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December 30, 2013 - Business, Life

Two years after quitting my job: 2013 in review

If you’ve been reading this blog for a few years, you know the journey I’ve gone through: In October 2011 I left a startup job (making $60,000/year) to freelance and build and sell products. 2012 was an amazing year where I built this blog, wrote two books, and doubled my income.

So what happened in 2013? Well, it’s the year that the benefits from what I built really started to snowball. I launched two books (Authority and The App Design Handbook, iOS 7 edition) and my other books continued to sell well.

Enough summary, let’s jump in starting with the money and products.

Income Report

Consulting

Just last year a large portion of my revenue came from consulting. In 2013 I didn’t do any and that felt really good! I may do some more in the future, but for now it feels really good to not have any clients. I have a little consulting revenue to report, but it is all for work done in 2012.

Consulting revenue: $12,917

Now on to product sales.

Note: all book sales numbers are after credit card processing fees.

The App Design Handbook

Launched September 9, 2012

The App Design Handbook was the book that started this entire journey for me. Most of its sales happened in 2012, but in 2013 it sold $19,247 through my site.

  • Gumroad: $19,247
  • MightyDeals: $2,911

This fall I worked with Jeremy Olson to launch a new edition for iOS 7. That book was a runaway success ($36,000+ in 24-hours) and has continued to sell well.

Launched November 6, 2013

  • Second edition: $55,410 (split 50/50 with Jeremy Olson)
  • My share: $27,705

My total: $49,863

Designing Web Applications

Launched December 12, 2012

Always my bestseller, Designing Web Applications continued to do well this year. Despite receiving the least attention it made the most money. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Gumroad: $66,542
  • AppSumo: $8,091
  • MightyDeals: $3,138

Total: $77,771

Authority

I launched Authority in May of this year and have been pleasantly surprised by the sales. It hasn’t sold as well as my design books, but product marketing isn’t the main focus of my audience. It was a super fun book to write and made me $66,478 in 2013.

I only promoted it on my own site, so all those sales came through Gumroad.

Total: $66,478

Workshops

I taught two workshops with Brennan Dunn in London and Boston. London we sold out 25 seats and had a really fun time with a big group. Boston we didn’t market very well, so we just had 6 attendees. It was a totally different vibe and I actually enjoyed it more with just a small group around a conference table.

  • Building Profitable Audiences – London: $3,867
  • Building Profitable Audiences – Boston: $1,000
  • Designing Web Applications: $2,892

Workshop total: $7,759

Not bad for getting paid to speak and travel! Next year I expect that number to be significantly higher.

Building Profitable Audiences (Community)

Just a few weeks ago I launched a community for people who have read Authority and are taking action. It currently has 20 members, each paying $100/month. So it made $2,000, but that will continue to be monthly recurring revenue.

Already the community is growing strong and I’m excited to see what each of the members do in 2014.

Total: $2,000

ConvertKit

The ConvertKit numbers actually surprised me with just how low they are. Other times I had been looking at projected numbers or what had just been invoiced. But this shows exactly what I made accounting for refunds (there were quite a few).

  • Preorders: $3,826 (after fees and refunds)
  • Recurring Payments: $10,998

Also none of this is profit. I spend every penny ConvertKit makes back on product development.

Total: $14,824

iOS apps

Even though they don’t make me much money, I still sell apps on the App Store. Though I sold OneVoice (more on that later) which makes up the majority of my iOS revenue. In 2014 I will just have Commit making me money, so I don’t expect meaningful revenue checks from Apple going forward.

  • Commit: $3,730
  • OneVoice: $7,341
  • OneVoice Sale: $13,000
  • Fluent: $42.64 (Haha!)

Total: $24,113

LegendThemes.com

In an attempt to get rid of old projects I sold LegendThemes.com on Flippa. Because of all the themes that were packaged with the sale I probably could have sold for more, but that is still more money than I ever made from the site.

Sale: $1,000

Summary

Total all that up and it was not a bad year! I could quote higher numbers by including gross revenue, but this seems more accurate. With a few minor adjustments (some of these numbers don’t include the last week of the year) this is the number I’ll be reporting to the IRS.

2013 total revenue: $256,725

2012 total revenue: $145,471

I didn’t quite double revenue, but that’s a whole lot better than the 5% raises I was getting at my last job.

