Smutlancer Monthly Income Report: May 2019
May was a weird month. I worked less than usual (which will be reflected in the June report) and moved to another city. The entire month was a whirlwind. I’m glad to officially be in June, but it’s worth looking back to May — to see what was and discuss will could be possible in the future.
May 2019 Income
My May income is primarily based on work completed in April. I bill clients on the last day of every month, and they have 10 days to pay. Affiliate sales tend to pay quarterly, but some pay monthly. I break down my freelance writing between vanilla and sex content because I want to show what’s possible in either category.
May income was great which is what makes working less in May feel so strange. I earned more money but did less work because timey-wimey, wibbly, wobbly stuff. I’m glad we had a good month right when we needed it, though.
- Freelance Writing
- Vanilla Content: $2475.00
- Sex/Adult Content: $5825.00
- Affiliate Sales: $42.00
- Podcast Sponsorship: —
- Sponsored Blog Posts: —
- Website Sponsorship: —
- Banner Ads: $100.00
- Book Sales: $10.99
- Patreon: $280.00
- Consulting: —
- Donations: —
- Bonus (from client): —
- Product Sales: $14.97
Total Income: $8,747.69 (down $344.40 from April)
May 2019 Expenses
Some expenses are monthly, some quarterly, and some annual. Taxes are something I save for monthly to be paid quarterly. A few annual expenses came due this past month, plus we had a set up cost or two to deal with.
- Web Hosting: $42.98
- Domain Renewals: —
- Podcast Hosting: $32.00
- Canva: —
- Buffer: $10.00
- InLinkz: $2.99 (linky tool for Masturbation Monday)
- Blog Contributors: —
- Taxes: $1000.00
- Payment Fees (PayPal, Stripe): $288.40
- Shipping/Postage: $7.85
- Tech Support: $100.00
- Copyscape (plagerism checker): —
- TinyPNG (image compression): —
- DepositPhotos (stock photo): — $29.00
- Plugin Renewal: $49.00
- MailerLite (email newsletter): $15.00
- Rafflecopter: $13.00
- PO Box Rental (annual): $92.00
- VPN (annual): $64.97
Total Expenses: $1,747.19 (up $49.93 over April)
Our VPN is a business expense because I can’t access most of the sites I work with (including my own personal blog) on public wifi without a VPN. Our PO box rental is for our newest box in our new city — right after I had to renew the other one, ugh. I enjoyed having access to more of Rafflecopter’s tools for the Masturbation Month giveaways I hosted, but I will likely turn that off until I need it again.
May 2019 Net Income: $7,000.50 (↓ $394.33 from April)
I’m working very hard to diversify my income with clients — writing for different places and working with different brands. But I’m also trying to expand other revenue streams so that I don’t have all my eggs in one basket. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve started a Smutlancer Patreon with Molly Moore (go check that out if you hadn’t heard). I’m working with a few brands on upcoming sponsored posts. And we’re making concerted efforts to grow Loving BDSM and monetize it in an ethical way that keeps our audience front and center.
At the same time, I’m hoping to use the additional income to spend strategically. My dream is to one day have a personal assistant who can take some of the admin load off. But until then, I’m learning to hire more people to help with what I need — social media, graphics, and tech work. There comes a point when you have to spend money to make money, and I think I’m there now.
