Monthly Recap: June 2025

TRANSPARENCYMONTHLY RECAP

7/1/20256 min read

Yeah boy! This was a good month. To be fair, I had three events in it (since ConCarolinas technically was mostly in May, but ended in June so it counts on Junes numbers). But regardless, any month where I break 2500 is a good month. Looking back over my stats, it would appear this is my best month to date in fact! So yeah, I'm happy. But let's talk specifics outside of the three events (which to be fair were 2385/2615 dollars earned this month)

I am super pleased with Patreon. This was the month where I broke 50 bucks! That just makes me so, so, so wildly happy. Years of plugging away there starting to pay off feels amazing. And even better, it covers all of my fixed monthly expenses. That's huge for me.

Outside of that, the usual dribs and drabs, nothing too crazy. I got a little royalty check in for a zine I was a part of years ago. Online book sales were down a bit, but I didn't do much in the way of promotion so that tracks. Otherwise, just business as usual. I am toying with closing down my Drivethrurpg, and just focusing on Itch for my zines.  It's weird, Drivethru is better in almost every regard, from stats to categories...but I just like Itch. And I think I would do better to focus on one.

Income:

Fixed Monthly Expenses:

  • PO Box: $14.17

  • Domains: $2.77

  • Webhosting: $3.99

  • Captivate: $17.00

  • Bookfunnel: $1.67

Total: $39.59

Monthly total made:

  • $2,615.57 ($577.73 last month)

  • Increase of: $2,037.84

Yearly total made:

  • $9,826.65

If you would like to leave a comment on this blog, a version of it has been posted on my Patreon and my Subreddit.

Nothing too crazy here, which makes sense as it's been my area of least focus this month. For the third consecutive month I have net lost one or two email subscribers, but I think that is a reflection of Mailerlite being better about delivering, so I am still weeding out some folks who signed up from that email builder awhile back. Or maybe I am just annoying!

One month on from 'turning off' BlueSky and Threads, and both added more folks than they had in the previous few months combined. Make it make sense. Beyond that, nothing of note to report. 

I am still on the fence about shutting down my Facebook Group. As stated before: "I am also considering doing something similar to my facebook group. I just simply do not get any sort of real return there. Like, at all. Not that I can see. I had to turn off the ability for folks to make posts because porn bots kept posting porn in there, or scams. And basically only I can post there...then what's the point?" - Bob, in February. This is still the case. I still haven't decided. I would love to hear your thoughts though.

So yeah, pretty normal month: lots of angst, decent growth.

Social media Growth:

Podcasts:

  • Podcast Downloads (Monthly): 44 (-16)

  • Podcast Downloads (Lifetime): 3,755

Here's what I am thinking I will do:

  • Edit Capital of Nightmares.

  • Work on zines, publish them as they finish, and then make an order from Mixam for them.

  • If the bible completes, and I finish my edits, then I will work on going wide.

Here is what I planned to get done this month (copy/pasted from last months recap), with its status:

  • If the Series Bible gets completed, then I will start my 'go wide with print books' project. Status: Series bible was not completed. 

  • I will do two events, Impact Book Festival and Southern Fried Gaming Expo. Status: I did both of these events.

  • I want to complete a full list of 'these are the tasks I do as Tales by Bob' so I can start to parse out what I could hand off to a PA. Status: Partially complete. I am meeting with a potential PA tonight. 

  • Book hotels for upcoming conventions. Status: Done. 

  • Getting my books in some local stores that have asked for them. Status: Not done. I decided to wait until I have gone wide on this. 

  • I want to write 10,000 words on Crimson 3. I would love to work up some sort of word counter for this website while I am at it. Status: Not done, because I decided to focus on getting other stuff done, and started editing Capital of Nightmares. 

  • I want to make a printable one page pitch document for Jubal County. Status: Not done. Decided this was not important, and can wait on the bible. 

I got a lot done! Here is a list:

  • Wrote recap blogs for ConCarolinas, Impact Book Festival, and Southern Fried Gaming Expo. 

  • Wrote two other blog posts: one about sharing space with Martin Shannon, one about how many books I have sold. 

  • Sent a series of emails making connections between various people I know, in hopes of opening up collaborative opportunities between them. 

  • I turned 40.

  • I overhauled my Asana to do list, to potentially allow me to share out my workload, but also to better track my projects. 

  • Applied to a convention.

  • Emailed about film project. This led to me compiling the full history of how this has all be playing out, for a future blog post.

  • Received my denial for a grant I applied for from the Alabama Arts Council. 

  • Filled out the (lengthy) panel interest form for Multiverse Con. 

  • I created a new Zine, using an old game I wrote. It's called The Buried, and is a solo journaling game.

  • I wrote a custom CCC adventure for the GoIndieNow show Hit the Dice.

  • I updated the rule set for all of my zines, and normalized the back matter and such. 

  • I worked on Flint, Blood, Bone. This will be the next zine I finish, and is a game where you play as a band of primitive hunters during the ice age. 

  • Sent my monthly newsletter. 

  • Added Google Analytics to my website. 

  • Added a Frequent Collaborators section to my site. 

  • Added a page about Southern Fantasy Media.

  • Got my listing of Southern Saudade fixed on Amazon. It weirdly had the book listed twice. 

  • Sent in some requested panel ideas.

  • Added a section to the BBI website about AI. 

  • Lots of back and forth emails with the cover designer for the planned fancy omnibus editions of my books. 

  • Filed my monthly taxes.

This month things sort of went out the window for two reasons:

  • First, I got an email part way through from my editor at Flastaff Dread with my edits for Capital of Nightmares. I have some hard work to do there, so I had to get my ducks in a row so I can spend all my free time working on it. 

  • Secondly, I had let my list of to-dos get out of hand. It was stressing me out, so I ended up taking a day off work in order to just work on list stuff. And outside of that day (which abutted a state holiday so was really two days of list ticking) I focused hard on ticking things off my list. 

On the writing front, I wrote some game content, a good bit in fact. I prioritized this, because I am planning to do a big zine order soon, and I want to have some new games on the table. If all goes as planned, there will be a lot of games on the table really soon, up from the three I have been having of late. At least seven is the plan. 

Alright, alright, alright! Another month in the books, so let's get to recapping!

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