Monthly Recap: September 2025
TRANSPARENCYMONTHLY RECAP
A down month, but to be expected, with only doing two small in person events. Plus coming off my biggest month ever, well, yeah. It had to be downhill haha. But all in all, business as usual.
I will be recalculating my monthly fixed expenses now, since I have Schedchie and Mailerlite to account for, but I'll do that later.
Income:
$1.40- Assorted
$29.16 - Amazon Shirts
$6.75 - TeePublic Shirts/Merch
$0.00 - Tabletop Games on Itch.io
$55.15 - Patreon
$142.79 - Online Book Sales/KENP
$26.20 - Audiobooks
$0.00 - Website Book Sales
$455.00 - In Person Book Sales
$1.66 - Amazon Affiliate 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:
$718.11 ($2,976.15 last month)
Decrease of: $2,297.63
Yearly total made:
$15,043.29
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 the big development here is that I ended up deciding to stick with Mailerlite. The cost was really more than I wanted to pay, and I really considered making the swap to Email Octopus. But I ended up sticking with them for the following reasons:
I didn't have enough time to research to the point of satisfaction.
I already have a few integrations and work flows set up in Mailerlite. I didn't want to have to rebuild them right now.
They still have the best delivery rate that I am aware of.
One good thing that came of it, it prompted me to do a really deep dig into my stats and such, and I found that about 200 folks had not opened a single email of mine since I swapped to Mailerlite. It wasn't enough to drop me under the 500 threshold so that my account would be free, but I suspect I will end up with a much higher open rate on my next newsletter. Which I will be sending out about an hour after this posts.
It ended up costing 180 bucks for the year. I am also now paying for Schechie, which is a social media scheduling app. I will be using it to run my non-primary social medias. It's going to take a bit to learn and set up, but once I do, this could be a game changer for me.
Social media Growth:
Facebook Page Follows: 1066 (+3)
Instagram: 790(+13)
Facebook Fan Group: 339 (+1)
Youtube: 142 subscribers (+3)
Email List: 594 subscribers (-205)
Discord Server: 71 (+2)
Threads: 253 (+6)
Bluesky: 201 (+3)
Patrons: 22 paid/37 free(+0/+1)
r/Talesbybob: 17 (+1)
Total: 3473(-173)
Podcast Downloads (Monthly): 129 (+85)
Podcast Downloads (Lifetime): 4090
Here's what I am thinking I will do:
I will complete my typo fixes that came along with my Bible.
I will finally go wide.
I need to finish my file organization process.
Keep working on Blackwater Requiem.
Here is what I planned to get done this month (copy/pasted from last months recap), with its status:
I will complete my typo fixes that came along with my Bible. (Nope.)
I will finally go wide. (Nope.)
I need to figure out if I will stick with Mailerlite, now that they just started charging at 500 emails (I have 800ish). (Did this!)
I need to finish my file organization process. (Nope.)
Keep working on Blackwater Requiem. (Broke 25k words!)
I got a lot done! Here is a list:
I did some updates to the website.
Did my Dragon Con blog posts
Sent thank you emails to Dragon Con folks.
Emailed my narrator about potentially going wide.
Cleaned up my newsletter list.
Spoke to the Prattville Silent Book Club.
Ordered zines.
Ordered books.
Wrote at least 4 days a week, 500-1000 words.
Joined the Alabama Writers Forum.
Joined the Alabama Writers Cooperative.
Wrote up the Fandom Fair.
Mailed stickers and goodies to folks.
Worked on two one sheet zines, and two longer zines.
Spoke to one of Prof. Burtons classes.
Started using Schedchie.
Filed my monthly taxes.
Alright, alright, alright! Another month in the books, so let's get to recapping!
