Welcome to August's Monthly Memo.

I've changed the name from “business report”. This sounds more catchy. Plus, as a writer, you are in the business of attention. I like to think of an audience as the shareholders.

If you’re new here, each month I share my income, expenses and what I’m working on now.

We're a little late on this one because we just finished the 14-day email series The Business of Writing.

Thanks for all the great feedback!

I made an $18,700 loss in August—plenty of goodies to discuss.

Grab a cup of tea, let's dive in.

The Freedom Metre

When I was a dentist, I hated how my income was tied to my time. As a writer, I began tracking leveraged income—scalable assets—because what you measure you improve. We began the Freedom Metre in January 2023. I’d made $16,275.32, and 39.24% was low leverage.

Today’s figures:

My original goal was to stay above 90% high leverage. However, I've loved coaching one‑on‑one recently, so I’ve removed the cap. Goals are great, but it’s important you adapt when they no longer serve you. Be focused with the vision—flexible with execution.

Let's take a look at the numbers.

August’s income:

Gross: $17,611.25

Expenses: $36,308.57

Net: -$18,697.32

Whilst this month was my biggest loss, I consider it a big win.

Why?

Three reasons:

1. I gave myself ‘permission’ to pursue my first book properly, clearing my calendar to go all in.
2. I still made decent money with three creative business ideas.
3. I made a big investment.

Let me explain each.

Income breakdown

• Products: $17,141.32
  • MCM: $7,175.62
  • Sales Pages Simplified: $5776.60
  • Digital products: $3,789.10
  • Paid newsletter: $400
• Affiliate sales: $469.93

During the summer, I started my first book, but I've been too busy to give it my best effort.

The uncomfortable realisation? It was my choice. It’s easier to keep building offers than to face the fear of failure.

But life is short, and risks are fun.

So last month, I killed my paid newsletter, the Magnetic Content Masterclass. It generated thousands of dollars per month. But it was an average opportunity masquerading as great. It was safe, but not exciting.

But instead of just shutting it down, I turned the funeral into a marketing event.

I bundled every previous edition and held a live training for those who invested. Current subscribers received a big discount. Non-subscribers less so.

This grossed $6,367—not including various upsells (classified under ‘digital products’).

There's always an opportunity to get more from what you have done. And on that note, I had two other ideas.

Salespages Simplified

On August 5th, I co-hosted a live training called "Sales Pages Simplified" with Andrew Gould.

Andrew is my copywriting coach, and he's fantastic. Many of my customers struggle with sales pages, so I asked him to share his secrets.

It was a great win-win-win.

Andrew accesses my audience, my audience accesses him, and I get paid without doing much work except writing emails, which feels like play.

Plus I learned a tonne—I’ve written 3 salespages following his frameworks.

We agreed on a % split of initial sales (I retain 100% afterwards). Andrew landed several coaching clients. And I can sell the recordings in the future. The training was also the upsell for Productize Your Knowledge, which I launched the month prior.

This grossed $5215 (again, not including upsells).

Establishing partnerships

In the same vein, I began considering how else I could serve my audience without eating into my book time. I reached out to Olly from Senja. We met in Thailand last year and have become good friends, travelling the world together.

​Senja is about building trust, so aligns with my values. The marketing was effortless.

I ran a 4-day promotion, which included a discount deal combined with a mini-course I had created. 34 people signed up. Olly's built one of the best products on the market, so I have no doubt the retention will be high. He also paid me extra for my time (not included in this report as it came in September).

Maintaining revenue while writing the book is important because I want to make big investments, too.

Let’s chat about the expenses.

Expenses

My book, Magnetic Writing, is my primary goal.

The way I see it, there are three things I need to do:

1. Write the book
2. Build a stronger brand
3. Work closer with people (I plan on delivering the book live in many formats before release to make sure it's excellent. You can join people on the waitlist here and be the first to hear about some of the cool offers coming)

My brand is almost entirely organic traffic.

