Monthly Recap: May 2026

TRANSPARENCYMONTHLY RECAP

5/31/20266 min read

This was a good month. Why can't they all be like this?! Oh yeah, because I'd burn out so fast if I did this many events each month while working a full time day job...

Anywho, obviously MomoCon and Prattville Page fest did the heavy lifting here. But audiobooks had a good month (for me) and I got paid for another large batch of critiques (that's the 450 you see under appearance).

I had a lot of expenses this month as well, but I also had folks who had agreed to pay for shares of booths/hotels/etc pay me back this month.

Here is an example. In a previous month I logged the full amount of what I paid for the booth at MomoCon. That was 1700 bucks, and it's why I was in the red for much of the early part of the year. Well now the event has been held and my booth mates have paid their shares. To be clear, both had offered to pay before the event, but I prefer to wait until the last day of the event to settle up, so that way I avoid someone paying a share, then them having to back out for a legit reason, and me having to pay them back.

All that to say, all my expenses for this month, plus 19 bucks and change, were covered by repayments. 

So yeah, unless I wildly fuck up, I have already beat my net profit from last year.

Income (Book Sales):

Total: $3,997.21

Income (Other):

Total: $545.87

Expenses:

  • Captivate annual membership - $204.00

  • Porkbun multi-year Talesbybob domain - $99.72

  • April Taxes - $65.16

  • April Taxes - $97.75

  • Schedchie - $9.42

  • Hotel Room for Froli - $74.97

  • Postage - $25.67

  • Parking for Froli - $21.49

  • Foothills Book Festival booth - $90.00

  • MomoCon Parking - $67.80

  • MomoCon Hotel - $818.10

  • Porkbun one year of a domain - $11.08

  • Repayments - $1,566.00

Total: -$19.16

Monthly total made:

  • Income: $4,543.08 ($2,652.59 last month)

  • Expenses: $-19.16 ($545.82 last month)

  • Net Income: $4,562.24

Yearly Gross Total Made:

  • $10,750.29

Yearly Net Total Made:

  • $5,502.63

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

Ok, so there have been some moves here.

First, Bearded Bard Inkworks basically has no more social media, so obviously I won't be tracking those numbers.

Second, there are two large spikes. My facebook group added 50 people. Partly that was because I hadn't invited folks in some time. But also I overhauled it quite a bit which I think makes it more welcoming. The other spike came from me inputting a lot of in person signups. 

What you probably won't have seen is all the small social media accounts I shut down that weren't really directly related to what you guys normally see. Seriously, I had developed some serious bloat in that department, and I ended up killing off about half a dozen accounts ranging from one dedicated to the Office Cats, to some for the non-profit that I ran (that I am shutting down).

One thing I am really excited about is that I have finally gotten my numbers back up above where they were when I did my big newsletter purge back in September. I took a step back in overall numbers by doing that, but I have made up the lost ground.

Anyway, here are the numbers:

Social Media Growth:
Podcasts:

  • Podcast Downloads (Monthly): 209 (-160)

  • Podcast Downloads (Since April 2022): 6,561

Here's what I am thinking I will do:

  • I will write at least 10,000 words on Jubal County 7.

  • I will start my first Facebook Ad campaign.

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

  • I will write at least 10,000 words on Jubal County 7. (Nope!)

  • I will work on both new CCC zines. (Nope!)

  • I will finish the Thorn Hollow zine. (Nope!)

  • I will plan out my social media strategy with Schedchie. (Nope!)

  • I will decide on how I want to go about publishing all my new zines. (Nope!)

I got a lot done! Here is a list (those tagged (MO) are items related to the major overhaul:

  • Made promo images

  • Deleted several websites (MO)

  • Overhauled my facebook group (MO)

  • Deleted my Possum McGough facebook (MO)

  • Deleted several instagrams (MO)

  • Deleted all the BBI socials except instagram (MO)

  • Deleted all my zines off Itch, to force folks to buy them direct from my site. (MO)

  • Overhauled my website to be more reader focused. (MO)

  • Did Frolicon

  • Did Prattville Page Fest

  • Did MomoCon

  • Overhauled my Linktree (MO)

  • Deleted a bunch of apps off my phone related to TBB, so I will be less distracted/stressed. (MO)

  • Set up my store on my website. (MO)

  • Did several blog posts and recaps.

  • Made an free ebook to act as a newsletter builder.

  • Set up bookfunnel for said free ebook.

  • Set up fb ad manager. (MO)

  • Set up Amazon attribution links. (MO)

  • Set up bookfunnel in relation to the two above. (MO)

  • Made my first facebook ad, in relation to the three above. (MO)

  • Mailed postcards to bookstores.

  • Updated my panel list on the website.

  • Ordered banner stands.

  • Made new stickers, banners, and business card images (i'll order them next month).

  • Sent stickers to a book club.

  • Signed up for Payhip. (MO)

  • Made some new Crimson Horror trilogy covers.

  • Input all my in person newsletter signups.

  • Sent out my newsletter.

  • Refined my landing page for newsletter signups.

  • Tweaked my website to hopefully get more newsletter signups.

  • Audiobook 4 started production.

Alright, alright, alright! May is in the rear view, and it was a pretty good month in Bob Land. A damn good month really. I didn't get much writing done, and that was for two reasons:

First is about halfway through the month our AC broke down. It took the company four trips over the course of about a week to fix it. Spoiler: ya boi does not write when its 80+ degrees in the house. 

Second is then came MomoCon. This event took a lot of prep, and a decent amount of wind down. So that took up a chunk of the month as well. 

You will see that I did a LOT however. Like, a fucking ton of stuff. I'm really working hard to get myself to the 'next level' as it were so a lot of that was related to that. You can see a few blog posts from this month were I talk about some of the steps I am taking, and I will be doing at least one more post on that front here in the next week or two. Suffice to say I spent a lot of time on stuff not writing, but I think it was time really, really well spent. 

I ticked off not a single item from last months to do list, and I feel really ok about it. I explained already why I didn't hit my word count goal for Jubal County 7 (I really need to come up with a name for it), but the rest of the goals were largely based around zines and social media. On the zine front, I did some deep analysis on my little empire and I realized that zines take up a huge amount of time, without really pushing things forward, while also tying up a ton of money in inventory. So zine work will only be happening once I get the more important things done each month. And with the social media scheduling, I'm now in a bit of a state of flux on that front as I work to curtail my social media presences. Once the dust settles, I will revisit that. 

Quick summary:

  • Word Count: 6,997

  • Hours Writing: 7.5

  • Hours Working: 31

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