Six years ago I quit my job to live a more adventurous life and help other people do the same. My website and profile have grown in that time but I may have given the impression that I make a living from being an “adventurer”. I do not, have not and never will.
Everything I do on this website is aimed at getting people to do more adventurous stuff. But there is a risk that people read my website and get the idea that the only way to do that is to quit your job and “be an adventurer”. It is not.
Almost all of the expeditions I’ve been on could have been done whilst holding down a proper job (and if you don’t believe me then ask my wife who is a solicitor and has accompanied me on most of them). Plus, they’d have been a lot easier to fund if I’d had a regular salary.
If you want to give up your job and work full time as an adventurer then I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully the information below will be useful and I would be delighted to get an email from you if you think I can help you further. But the real reason I have written this is to demonstrate that trying to be an “adventurer” is not the best way to have an adventure, any more than becoming a chef is the best way to deal with the fact that you’re hungry.
As such, I am today publishing a detailed break down of how I have made money from this website, my book and other adventure-related activities so that you can see for yourself how much (or little) I have earned from being an “adventurer”. It is all quoted before tax and National Insurance for which I now remove 30% of my earnings.
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How I Make Money
I have made money through the following five areas:
- Advertising and affiliate links on this website
- Selling my book(s)
- Writing articles for magazines
- Giving talks
- Working for clients
1. Website
Some pages on my website have Google Ads which give me a few pence every time someone clicks them. I also use ‘affiliate links‘ which means that I when I write about outdoors equipment, if you click one of the links then buying something, I get a percentage of the sale (it doesn’t cost you anything).
I pay about £150/year to host my website. This is how much I have earned directly from the website over the last five years, before costs:
- 2009: £0
- 2010: £0
- 2011: £0
- 2012: £0
- 2013: £250
- 2014: £1,500
- 2015: £3,600 (forecast)
I now anticipate this being the main source of income from my “adventurer” persona. The adverts only generate about £1/day. The bulk of the money comes from my affiliate links and that is almost entirely driven by my comparison articles (so keep reading and sharing them please)!
2. Books
I published a book in 2012. If you buy it from a shop I get about 60p, if you buy it on Amazon through my website I get about £1 and if you buy it directly from me I get about £3.50.
This is how much book sales have earned me:
- 2009: £0
- 2010: £0
- 2011: £0
- 2012: £1,000
- 2013: £200
- 2014: £100
- 2015: £1,200 (forecast)
I now sell individual ebooks. For each one of those I sell, I get about £4.50. I only started selling them this year but anticipate that they will outstrip my paperback earnings within a year. If sales continue (and that’s a big question mark) then they will be the second best source of income after my affiliate links.
3. Articles
I have written quite a lot of articles for magazines and other websites. They were usually unpaid when I started out and just a means of promotion. However, they do pay sometimes.
The list below probably misses off a few pieces I’ve written but gives a rough idea:
- 2009: £0
- 2010: £200
- 2011: £150
- 2012: £250
- 2013: £550
- 2014: £600
- 2015: £150 (forecast)
Getting paid articles requires pitching to editors who receive lots of pitches. I don’t particularly enjoy this process. Part of the reason is that if I have a good idea for something to write then I’d prefer to put it on this blog. I don’t get much pleasure out of writing stuff other people want me to write so I don’t often try to pitch any more.
4. Talks
I have given a number of talks over the years. The only ones that have ever paid have been at schools.
- 2009: £150
- 2010: £600
- 2011: £550
- 2012: £150
- 2013: £0
- 2014: £0
- 2015: £0 (forecast)*
To get the talks above I compiled a huge spreadsheet of every single school within a 100 mile radius and worked my way through the list, cold calling and emailing each one in turn.
I enjoyed the talks (and making the spreadsheet) but hated having to sell myself and never really got comfortable taking money from schools so I stopped trying to get any more talks.
*However, if you’re the CEO of a massive company and want to book me then feel free to get in touch.
5. Clients
I reckon I’ve helped a little shy of 200 different expeditions and individuals, and had email conversations with many, many more people. Of these, five have paid and one of them was more than a few hundred pounds.
I’ve not included these numbers in my breakdown because the only occasion on which they made a significant contribution to my earnings was when I worked for a client full time or close to. Specifically, I organised the logistics for someone else’s expeditions: buying equipment, booking travel, arranging visas, shipping kit and battling red tape. This does not constitute “being an adventurer” in my book. Indeed, it is very close to the job that I quit to start this website.
