Aside from *gestures broadly at the state of the world*, 2020 was… not the worst year of the last decade (for me). I thought I’d do a post to go over all of the ways I made money in 2020, how they fared through the pandemic, and some of my goals and plans going forward.
First, here’s some backstory to give you an idea of where I’m at:
When I first started working for myself, I was a freelance cannabis copywriter. As much as I enjoy writing for other people and businesses, I much prefer making money off my own websites where I can write whatever I want, whenever I want. It’s much more passive and you can make so much more money in the long run through ads, affiliates, and paid products. Writing for other people regularly burns me out, so while it was a good enough path to get me out of a job I didn’t want anymore, I knew it wasn’t what I’d be doing forever.
The year 2017 was revolutionary for my business. I started a cannabis blog called Jane Dope to use as a portfolio and second source of writing income, and I started working on my digital Etsy shop more consistently in hopes it would lighten the stress of constantly looking for enough freelance work to pay the bills (I had been selling photography prints on Etsy as well as printable wall art I designed in Canva, but didn’t have a ton of stuff listed and wasn’t working on it consistently by any means).
When I started taking my own blogs and my Etsy shop more seriously, I became less dependent on the income from freelance clients as more money from my own projects started to trickle in. I discovered print-on-demand in 2017, which was a gold mine for my Etsy shop.
At the beginning of 2019, I started the website you’re reading right now. A Girl’s Gotta Eat has always been my motto for justifying any money-making opportunity (except for MLMs), and by this point in my career, my friends were constantly asking me things like “how can I quit my job and do what you do?” and “are you sure you don’t sell drugs?” After writing out multiple Google Docs filled with information to help various friends and acquaintances get started on whatever particular thing they wanted to do, I realized I should probably start a website, dump all this information into it, and see if it can help anyone else out there. So that’s why you’re here!
Fast forward to 2020.
So it’s January 2020. I’ve been running this site for a year, my Etsy revenue has been growing steadily over the last three years, and I’m becoming very selective about the writing clients I take on because I can finally afford to do that. My goal is to work exclusively on my own projects by the end of the year and retire the freelancing side of my business.
By the time March rolled around and society had reached toilet paper panic status, I was wrapping up a project with a client and spending every waking second doom-scrolling, wondering which of my income sources would tank first. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew I wasn’t about to go find more writing clients with so much doom to scroll through… so I didn’t. Here’s how it all ended up working out:
E-Commerce
The e-commerce portion of my business involves selling digital and print-on-demand products on Etsy, Shopify, Society6, RedBubble, and Amazon Merch. My niche is politics and feminism, so that was be especially relevant this year. Over the last several years my brand has shifted from one small Etsy shop with a few pieces of photography and printable wall art to dozens of designs that I have printed on apparel, home goods, accessories, and stickers. Everything is outsourced, so all I do is create designs and market the products.
Since e-commerce (mainly Etsy) has been my largest source of income since 2018, this is the one thing I was most worried about at the start of the pandemic. To me, it was only logical that in a time of so much panic and uncertainty, nobody was shopping on Etsy for my “Trump’s a little bitch” t-shirts. That was true for the first few weeks when most of us went into lockdown, but after that we were all just stuck at home, lots of people were bored and angry and desperate to shop, and Trump continued to be a HUGE bitch, all of which worked in my shop’s favor. May and September 2020 were my Etsy shop’s highest-earning months, ever. Who knew!
The earnings were great, but the pandemic definitely created some challenges. First, one of my most reliable print providers completely shit the bed the first few months of the pandemic. They were not prepared for the massive surge in people either shopping online or starting new online stores to make money from home, which combined with social distancing guidelines led to a whole bunch of problems for their previously seamless process. I learned a lot about the importance of having more than one supplier and the need to be adaptable if you want your business to survive. I could have just put my shop on vacation mode when things were looking rough – and I highly considered it for a minute – but if I decided to do that instead of putting in a little extra work to update my listings according to what products were available at other suppliers, I would have missed out on my highest-earning year on Etsy.