Expenses

I should add a quick note on expenses. First, those numbers don’t include expenses. Second, expenses were much higher this year. I spent over $20,000 on development, at least $30,000 on travel, $10,000 on equipment (computers, camera, lights, audio gear, etc), and then plenty more on miscellaneous business expenses.

And then… taxes. Which are brutal.

What went well

Enough about money, let’s talk about some of the other things that went on in 2013.

Speaking

In my 2012 review post I wrote that I wanted to do more public speaking. Auston Bunsen, the organizer of SuperConf in Miami read the post and invited me to speak in February. That made for my first paid speaking gig.

After that I went on to give an attendee talk at MicroConf in Las Vegas, and then Amy Hoy invited me to speak at BaconBiz in Philadelphia. I then hosted workshops with Brennan Dunn in Boston and London, and closed out the year by keynoting the Idaho Book Extravaganza.

baconbiz-speaking

Speaking is a great example of wanting to make an improvement and then seeing a big change. That should continue into 2014 since I already have two talks lined up in March and April.

Exercise

Last fall I joined a local CrossFit gym that I’ve been really enjoying. I find exercise to be a great break from everything I’m doing on the computer. Often when I am just not making any progress on projects I can head to the gym and fix the day with a great workout. It’s also really easy to track being able to lift heavier weights and do more pull-ups (I can now do 17 in a row!), which makes it more fun.

I also took up indoor soccer this year, which has been a blast! Growing up I never played organized sports, but I’ve made up for that by joining two soccer teams and playing twice a week in the spring and fall. Though I’d never played soccer before this year, so it’s been frustrating at times since I am so bad at it.

Then over the summer I played a lot of ultimate frisbee, which is always a good break from soccer when I want a reminder that there are some sports I’m good at.

Audience

In 2013 I really learned the benefits of having an audience. My list grew from about 5,000 to nearly 15,000 over the course of the year. I also learned a lot of new techniques (email courses promoted with guest posts) and some new channels entirely (Twitter ads).

I expect my email list to double again in 2014. I have some great things in place like a free book on the Gumroad home page that continue to drive new subscribers.

Screen Shot 2013-12-30 at 12.53.29 PM

Writing

I continued my streak of writing 1,000 words (or the equivalent in another media) for each day. That means I missed a few days, but always caught up later. My streak continued past 500 days in a row and I am now at 510 days in a row. It’s still the best decision I’ve ever made. I plan to keep it going until I’ve checked off a few more major writing goals.

photo

Though lately that has taken the form of video recording for a few new projects. Which I can’t wait to share in the coming year!

 

Travel

I had so much fun traveling this year! My favorite trip was a one week jaunt across Norway to help my friend Chris Guillebeau celebrate visiting every country in the world. The group I met during the trip was fantastic and I got to meet up with a bunch of old friends (who I also saw a couple months later at The World Domination Summit).

norway-group

I actually made it to Europe three times in 2013. First to Norway for Chris’ birthday. Then to Germany, Austria (love the alps!), and the UK with my wife and son. And finally back to the UK (London) and the Czech Republic (Prague) in October for a workshop and MicroConf Europe. That was another great trip where the perspective gained from conversation over drinks one night more than paid for the entire trip.

Here’s the list of where I went (sort of in order): Costa Rica, Kansas City, Miami, Kauai, Las Vegas, Oslo, Bergen, Philadelphia, Munich, Salzburg, London, Oxford, Portland, Seattle, London (again), Prague, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Boston, and San Francisco.

flying

Flying powered gliders in Hawaii with Hilary’s brothers Philip and Daniel.

 

Another baby!

Oliver is going to have a baby brother, due May 8th, 2014! I always wanted to have several kids and so I wanted them to be close together in age. They’ll end up being about 2.75 years apart—which is more than I wanted—but that was out of our control.

It’s really exciting to be having another baby. I’m sure I’ll freak out a bit later. :)

 

What did not go well

Never as much fun as the previous section, but just as important.

Travel with Oliver

My wife and I have had many successful trips with Oliver taking him all over the world. Unfortunately we had our first bad trip. Now that he is getting a bit older (2 years old) it’s been harder to take long flights with him. Costa Rica went fairly well, but the longer flights to Europe were really challenging.

