Monthly Recap: March 2025

TRANSPARENCYMONTHLY RECAP

3/31/20255 min read

Alright, alright, alright! Another good month, so lets dive on in!

First off you will notice that have added two new sections, a 'what I did this month' section which is going to show a bit more behind the scenes of what all I do in a given month to further the cause. A good chunk of stuff I do is never 'seen' by the public as it were, so this will showcase that type of stuff. The 'what I have planned' section will list out my upcoming in person events, and list out some of the things I will try to accomplish in the coming month. If you enjoy this, you can thank author R.M. Hamrick for the idea. She does this on her transparency reports on her Patreon (which is awesome and you should go check out), and I am copying that.

What I Did In March!

I got a lot done! Here is a list:

  • I redid all the art in my zines. I had an improper license situation going on using vectorstock, so all the art that is in/on my zines that comes from there has had additional licensing purchased, or has been replaced by something in the public domain.

  • I took all of said zines and released them on itch.io and drivethrurpg. On itch you can now get them in a bundle deal.

  • I built the Tales by Bob Podcast Network website, Talesbypod.com

  • I rebuilt the Bearded Bard Inkworks website. This was because I have switched webhosts from godaddy (expensive, limits the number of websites you can have) to hostinger (much more affordable, no limit on number of websites). This meant I had to rebuild the site. I had already done this back in February for my non profit group, and soon I will be doing it for the Tales by Bob website. Because fuck godaddy, and their overcharging.

  • The audiobook for Feet in the Fire, the third Jubal County Saga novel started production.

  • I completed three paid critiques for the Alabama Writing Workshop.

  • I ordered all my new banners and booth signage, which you can see below.

  • I was on the Arts Fell On Alabama little show that airs on Troy Public Radio.

  • I moved into my new office. Basically this was moving from one room of my house to another, but trust me when I say this was a multi week ordeal.

  • My in person events were the Montevallo Book Fest and the Montgomery Book Fest and Writing Expo, which you can read about in depth a couple blog posts back.

  • For the Ides of Marsh, my annual celebration of the Jubal County Saga I did a book give away where you could get all my ebooks for free. I will do a blog post about that soonish.

  • Creatively, I broke 40k words on the third Crimson Horror novel, and I started work on a new rpg zine series.

What I Have Planned For April!

Here's what I am thinking I will do:

  • I will be at the Huntsville Comic and Pop Culture Expo the 25th-27th. I was supposed to do JordanCon, but now I am not (it's a whole thing, but nothing bad. May do a blog post about it). So I will be with Richard Fierce and Ben Meeks in Huntsville instead.

  • I will be doing an Author Expo at the MCCPL Juliette Hampton Library on the 5th.

  • On the 12th I will be doing a book sale to raise money for Heather Parrish's battle with cancer at Southern Art and Makers Collective in Montgomery. I am taking my entire stock of my first editions and slightly overcharging for them, and 100% of the money goes to her. Yes, 100%. Yes, I am taking a loss on this. Yes, she is absolutely worth it, and so much more. If I sell out, we will raise exactly 1,000 dollars for her.

  • I will be recording some podcasts (three episodes booked for my show Page Numbers) and I will be guesting on First Time with Juliet Rose.

  • I am hoping to get all my print books listed on ingramspark so I can go wide.

  • I am hoping to get at least 10k more words done on Crimson Horror 3. The dream is 20k, but if I hit 10k as busy as I am, I'll take that with a smile.

Sales!

I had two events this month, but they were both small local shows! They were fun, and the costs were very, very low, so I will take that 500 bucks and run with it.

The good: Patreon is ticking up! So, so happy with how that is going. My online book sales were good too, which I think is partly thanks to my free ebook giveaway. Itch has a decent showing (I know 10 bucks is not great, but considering where it has been...). So I think my new bundle on there will work out nicely, and should be getting my itch sales back to where they were. I also earned 150 bucks from doing 3 paid critiques. I'll do that alllll day! No really...you can reach out and hire me to do a critique of your first ten pages.

The not good: I mean...there wasn't anything bad. I would love all my channels to be making me lots of money, but honestly, there wasn't anything that stood out as bad. Just stuff with room for improvement.

Socials!

"Last month I talked about how I was thinking about cutting some social media platforms. I am getting closer to that stage I think, and I can tell you Bluesky and Threads are probably about to go the way of the dodo. My mental Marie Kondo asked me if they spark joy, and they certainly do not. I just don't have the bandwidth, nor interest, in keeping them going. I think my plan is sometime in March to basically just delete all posts there and have one pinned 'hey, I'm not actually here, I just don't want my name stolen' type post." - Bob, in February.

This is still the case. I just keep forgetting to 'shut them down.'

"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.

My email list slightly ticked up, which made me happy. It shows my newsletter signup pop up is working. The math is still wonky there, and I still haven't figured it out, but fuck it, it's growing.

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

Social media Growth:

Podcasts:

  • Podcast Downloads (Monthly): 33 (-116)

  • Podcast Downloads (Lifetime): 3,595

Income:

Monthly total made:

  • $1034.64 ($1308.26 last month)

  • Decrease of: $273.62

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