Every month as I’m putting together my income report, I doubt whether it’ll be of value to anyone. However, this month is visibly different from usual.

In March, I didn’t get paid at all for web design or development. (I did some work, but it was all stuff I’d been paid for previously.) And even though I lost a major income stream, it was still a great month, earnings-wise.

So part of why March is great is for the same reason February is low—since February is short, I got a bunch of checks on March 2. But even without those payments, March went well, on nothing but payment for writing. Some of the places I worked this month:

• Hippo Reads, the middleman company that connects me with blogging and ghostwriting clients. It’s been absolutely worth it to have a company manage clients and payments for me, absolutely worth a little less income for a lot less stress.
• Anime News Network, for which I wrote my weekly streaming reviews, some Gundam Blu Ray reviews, and even a little Anime Boston coverage.
• That job I didn’t get last month. Their intensive process had me attending a one hour seminar and doing three hours of writing exercises, so it fortunately paid me for that.
• Forbes, which I admittedly haven’t been doing much for lately. That said, it’s a great opportunity and I’m hoping to do some more substantial reporting there this April.
• J-Novel Club. Even though the design is all set, I still do PR whenever there’s a new title. If you’d like to be on the PR mailing list, let me know!
• Get Bullish. I make a cut whenever somebody buys my Affiliate Linking Guide, so that’s passive income now—I do nothing but cash my check.

Obviously, my income stream pie chart looks very different this month:

Amazon isn’t especially lucrative right now. It’s amazing in November-December, and then surges again around July-August. The rest of the year, I make around $500-$700 a month. Obviously, having more websites with affiliate links could boost those earnings.

Hey, wasn’t that one of those March goals? Let’s see how I did:

• Create a new web design site, check!
• Ten keyword heavy post ideas for affiliate site: well, more like 4, but almost there!
• Create a new mailing list incentive, check! Here’s how I did it.

Wow, it feels good to keep promises to myself. I should try that more often! Starting with:

• Launch new affiliate site, no excuses!
• Acquire one new writing-focused income source. I should really just make this a recurring goal every month, since freelance income sources ebb and flow.
• Write some in-depth reporting I’m proud of for Forbes. It’s been mostly corporate press release write-ups lately.

I know it’s a little late, but how did your March go, freelancer? What are your April goals?