’s what I do for a living:

write on this platform
have some digital products like Medium Guide, Article Guide, and LinkedIn Content Mastery Playbook
conduct a cohort-based course 4 times a year
sometimes freelance
hardly consult

I won’t link any of my products because I’m not writing this to sell to you, okay?

Okay.

The last one is ‘hardly’ because, in all honesty, when people dump questions on me and I send them a link to my consulting page, a very tiny fraction pays to get their answers.

Everyone wants to extract as much as they can for free, don’t they?

A Short Back Story

It’s important to know where I’m coming from to understand why I do what I do.

My goal is to help people in my best capacity and just live a decent life.

I want to own my time.

So my motivation to do what I do is to serve others and own my time.

While financial independence is a goal as it’s something I’ve always wanted because I have a single mom and it gives me an edge in my rather conservative society, I also believe that money comes in when you do the right things.

Wanting money doesn’t bring in money, adding value helps in making money. Treat money as a consequence, not a goal.

And I’ve also worked incredibly hard on what looks glamorous on the outside like a 4-hour workday or earning during a holiday.

How I Earned Money

It’s from these two sources of income.

1. Gumroad

This is where I have my course and digital products.

The majority of my sales came from my LinkedIn Guide, which I just launched in July and was talking about it on Twitter and in my newsletter.

Now, as you can see below, you’d see how the payment on August 05 is actually what I earned during the last week of July.

But since this is just how the platform works, I don’t sweat the calculations and track my income based on the time I receive my money.

2. Medium

Well, this is mostly because my stories published in July also picked decent traction during August. So perhaps I just got lucky… or enjoyed the fruit of my hard work.

During my holiday, I scheduled about 8–10 articles to be published on the platform because people told me that when they took time off, their stats were killed.

But towards the end of the month, my stats dropped by 80% anyway.

Let’s talk a little more about this.

My Content Strategy During My Holiday

Now, I’m lazy. So I find ways to attain my goals in the easiest way possible.

So I write one article and derive my newsletter and tweets from that article.

It’s called content repurposing.

I scheduled my content this way before my holiday.

Medium

I used Twitter threads as Medium articles and scheduled them.

I also clubbed 3–5 similar LinkedIn posts and got them together for an article. For e.g. I published a 5-part series about my solo travels on LinkedIn, so I made that into one Medium article.

Fetch existing content to create new content. Take advantage of cross-platform posting.

Twitter

I’m in love with Hypefury for a year now. I scheduled 2 tweets/day for a month ahead so my content mill is running even when I’m sleeping.

Even when not on a vacation, it’s an integral part of my writing routine.

Every Monday, I sit and schedule my tweets for the week ahead. A lot of these tweets are sentences taken from my Medium articles that people highlight.

I wanted to schedule my LinkedIn posts on Hypefury too, but I ran out of time and burnt myself out.

For the first two weeks, I had to post on the platform as it was a commitment to the Creator’s Accelerator Program that LinkedIn selected me for.

So I had to do it in real-time.

After that, I just posted if I felt like.

I gained 17,000 LinkedIn followers in these 4-weeks because nearly all my posts got viral. Again, either I got lucky, or it’s a result of my hard work.

Everyone who gets my free Side Hustler’s Checklist also gets my free weekly newsletter, Side Hustle Saturdays.

I used my old Twitter threads I published when I didn’t have a big audience, so they didn’t really get traction. They’re super valuable and could do with a second life to teach my readers something new.

I sometimes plugged in my relevant digital product here. For e.g. I plugged in my LinkedIn Playbook if my newsletter gave LinkedIn Tips.

Digital Products

It’s all transparent in the Gumroad screenshots. I have a few superstars who loved my playbook and wanted to be an affiliate for it. Hence I paid $760 to them.

But apart from that, here’s how people buy it:

Twitter bio
Newsletter
it’s mentioned in my freebie
it’s mentioned in my LinkedIn ‘featured’ section

And here’s a confession — what you see is an excellent month.

I’ve had days and days of $0 Gumroad sales. One week, I also earned $5 — the entire week. The week you make thousands or a single day where you make over $500 (or even $100) is rare.

So I will not glorify what shouldn’t be glorified.

Finally

I hope this helps you carve a content strategy for yourself and use my method of scheduling in advance when you’re away.

For some of you, this amount could be peanuts. And for others, it could be a dream. I don’t know what it is for me yet, but I know that I’m extremely grateful to do what I love and make an impact in this community.

This is way more than how much I earned in even one-quarter of my full-time job, so it’s a big deal for me. And a year ago, this was a far-fetched dream.

The ‘secret sauce’ is unsexy and consists of

hard work
discipline
curiosity
consistency

So whoever needs to hear this — put in the reps every single day and don’t give up.

Click here to grab your free Side Hustler Checklist. Enjoy reading on Medium? Buy a membership for full access.

How Easy Is It To Take a Month Off as a Creator?

I’m back to writing after 35 days.

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Full Disclosure: I’ve used my affiliate link for Hypefury. This means that if you sign up, I receive a tiny portion of your membership fee at no extra cost to you. That being said, I’m a 100% paying pro subscriber and vouch for it.