When we went in 2012 he was nine months old and slept most of the flights. This time we were lucky to get an hour or two of sleep on an eight hour flight. Not my idea of a good time.

After that experience—and now that we have to pay for Oliver’s flights—we are going to stay a little closer to home for a while. I took a few trips since then, but Hilary and Oliver stayed home.

crocodiles

 

Meet crocodiles in Costa Rica in January, 2013.

We do have another trip planned to go sailing in the Florida keys (takes two three hour flights), but other than that we are taking it easy on travel. It’s much less stressful to travel with family (like on this sailing trip) so we may do that for the next couple trips.

 

OneVoice sale

In an attempt to focus on my products that serve my audience I decided to sell off OneVoice and LegendThemes.com. Two products that made a tiny bit of money, but didn’t serve my core audience at all. I listed both on Flippa. LegendThemes ended up selling for $1,000, which I was quite happy with.

For OneVoice I was contacted by a buyer outside of Flippa. He offered a quick deal for $13,000 (I actually screwed up that negotiation. Ask me sometime how I lost $1,000 in 5 seconds). After a nice quick deal everything started to go downhill. The payment took about 2 weeks to get sent and clear my account. But I got it. That’s when things really got weird.

Despite all my attempts to deliver the app, the new buyer never transferred it to their iTunes account. Who pays $13,000 for a product and then never accepts the transfer? Whatever.

But to make it worse about a month after the sale iOS 7 came out and OneVoice needed updates in order to work with the new version. The new buyer knew this, and kept saying he was going to transfer the app over and use the developer to release a new version. But it never happened.

I actually wasn’t sure how to respond. I responded to individual emails from customers that still were sent to me, but I remained entirely on the Facebook page. Despite still having access, I didn’t legally own anything. I was quite worried about the legality of posting to a Facebook page and email list that I didn’t own anymore.

Finally after hearing too many stories of the broken app from customers—and realizing the new owner wasn’t going to update it—I got a developer working on the fix. I thought the new owner would be good for the money, but if not, I promised the developer I would pay him.

Eventually an update was released, customers got a working app, and unfortunately the name of the app is forever tarnished. The app still sits in my iTunes account and the new seller has not transferred it over. Overall it was a stressful situation that still has be confused. Hopefully it will get resolved in 2014.

 

Sickness

This annual review was supposed to go out over a week ago, but I got sick. Then my wife got sick. Then my son got really sick. Those back-to-back illnesses made for a rough Christmas and meant I didn’t get any work done for an entire week.

Taking care of a completely miserable two year old is… well, miserable. I basically spent several days just walking around holding him. He would only sleep if he was being held, so that’s all my wife and I did. Luckily the illness only lasted a few days, but… wow. It was rough.

On the bright side, self-employment is awesome. I went into the doctor when I was sick and was asked if I needed a doctors note. That made me smile. When I responded, “No, I don’t.” the doctor looked a little surprised. I could have explained that I write books and a blog that make far more than a doctor’s salary, but it was easier to just say “I’m self-employed.”

That’s what’s great about self-employment: I was able to be completely out of it for a week and sales still came in. I still made money, I didn’t let anyone down, and I still have my “job”.

 

Taxes

Paying so much more in taxes was very painful. Not just because the dollar amount was so high, but also because I didn’t keep very good records so it took a lot of work to my taxes. Normally taxes are due on April 15th, but this year I filed an extension so that I would have until October 15th. Can you guess what day I sent in my final taxes?

Yep, October 14th—which was a holiday, so they ended up being postmarked October 15th. Turns out I’ll procrastinate as long as possible.

On October 14th I was sending it estimated payments (I had gotten behind) as well as the last payment for 2012, which meant mailing 5 separate checks (including state and federal taxes). I started to complain to Hilary about the waste of having to use so many stamps, until I realized the irony of complaining about $1.50 in stamps instead of the $60,000+ in tax payments.

 

Finances

Despite making as much as I did in 2013, I don’t have that much (relatively) in my accounts right now. The biggest reason is I spent a lot of money. Yes, taxes took up a lot, and we gave away a lot, but I still would have expected to end the year with a larger bank balance than I have.