Check out some of my e-commerce articles:
How to start an online business with print-on-demand
How to make and sell digital products on Etsy
5 reasons why print-on-demand is the perfect starter business
20 digital products you can sell on Etsy for passive income
Everything you need to know about Etsy SEO
Blogging
My other source of income is from my two blogs, this one and the weed one. Both are monetized through ads and affiliates, which also did surprisingly well this year. My affiliate earnings for 2020 were 7 times more than my 2019 earnings. It’s mostly from this website since I barely touched Jane Dope at all and even considered selling it in an impulsive attempt to “simplify my life”.
This site did well in 2020 because a lot of people were thrown into a position of financial uncertainty and looking for more ways to make money from home. I was fortunate enough to be able to focus a lot of time on this website because I knew it was something people desperately needed, and the content that I write here is, for some reason, the most enjoyable and effortless for me. So if you’ve been reading here, I’m super appreciative for your support that allows me to do something I enjoy while helping others find new ways to make money.
Related Posts:
How to Set up a WordPress Blog
Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
Clarity Coaching / Pick My Brain Sessions
This is something I never would have thought of offering but I’m really glad I did. Throughout the year I’ve had a few readers reach out to me and ask if they can get me on a Zoom call to ask me for advice, pick my brain, or get some overall clarity on what they should do to monetize their skills in a way that suits their lifestyle. You know, the things I could talk about all day, every day. I’ve only done a handful of calls so far so this wasn’t a significant portion of my income, but it definitely helped me better understand what kind of information my readers want from me and that they’re willing to pay me to help them.
I still have to make a fancy little sales page to put up on the website here, but it’s something I do plan on offering for those of you who read through the site and want to get me on the phone to talk about whatever. I’ll update this section with a link to the booking page once it’s ready, but if this is something you’re interested in for now, you can email me at mandy@agirlsgottaeat.net.
Print-On-Demand Course Sales
I spent the last 3 months of 2019 creating an online course for this site, which I listed for sale in January 2020. I’d always been hesitant to dabble in the course world because there’s so much hacky bullshit out there, but I really wanted to create a paid product that costs considerably less than some of the ridiculous $2,000 dropshipping courses out there, so I created Passive Print Accelerator (update Nov. 2021: This course is no longer open for enrollment but the info is now available in eBook version). It walks you through my exact step-by-step process for creating your print-on-demand store on Etsy.
I didn’t promote it very much last year, but it still helped a few dozen people start their own Etsy businesses in the middle of a pandemic so I’m happy with that. It was by no means my largest income source, so if you’re one of those people who thinks “they wouldn’t make a course if they were actually making money doing the thing the course is about,” I’m here to tell you that I made 19 times more money from selling print-on-demand products than I did from selling my course on how to start a print-on-demand store.
My Goals for 2021
My main goal for this year is to stay consistent with the things I’m doing to grow my business. I consider it a “thru-year” because I have a lot of systems set up that are working well, I just need to nurture them and stay the course.
Daily writing practice on 750 Words – I’ve been trying to develop a daily writing/journaling habit, and 750words.com has been a huge help. I open it up each day and dump what’s in my brain onto the page with no judgment until I hit (spoiler alert) 750 words. Sometimes I hit 1,200 words. My record is 3,100 words (that was probably the week of the election). There’s something about the format that’s really helpful, especially if I have a blog post idea in mind but I’m stuck in the writer’s block phase. I’ll dump all my thoughts into 750 Words and suddenly have a sloppy copy of everything I need to format into a coherent post. Witchcraft!
Publish my eBook – Another side project I’ve been working on is an eBook that talks about my overall self-employment journey, all the processes and tools I’ve used to make money, and how you can apply it to your life in a way that works for you. I wanted to have it ready by January 2021, but that… didn’t happen, so I’m aiming for March. Please hold me accountable to this.
Hire some help – I’ve been in denial for the last three or so years about how badly I need to get some help if I want my businesses to grow. I probably need a virtual assistant to help with things like Pinterest, and I’d like to hire some freelance writers to contribute more content on my blogs. I want to interview more women entrepreneurs on this site and have guest writers who contribute helpful content for my readers. If any of this sounds like you, please send me an email!
Anika says
Sooo helpful. I found your blog post about a week ago and I honestly forget what I was searching when I found your site but I loved it so much. I made sure to remember “agirlsgottaeat” so I could come back to binge your content. Here I am, and I am not disappointed