I wasn’t sure how October would turn out, so I have been pleasantly surprised that this month has rivaled my excellent July and August reports. I’ve been incredibly busy but it seems like my efforts have paid off.
October Online Earnings
$15 (-$211) – Myriad Online earnings
$60 (-$60) – Licensing
$314 (+$306) – Advertising
$320 (-$20) – “Making Money With HTML5” eBook sales
$2494 (+$1704) – HTML5 personal earnings
$2495 (+$2090) – HTML5 partnered earnings
During October 2012 I earned a total of $5698 (+$3789) online!
After a slow September it was certainly nice to pull in another large value. I’d actually expected October to be basically the same as September, but a few things went right and within just the first week of the month I knew it would be a good one. It’s also been one of the more stressful months of late, though.
Advertising
It has been a long time since I made so much from online advertising within a month. Acquiring GameMakerBlog.com has opened up a lot of new opportunities for me, and even this blog is pulling its weight. October’s advertising revenue is probably not representative of any type of consistent value though I do hope to rebuild my advertising revenue and establish a decent, consistent value in the coming months.
eBook
Early in the month I noticed that pre-orders for my book “Making Money With HTML5” had slowed a lot. After some thought, I figured it must have been due to September’s earnings. I received a few emails and comments about the slump in my HTML5 earnings and how it could be seen as the beginning of my downfall. Of course, it wasn’t, but I took the slow in sales as a bit of a challenge.
I started a small marketing campaign across a few sites, and the results speak for themselves. The CTR on my book ads basically quadrupled and has been consistently higher than ever before. Naturally, sales picked back up as a result.
eBook Ad Clicks
So what did I do? Basically, these results came from two different approaches.
The first was to simply establish a presence in some new communities that I thought might have an interest in HTML5. I joined several new forums which I already had a personal interest in, and just started posting (mostly in threads about HTML5.) I set an ad in my forum signatures and referenced the book directly if I thought it was particularly relevant. This was not just to extend my reach, but to establish new relationships and fortify existing ones. Plus, I like helping people so it was nice to share some knowledge and assist where I could.
The second approach was a bit more unique. Since the GameMaker Community is one of my largest sources of traffic I decided to try something new. I changed both my forum avatar and signature to very bright, simple colors and pushed a strong message with a new ad (shown below):
I changed the color scheme of this bold ad a few times and was impressed with the results of such a simple action. When clicks started to decrease, a color change kicked things back into gear!
While my marketing experiment wasn’t anything revolutionary, it was interesting to see such substantial results with some effort. Book sales are now approaching a total of $1500 and they have been surprisingly consistent over the past few months. This is well and truly more than I expected for an unreleased product.
The book itself is still in development, however a status update was posted and I have sent a special “Quick Guide” to those who have pre-ordered to help make up for the wait.
If you’d like to find out more about “Making Money With HTML5″ simply click here!
HTML5
For the first time, my partnered HTML5 revenue exceeded my own personal HTML5 revenue…though only by $1. This is a good sign because it means my efforts to automate content creation have been fairly successful. Additionally, I’ve been able to pay out a lot of money to my partners which I actually really enjoy!
This month’s success was mostly driven by simple circumstance. During October I managed to regain contact with a few publishers, find some new ones, and even launch a new set of games. Additionally, my portfolio went live with AOL but I have no results to share yet. My efforts to integrate ads into my HTML5 games continue too…I just haven’t found the time to finalize that endeavor.
Overall, I’m quite pleased with the performance of my portfolio this month, and I’m glad to see my partners performing so well.
What’s Next?
I know I keep saying it, but I really need to finish my book. With a more solid ETA now set for the end of the year I want to dedicate as much time as possible to writing during November (which is National Novel Writing Month after all, so why not.) I’m taking a week-long holiday starting in a few days, so when I return I should be rejuvenated and ready to write!
I also need to finish integrating ads into my HTML5 games, and launch with a new publisher. I’m prototyping a multiplayer HTML5 game as well, though I don’t know if that will lead to anything. I should probably avoid distractions like that.
So that’s that. October has been an interesting, albeit stressful, month and I’m sure November will be much the same!
As always, thank you for reading, and thank you all for the amazing support you’ve given me during my efforts to make a living online.
Matthew
Nice to see your income’s going up again! I don’t see a reason HTML5 won’t be profitable; Flash always has done fine.
While they have there differences, I do believe the HTML5 market will mirror the Flash one quite closely in the future, so HTML5 will still be around (and profitable) for a long time to come
I’m a fan and preorderer of your soon(ish) to be released book, you been doing very well and expanding your web influence which is awesome (careful not to overextend yourself).
It seems the HTML5 expansion has been mostly fueled by mobile users. Creating HTML5 applications that run well on mobile as well as the desktop seems to be very difficult unless you use an established commercial game development solution like Impact.js, GameMaker or Construct. All open source options I looked into (Crafty.js) didn’t seem ready to handle multiple resolutions and form factors without insane effort.
Right now even $100 right now is very difficult for me so I’m hoping you’ll give away some licenses game dev tools sometime soon (would be a cool book release celebration thingy). Again, thanks for the transparency, best of luck!
You’re right that HTML5 is being fueled by the mobile aspect, and that does add a layer of complexity to your development efforts. Even with an engine like GameMaker: Studio which I use, there are problems I had to work through to make my games display nicely on desktop and mobile.
I was going to host a giveaway this month but that has been postponed until November so check back soon for that!
Thanks for commenting
Congrats on the large income this month! Also, I read your quick guide, and though it was a good read. Just out of curiosity, was it part of the eBook itself, or did you make it separately?
Thanks! I made it separately; the eBook will go into more depth on more topics.
Great insight as always, was well worth a read! It`s good to see HTML5 going back up to it`s rightful place. It`s increased support and popularity makes it invaluable. It`s the one technology at the tip of your finger anywhere you may be, making it so much more convenient.
I can`t believe you haven`t managed to integrate ads at this point, I thought that those fueled your actual HTML5 income. I`m a bit confused!
After so much work, you deserve some relaxation. Have a nice vacation! Wait, does that mean that you will not participate in the GMC Jam? =(
I played around with ads early on but they didn’t really pay off. Now I’ve found better opportunities where ad support will actually be valuable, but I now have to integrate ads into a large portfolio of games all using a special engine to handle scaling, orientation changes, etc. So it’s not an easy task but during November it’ll be completed.
I’m not certain if I’ll be competing in the GMC jam or not…depends how I feel. And thanks!
My life would be completly diffirent if I made this kind of money online..
Keep up the nice work. You are, and always will be an inspiration to us all.
Thanks man!
I was wondering. Where could i find your games. I found one on a website but what other places could i look for your games.
Here’s a couple:
http://truevalhalla.com/mobile/hilo/
http://truevalhalla.com/mobile/hexwars/
I have no portfolio page yet, though.
Slightly jealous, but in a good way. Encouraging to see these numbers are possible, with the right mentality and work ethic. Can’t say you don’t deserve it since you’ve put in the hours. Well done!
Lewis
Lewis Saka recently posted..3 Quick And Easy Ways To Build Your Email List