Even though I promised myself this wouldn’t happen, my standard of living increased along with my revenue. At least for the most part I spent money consciously on things I care about like travel.

 

Looking forward to 2014

The first thing I am doing for 2014 is not planning for the entire year. Instead I am just making revenue and product plans for the first three months. I just can’t accurately predict anything a year from now, so I’ve learned to stop trying. Instead I’m setting actionable (and secret) goals to be completed by March 31st, 2014. As that date gets closer, I’ll start planning for the second quarter.

Here are a few high level goals for 2014:

  • Get a team and processes in place to run more of my business.
  • Launch at least 3 new products.
  • Give my existing products the marketing and attention they deserve.
  • Continue to create new content every day.
  • Take time off.

This post is getting really long, so I’m going to stop there. But before I sign off, I want to say thank you. Thank you for reading this blog and partially enabling this crazy, wonderful life I’ve been able to live!

If you want to follow along with my journey in 2014, sign up for my email newsletter below.

 

I’m Nathan Barry. I’m a creator, author, speaker, blogger, designer, and the founder of ConvertKit.

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70 Responses to “Two years after quitting my job: 2013 in review”

  1. Brock

    December 30, 2013

    Very inspiring. Can’t wait to see what you do in 2014.

    Taxes… man. That’s rough. I’m glad you broke it down, though. Everyone says how much revenue they bring in, but no one talks about how much they make/spend/save.

    Keep it up!

    -B

    reply
  2. Cooper Whitescarver

    December 30, 2013

    Congratulations on your successes! This is an awesome post and very inspiring. Thanks for sharing so many details!

    reply
  3. Loretta Robinson

    December 30, 2013

    Way to go on all your money making! Even though you did have some down points it sounds like you had a really great year. I’ve been following along and I really enjoy your content. Thanks so much for offering up so much of it for free in emails. I too got sick over Christmas, and had to work through it, because i design for a corporate retail company who only gives their employees one day off for christmas. I hope 2014 is an even more profitable year for you!

    reply
  4. Ross Lukeman

    December 30, 2013

    Thanks for the update Nathan! What an interesting life. I’m looking forward to meeting you in March at Pioneer Nation. Thanks for the inspiration!

    reply
  5. Bruce Brodeen

    December 30, 2013

    One thing you left out w/ what went well is that you became a bona-fide ‘thought leader’ on many fronts inside the online marketing and digital products field in 2013 – not a small feat.

    From outside observation(your blog, buying and using some of your products, reading guest blog posts, etc.), much of the momentum created in 2013 had its roots with finishing 2012 strong,if I’m not mistaken.

    Though that is always the case with forward movement and momentum – it’s the compounding effect of previous efforts that creates a perception of ‘sudden success’ but it’s always far, far from it.

    Congratulations on all your significant accomplishments and I look forward to following, learning alongside you(I’m 25 yrs into working for myself now) and supporting your product creation efforts when they intersect with my needs. :-)

    reply
    • Nathan Barry

      December 30, 2013

      That’s true. I think the public speaking is a sign of being seen as a thought leader. It just comes from teaching things as I learn them.

      reply
  6. Min

    December 30, 2013

    I always get inspired by your articles and stories.
    Thanks for sharing the transparent yearly reviews.

    reply
  7. Mike

    December 30, 2013

    Congrats on your success and sharing so openly Nathan, lots of lessons here. Having recently discovered you and having gifted the Commit app twice I look forward to the value you have yet to deliver.

    Also, my wife and I are taking our two kids (2yrs & 10months) to India on Jan 16, hope it goes better than Oliver did to Europe!

    reply
  8. Laura-Jane

    December 30, 2013

    Them’s a lotta taxes!

    reply
  9. Nanci Murdock

    December 30, 2013

    Nathan,

    Congratulations on your incredibly well deserved success. I bought two of your packages this week and spent most of my holiday devouring them. I feel like (this week) I know you, but of course I do not!

    As an aside, you mentioned in Authority about granting interviews when you are asked. Just so you know, that works! I stumbled across you on a podcast where you were interviewed. I won’t say which one because while I respect and admire the Podcaster, his style wasn’t for me – but I will be forever grateful to have discovered your work. I will be a customer of nathanbarry.com for many years to come.