But the past two years have taught me you cannot rely on social media alone. This is obvious to many direct response marketers. But I masked my fear of spending money behind my early audience success.

This summer, I've worked hard on improving my faulty wiring. Scarcity mindset is a big one. I’m from a working-class background, and I became obsessed with the FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early) when I started earning as a dentist.

That’s because I hated my job.

But as a writer, I want to take my keyboard to the grave.

One truth has helped me reframe my scarcity issues massively: "Money exists to advance your mission."

My mission is to master the craft and make an impact with my ideas.

Suddenly, I feel no fear around investing to make it happen.

So I paid Justin Welsh $22,000 to begin advertising in his newsletter. Again, it's important I work only with people that share my values. I'm running one ad per month, and at each iteration, I will be improving my front-end funnel to try to break even or make a profit on each advertisement.

This means I now have Justin's support and Jay Clause from Creator Science.

I’m eyeing up a few other big bets, too.

Audience:

Growth is slow and steady. I recently started on Substack and YouTube to lay more seeds for organic growth.

But that’s a 3-year bet.

I'm approaching both with a level 1 attitude: let's just create content. My main concern was YouTube. I thought I might not like video because I'm so focused on writing. But it's been a breath of fresh air, especially when I decided to not play to an algorithm. I’m just riffing on ideas I think my fans will love.​

I’ve recorded 6 videos now. We’re beginning to refine the process—starting with thumbnails, titles, and hooks (80% of the work).

​You can subscribe here.

Newsletter:

Total readers:

New subscribers: 1,115

Unsubscribes: 838

Net growth: 277

With the book goal, new newsletter subscribers have become a priority again.

It was nice to stop the downward trajectory this month—primarily through Justin’s first ad (around 500 subs).

However, I am resisting with all my might to judge success by subscriber growth. It's easy to get attached to the wrong number—the most visible—and then make poor judgments as a result. For example, if all you care about is the numbers, you overlook subscriber quality. You become terrified to send multiple emails per week.

Your newsletter is a vehicle to turn followers into fans. It is your world. And that means frequent emails, polarising points, and pitching your offers. Unsubscribes are a metric to celebrate just as much as new subscribers.

It’s smarter to care about who stays instead of worrying about who leaves.

A final note: where the business is heading

Last month, I shared three moves I'm making.

The theme of this month and those going forward is about moving less.

I've always admired people who do a few things well. Focus is one of the easiest ideas to understand, but the hardest to execute. Especially as you grow, the opportunities only get more appealing.

But for me, there is no greater opportunity than writing the book.

Not just for the external rewards, although I won’t lie and say that’s not on my mind. Books are hard, which means most people avoid them.

But because of who I'm becoming in the process.

Books have changed my life, and the potential to do the same for other people sounds amazing. When I was a dentist, I thought one of the most badass ways to live would be to travel the world and write books.

But I’ve always been too scared to commit, until now.

I just got rid of my flat in the UK and am taking a one-way flight to South America in 2 days.

(I'll share more about the nomading journey, but I've been told to be careful about sharing my location live, considering my revenue figures are plastered all over the internet. Being kidnapped would be a curveball. Although it would make for an excellent book. I’m learning Spanish just in case.)

So for now, I’m spending most of my time writing. I’ve said no to a tonne of opportunities. If it doesn’t align with my 3 ‘needle movers’ (book, brand, people), it ain’t worth it.

It feels scary.

But most importantly, it feels right. The past three months have felt like the most aligned I’ve ever been.

As always, I'll share everything as it unfolds.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of cock-ups along the way. And I appreciate having your attention for it.

Cheers for reading.

Some stuff you might’ve missed

• ​I Almost Screwed up My First YouTube Video​
• ​I Went Travelling for 4 Weeks. 3 Interesting Observations (On Writing and Business)​
• ​📈 My Business Results From July 2025​
• ​😱 I Just Killed My Paid Newsletter (Here’s Why)​
• ​Do You Want to Be a Writer?​
• ​A Comment That Cut Me Deep (Free Email Course Incoming 👀)