It was the only viable way for me to make a living but I concluded from my experiences that what I enjoy is the buzz of helping people get started on an adventure rather than anything about the actual practicalities of organising an expedition (particularly someone else’s). As such, I no longer offer to provide logistics for other people, I just offer free advice.
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How Much Money I’ve Made
Here’s a summary of how much I’ve made over the last six years:
| Website | Books | Articles | Talks | Totals | |
| 2009 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 150 | £150 |
| 2010 | 0 | 0 | 200 | 600 | £800 |
| 2011 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 550 | £700 |
| 2012 | 0 | 1000 | 250 | 150 | £1,400 |
| 2013 | 250 | 200 | 550 | 0 | £1,000 |
| 2014 | 1500 | 100 | 600 | 0 | £2,200 |
| Totals | £1,750 | £1,300 | £1,750 | £1,450 | £6,250 |
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Why Have I Made So Little?
Some of you may be wondering why I’ve made so little money from my efforts. I would suggest the following reasons:
1. Adverts don’t make much money
I should get over a million hits on my website this year but that’ll only make about £1/day in advertising. Maybe you’ll do better than me but don’t assume that just having a website with an advert on it will make you rich.
2. You don’t get much money from publishing a book
As mentioned, I get about 60p for every £13 copy of my book that gets sold in Waterstones. You can do your own maths but you’d have to sell a lot to make much money from that. Self-publishing is a much better way to get more money from your sales (I’ve written a detailed breakdown of the different publishing options here).
3. I don’t like selling myself
Invitations to paid talks don’t usually fall on your lap, you have to work for them. That means phoning someone up and telling them how great you are and why they should pay to hear your voice. I hate doing that so stopped trying.
The same rule applies to most other areas of business. You need to actively sell yourself and that’s not something I really enjoy.
4. Money wasn’t my motivation for starting
You may have gathered by now that making money was never really part of my plan when I started this website (although it probably should have been since it involved quitting my job). If I’d set out with a clearer business plan then I am sure I could have been more productive financially.
I’ve realised over the years that I’d prefer to make my money in a day job and do this website largely for fun. As a financial return on the time invested, it has been terrible. But as a labour of love, I have no regrets and a lot of pride.
5. There are a lot of adventurers out there
I wasn’t the first person who thought that being an “adventurer” sounded like a good idea and I won’t be the last. There are lots of us out there and that means competition. It’s all indirect and friendly, of course, but it does mean that I wasn’t unique; there were plenty of other people trying to give talks, sell books and pitch articles.
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So, How Have I Actually Made a Living?
With the exception of working full time as a logistics provider for clients in 2011/12 (which counted as a job in my book), I have never made enough from this website and being an “adventurer” to live off. However, I am indeed still alive and have managed that through the following:
- Starting the website whilst working a full time job then tapering off my hours by using all of my remaining holiday and days in lieu (2009).
- Moving back in with my parents and counting every penny (2009-2011).
- Working part-time in non-adventure jobs (2009-2011).
- Working full time (2012-13 and now).
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Will I Ever Make a Living from Adventure?
No. I don’t ever expect to make a living from this website or adventure-related activities. However, I have a full time job
Due to the rising popularity of my kit articles and selling a few ebooks, I do expect to earn a up to four or five thousand pounds from my website this year. Given that I didn’t really set out to make money from this website and that I don’t need that money (I get a salary from my normal job), I’ve decided to give part of it away.
Specifically, I am starting what I hope will be an annual expedition grant. The reason I started this website was to help other people have adventures and now I am in a position to put my money where my mouth is. More details will follow later in the year.
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What Advice Would I Give Budding Adventurers?
The one key piece of advice I would give – which I hope the above spells out loud and clear – is that trying to be a full time “adventurer” is not the best way to have an adventure. Far better just to plan an adventure in your holidays or between jobs/study. But if you’re dead set on it for whatever reasons, I would advise:
- Think carefully about whether you actually need to do it full time and couldn’t manage it in your holidays, evenings or with a short career break.
- Have a plan. How are you actually going to make money?
- Recognise that you need to be a business man/woman as well as an adventurer.
- Recognise that you need to be a sales man/woman as well as an adventurer.
- If you’re writing a book and want to make money from it, publish it yourself.
- If you’re hoping to earn through your website, read some blogs about SEO and how best to approach “monetising”.
- Have fun and send me an email if I can help and/or you’re really successful and want to rub my nose in it.
Any questions?
What do you think? Please do add your thoughts below…