    Last but not least, that is just crazy about the OneVoice transaction. It must have been incredible stressful. Good lesson to have a clause in the contract that, until the App is transferred, you have the right to maintain customer relationships and FB page, etc.

    Looking forward to keeping up with you in 2014.

    Best,
    Nanci

    reply
  10. Javier Schvindlerman

    December 30, 2013

    Wow! That is indeed a detailed update for a year! :) I wish I’d be able to write in such a clear way all this.
    Thanks for sharing it, Nathan!

    reply
  11. Rebecca Lutz

    December 30, 2013

    Very Inspiring Nathan! Thank you so much for sharing. I wish you many more blessings in the year ahead!

    reply
  12. Christopher

    December 30, 2013

    Awesome – love the breakdown. Congrats on a great year Nathan. Really looking forward to see what everyone else does in the BPA community for 2014 as well!

    reply
  13. Joshua Valentine

    December 30, 2013

    I always look forward to your blogs and after buying Authority it’s clear to me that you are the real deal. Fantastic job mate. Here’s to a great 2014!

    reply
  14. James

    December 30, 2013

    Good work! What app do you use to track your writing streaks – it looks great!

    reply
    • Nathan Barry

      December 30, 2013

      Commit: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/commit/id473527073?mt=8 (I made it)

      reply
  15. Tyler

    December 30, 2013

    Nathan,

    Thanks for the write up. I’m really curious about your tax numbers. 60k on ~250k in revenue? Do you have an accountant? Are you running earnings through an LLC or company?

    Thanks again for sharing!

    -t

    reply
    • Nathan Barry

      December 30, 2013

      Yes I have an accountant. No, I don’t have an LLC. Still working on getting things setup properly.

      reply
      • Bobby Jordan

        December 30, 2013

        Look into an S Corporation to potentially reduce self employment taxes if you want to do payroll.

        reply
      • Mia

        December 30, 2013

        Is it a CPA or a bookkeeper? A great CPA would have ensured you had a LLC in place and paid less taxes based on where your revenues are coming from. Income from books (created intellectual property) is taxed differently (more favorably).

        I’m not a CPA, nor do I pretend to be one on the internet. :-) I know enough to say you may want to consider having someone else help you plan better for next year.

        It just a high percentage considering passive income has much better tax break opportunities than earned income.

        That aside, awesome year! Bravo!

        reply
        • Steve Eldridge

          December 31, 2013

          Each of the properties you are developing should be there own entities so that you can maximize the expenses, and use the payments as dividend income which if managed correctly can be taxed at a much lower rate.

          You should consider all your assets as a portfolio, and each can provide income as ROI rather than ordinary income.

          Definitely talk to your accountant as you should be moving as much of the income as possible into long-term capital gains investment portfoils as soon as possible so that you can maximize your productive years and continue to enjoy your new freedom for many years to come.

          Great post. Good luck in 2014 and Happy New Year!

          reply
  16. Michal

    December 30, 2013

    Hello, Nathan, thanks for your review. It is very inspiring to me! Good luck in 2014!

    reply
  17. Sean Egan

    December 30, 2013

    Congratulations on what sounds like a very busy but really exciting year. Its your blog posts like these that are so inspiring to me. Best of luck for 2014 and hopefully I can join you in the self-employed world in the near future:)

    reply
  18. Marcy

    December 30, 2013

    Thanks for sharing all the details. You’ve had a great year!!!

    reply
  19. Luke Burford

    December 30, 2013

    Very decent of you to share actual numbers. Taxes are the devil.

    reply
  20. Marta DeGraw

    December 30, 2013

    Hey Nathan, thanks for being so transparent and sharing all of these details with everyone. It’s so helpful to hear what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what you’ve been measuring. You have a special ability to learn, reflect, and share with others that draws people in to want to listen to what you have to say (and to be a part of it, too!)

    Here’s to a fantastic 2014–can’t wait to see and hear what’s around the corner for you and how you respond. :) I’m sure it will be simply wonderful. I’ll reach out to see if I can help in any way, especially as your new little one arrives in May (woo hoo!!)

    reply
  21. Ed

    December 30, 2013

    Congratulations Nathan on a great year and some great products!

