2020 income snapshot

Apparently, this is the day every year when I post my revenue snapshot on Facebook, and I have been doing it for the past 4 years and whilt this year was chaotic, there was no reason to change it now. So here it is, a snapshot of the past five years in or around November 28th.

This is every year from 2016 until today. I should note that both 2016 and 2018 show revenue for the full year, while 2017, 2019, and 2020 share it from today’s date.

Some of you have emailed asking for me to post my income reports again, but I think this is the best I can do for now.

Last year was incredibly consistent every month. I wish I had some of that this year, when it felt like I wildly swung from having money to no money throughout the year.

The difference this year was FIVE Kickstarters compared to 1 each of the past 2 years, and then 2 in 2017. I also stopped doing book marketing in May of this year, and had a drastic drop in both course sales and marketing income because of it, as they fed each other.

Weirdly, everything about my 2020 year looks a lot like my 2017 year, except without the shows to buoy me this year. 2017 was my first breakout year, and the most I had ever raised on Kickstarter ($52,000) before this year ($75,000).

I should note that I was prepared to make this a $200,000+ year between what’s on the board, plus shows, plus book marketing. I’m nowhere near as prepared for 2021 as I was for 2020. That all went out the window though, when the fire nation attacked, I mean COVID hit.

However, 2020 allowed me to prep for the future and just maintain, while pumping out new books as fast as I could write them.

This would have been a truly banner year for me if 2020 didn’t happen. Instead, it ended up being an…okay year, very much like the last few, but without any of the travel, which has been nice.

I easily had the most productive writing year of my life this year, also, poised to finish eight novels, plus launching 11 books, plus putting a new OGN and a super-secret new type of project into the mix. I also took part in a ton of anthology projects this year, and was part of a total of 11 Kickstarter campaigns, along with a bunch of live launches for anthologies on Amazon.

Aside from the pandemic and worrying about my loved ones all the time, I would gladly run this year back next year, though I think I will have to skew my projections down significantly. I don’t think, for instance, that I’ll be making $75,000 on Kickstarter next year. I think I have to set my projections at $60,000, and I probably won’t have much of the random income I made this year due to anthology creators making books.

If I had to guess, next year will be the first year since 2016 that I don’t make $100,000, but then, there is always a way, and I seem to keep finding them somehow.