The State of the Tales by Bob Empire, 2021

2020. Man, what a year.

I will be honest, it was a year of some real strides forward, but overall I am very disappointed in myself. And it all comes down to my books. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.

The Year Behind!

So just what did I accomplish in 2020? Quite a lot actually!

First, I started back working on Fiverr. I had an account there some years back, writing general fiction for people, but now I have niched myself into the video/tabletop game writing market. And it has been a rousing success so far! I have been able to work on some really cool projects, and made a fair bit of hustle money. All in all, a win!

Secondly, I really amped up my t-shirt business. I got my shirts on more sites, taught myself basic design so I can make my own designs, and now have well over a hundred shirts out there in the ether for purchase! I am not where I want to be just yet, but I am making moves in the right direction for sure. I look forward to the day when each month I am clearing a couple hundred bucks from selling shirts passively.

I really got into game design this year as well. I wrote up a bunch of games, and got them on the two biggest sights in the sphere (itch and drivethrurpg), and am making some small amount of sales. It's nothing mind-blowing, but every little bit helps. Plus it's just neat to think about people out there playing games that I made!

I did release one book, The Essential Guidebook to the Secret Lives of Clams, a silly little book about made up species of clams. It is utterly ridiculous, and in truth I have made virtually no effort to sell it. Because it is very, very silly. But hey, I put out a book.

The Podcast took a huge dive, since Covid precluded any recording we could do, since we record in person and not over the net. It's not dead though, just sleeping. So that has been disappointing, but there is nothing I can really do about that.

Covid also meant there were no conventions to attend or be a part of. Before it struck I was on course to be a part of a couple, but safety is far more important than trying to sling a few books at a convention.

Overall, I accomplished a lot...but I wish I had taken more advantage of all the Covid mandated downtime. I let Fiverr take up a larger share of my time than I should have (something I have begun to remedy), and so I didn't get the books to editing that I had wanted. I really wanted to come out this year with at least one, if not two or even three of my books to press. But...I dropped the ball. Seasonal depression ended a late rally to try and push something through, so it is, what it is.

Things in my personal life went really well however, so that kinda trumps everything else. But that's not what you are here for. So let's move on to...

The Numbers!

So lets break it down the numbers, and see just how I did! I don't know if I will do this every year moving forward (who knows, maybe one day I will make enough that there could be reasons I wouldn't post this), but for now and the near future I plan to. I really like it when people pull back the curtain so to speak, so here I am, being the change I want to see.

• Fiverr: 1610.8 The lions share of money of course.

• Amazon Merch: 103.54 I am looking forward to seeing how this goes up next year.

• Redbubble: 13.6 I will not be spending much energy here I think.

• TeePublic: 85 I have been pretty well pleased with my sales here.

• TeeSpring: 0 I will not be expending any more energy here.

• Amazon Affiliate: 26.27 Pure passive income, gotta love it.

• DriveThruRpg: 106.5 There is real room for growth here, I just need to work at it.

• Itch.io: 53.2 Same as DriveThru, there is room to grow here.

• Patreon: 152.55 I really need to figure out what I am doing here.

• Books: 9.65 The little clam book that could...hey, its better than nothing haha.

• Expenses: -200 This is all libsyn expenses

Year total: 1942.77

Not too shabby! I am going to keep working at it, and hopefully this post next year I will have hit my 1k a month goal. Fingers crossed! I just really wish I had gotten more (serious) books out there.

The Year Ahead!

So going forward, what are my goals for next year?

First, and by far most importantly, is I intend to have at a MINIMUM, the first two Howard Marsh novels published. And I want at least one other book out as well, though I am not 100% set on which of my other books it will be. But this time next year, I intend to have at least two, if not three, full novels of mine that I am proud of out there making sales. This has been far and away the area I am most disappointed in myself (struggling with finding an editor has not helped), and this one area more than any other do I see the most room for improvement.

Secondly, I will keep on expanding my other avenues. What might that look like? Well I want to double the number of shirts I have on offer, to at least 300. I think that is a very doable number, I just need to come up with the designs. I have a bit of a backlog, I just need to carve out some time to get them done, and uploaded.

As for RPG stuff, I want to take some of my more popular games and finesse and refine them. I would love to come up with a universal system for all my games, and then roll it out as a hardback. I doubt that will happen next year, but I do plan to keep working on new one sheet games and supplements, and they will be getting released for sure.

The way the vaccine is looking, I think we may have some conventions coming back. Maybe. If so, I would like to be a part of them. Regardless, we will be firing back up the Books, Beards, Booze podcast for sure.

So that's the plan! I am really looking forward to what the new year might bring, and I hope you will stick around to see it unfold!

Cheers!