    I wish more people your age would understand the tax structure and how it punishes success. I’m so tired of hearing about paying your “fair share” from the Occupy crowd. I’m sure it sounds like a super idea until you’re the one who actually works your butt off and earns a decent income only to have a huge portion of it confiscated. 2014…time for some tax planning.

    Continued success!

    reply
    • Nathan Barry

      December 30, 2013

      Yep, I plan to make this year much better tax-wise than previous years. I actually have a CPA and should be making improvements.

      reply
  22. Marius

    December 30, 2013

    Great post. I was trying to subscribe and I got an error. I thought you might like to see it: http://postimg.org/image/cmuy69a21/

    reply
  23. Giacomo Freddi

    December 30, 2013

    Really great post nathan, I’m from italy and your great fan. I play soccer and make crossfit,too !! However I’ve a question for you: when do you come to visit Italy?? It is really beautiful!!

    reply
  24. Andrew

    December 30, 2013

    Silly question, but what app is that you’re using to track how many days in a row you’ve written?

    reply
  25. Zezan Tam

    December 30, 2013

    Hi Nathan, first time to your site but this is a fantastic and inspiring post. Just a quick question: which app do you use to maintain your writing chain? The one with the big green button? I’d like to give it a try.

    reply
    • Zezan Tam

      December 30, 2013

      Ah, looks like it’s Commit! I should’ve checked that before asking..

      reply
  26. Sandy

    December 30, 2013

    Make a shell company in another country. Google, Facebook, Apple do it, and so should you.

    reply
  27. rebornix

    December 30, 2013

    Congrats man! Thank you for sharing these details.
    Freelance can really be an option instead of working for big companies if I move to America.

    reply
  28. Nick

    December 30, 2013

    Wow, really inspirational post. I am a designer/product manager with a great job but love the freedom that going freelance would provide. My wife and I are having our first son next year (also due May 8th, 2014 coincidentally) and missing the big moments is concern. Anyways, really great to see a detailed explanation of the pros and cons.

    Thanks for the post.

    reply
  29. Eugene Hennie

    December 30, 2013

    Nathan, thank you for being one of the few stand up guys on the internet.

    You are extremely humble and hardworking.

    Much respect and thanks for the motivation!

    reply
  30. Simon Arthur

    December 30, 2013

    Nathan: can you describe your business structure? Is it a sole proprietorship, S-Corp, or something else?

    reply
  31. Prasanna

    December 31, 2013

    Thanks for this update Nathan. It’s really inspiring and I hope to have such inspiring year in my life too in 2014.

    reply
  32. Kien Nguyen Trung

    December 31, 2013

    This post is awesome and very inspiring.

    Thanks for sharing so many details!

    Hope your 2014 will go well :)

    reply
  33. Glen

    December 31, 2013

    Inspiring stuff, Nathan, thanks for being so transparent!

    You have quite a diverse range of products now (training, ebooks, apps etc), so I wondered if you had a preference for one particular type and why?

    Incidentally, I’m not sure your newsletter subscribe form is working — neither the one on this page or the one on your /newsletter/ page is letting me subscribe.

    reply
    • Nathan Barry

      December 31, 2013

      I really just have ebooks, 1 iOS app, and ConvertKit. Ebooks are my current favorite kind of product.

      reply
  34. Chris Stott

    December 31, 2013

    Nathan, congrats on a great year. Thanks for sharing. I’ve been following your journey for about 18 months now since I was Googling around for people who quit their jobs to run their own business.

    Fast forward to now, I quit my job (I finish today), and I’ve got 30,000 words of (unedited) words for my first book where I’m following the Authority plan.

    Thanks for the inspiration! All the best for 2014!

    reply
    • Nathan Barry

      December 31, 2013

      Congrats! What’s the book on?

      reply
      • Chris Stott

        January 2, 2014

        It’s on how to become a WordPress Consultant on the side of a day job (niching down to ‘getting started’ rather than running a full agency) – The WordPress Business Kit.

        I’m following the Authority method exactly. I hope to be a success story for you.

        Now the hard part, getting people to agree to do interviews, editing and marketing!

        I find writing 1,000 per day easy. Editing however is very difficult for me. Any tips specifically on editing would be appreciated!

        Thanks.

        reply
  35. Arvell Craig

    December 31, 2013

    Wow. Your story is very inspiring and encouraging.
    I dream of not having clients and only products… that’s my goal for 2014.

    Anyway, thanks for sharing and best of luck for the new year!

    reply
  36. Ben

    December 31, 2013

    Everyone that thinks that is a lot of taxes, it is really only 24% which I bet most of you pay, if not more. It just hurts more when you see it as a lump sum (and as a percentage of $250k!!) Especially hurts in the US where you get seemingly little in return.

    Great post, thanks for sharing all of that info!

    reply
  37. Financial Samurai

    December 31, 2013

    New reader here. Great review mate!

    As a personal finance blogger, I’m fascinated with numbers. We always say it’s not what you make it’s what you keep. With $60,000 in expenses and $60,000 in taxes, that still leaves you with $120,000 in income right?

    Can you share how much your bank account actually went up and what you plan to do with your money e.g. invest, pay down debt, etc?

    Cheers,

    Sam

    reply
  38. Audie

    January 1, 2014

    Nathan, I love your transparency, authenticity and detail!!! It builds trust and models what I like and want to do. Well done!

    Audie

    reply
  39. Raweewan M.

    January 1, 2014

    Hi

    This post is really great and inspire me a lot to create my own product. This year I also write few books and sold on amazon.com. I think I will continue and looking in someplace to sell my book and product. I hope that I can make some team and grow my business as you do too.

    Thanks

    reply
  40. Brooks Conkle

    January 2, 2014

    Man, this is incredible. Total focus. I know that’s what it took. Insane Intense Focus.

    I know what it means to have a full plate (3 companies I’m personally involved with, a blog, and I just got married which includes a son ha!)

    Thanks for the inspiration of focus with your post.

    reply
  41. Josh Brown

    January 2, 2014

    Thanks for sharing, Nathan! I’ve learned a ton from you this year, mainly about teaching everything I know and focusing on email more than social media to sell products. It’s especially inspiring to see your numbers for book sales, as I’m hoping to write a book myself someday.

    reply
  42. Stuart Walker

    January 3, 2014

    Hey Nathan,
    First time visitor to your blog, just found out about it from Tung over at CloudLiving.com.

    This is an epic post and your blog is great. I’ve just started a new blog at http://www.nichehacks.com and one day I aim for it to be as awesome as this one.

    It’s good to see someone REALLY delve into what they’ve done throughout the year not just online but offline too. Nice touch.

    Keep up the good work.

    Stuart

    reply
  43. Trisha Cupra

    January 6, 2014

    I just bought Authority today when I saw it on MightyDeals – I’d already heard of you from a friend a few months ago. So I jumped on the deal.

    Really glad you wrote this blog post. It’s very inspiring. I’m looking forward to reading Authority.

    reply
  44. Chrissy

    January 7, 2014

    Hey Nathan, I hear about you from your interview with Pat Flynn on the SPI Podcast. Thank you for sharing your journey and inspiring others to go forth and do what they love. Thank you for sharing your successes and your failures and reminding us that we are, after all human. Looking forward to hearing more from you in 2014!

    reply
  45. Mike Gledhill

    January 8, 2014

    Awesome.
    I don’t remember anyone ever detailing their finances like that before, and it’s fascinating (and inspiring!)

    Even your openness about how much each of your endeavours has made you is really interesting. I would’ve had no idea how profitable (or not) publishing an eBook or app would make.

    For what it’s worth, I also went through the stress of sickness, due to our young daughters.. not least because our second daughter didn’t sleep through the night (even nearly) for the first two years. Every single night, she was awake for two hours, sleep for 30 minutes, awake for two hours, sleep for 30 minutes. For two full years. It’s a killer.

    But, hey, at least you didn’t have to ring in exhausted to your boss!

    Excellent site, and keep up the great work.

    reply
  46. Quinton

    January 31, 2014

    Inspiring stuff, dude. Only 9 months into the self-employed journey, so I am looking forward to doing my own review in a few months.

    Unlike you I am still trying to map out the whole dang year. But with twins due just a couple of weeks before your’s, I’m forcing myself to just focus on the 1st quarter.

    All bets are off when the kids get hear ;)

    Good luck on ’14

    reply

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