Smutlancer Monthly Income Report: October 2020
With Molly Moore’s and John Brownstone’s blessing, we’re trying something new in this month’s income report. Consider this the transparency report as well as an income report.
Yes, I’ll break down my personal income and expenses as always (with a graph!). But I’m also going to break down the income from a variety of my/our revenue streams. This will not include revenue stream expenses (at least not right now). And I won’t compare year over year or month to month (yet). I want to create a baseline to figure out what’s coming in, whether it’s growing, and how the pieces compare to the whole (PIE CHART!). As we move forward, if y’all find this useful information, maybe I can expand the analysis to create comparisons. But first, we need to know what the numbers even are.
Let’s start with the regular income report.
October 2020 Income
*A change I’ve made to this income report is to remove (or not include) income I’m not personally putting in my bank account even if I earned it. This includes income for Smutlancers and Obscene Ideas, Those numbers will be tracked further down in the revenue stream report. We do not pay ourselves, instead we bank that income to pay Smutlancers and Obscene Ideas expenses. I want this list to be the actual income I receive. That will show a dip in my overall income but it will be a more accurate total, as well.
October income is primarily based on work completed in September. 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.
Note: For those who are curious, the “Sex/Adult Content” line links to a post that outlines what kind of freelance writing work I do for 2020.
- Freelance Writing
- Vanilla Content: $550.00
- Sex/Adult Content: $5150.00
- Affiliate Sales: $64.48
- Podcast Sponsorship: —
- Sponsored Blog Posts: —
- Website Sponsorship: —
- Banner Ads: —
- Book Sales: $43.95
- Patreon: $880.29
- Consulting: —
- Donations: —
- Bonus (from client): —
- Product Sales: $504.10
Total Income: $7,192.82 (up $102.01 from September)
October 2020 Expenses
*The change made to income will also apply to expenses. Some expenses are paid from Smutlancers and Obscene Ideas income and do not hit my personal bank account. From now on those numbers will no longer be included. If I report on both income and expenses by revenue stream in the future, they will be included at that time.
Some expenses are monthly, some quarterly, and some annual. I pay taxes monthly under my current business structure.
- Web Hosting: $67.67
- Domain Renewals: —
- Podcast Hosting: $32.00
- Canva: —
- Buffer: $99.00
- InLinkz: $2.99
- Blog Contributors: —
- Taxes: $1000.00
- Payment Fees (PayPal, Stripe): $279.36
- Shipping/Postage: $32.10
- Tech Support: $67.33
- DepositPhotos (stock photo): $29.00
- MailerLite (email newsletter): $15.00
- Adobe Premiere Pro: $21.00
- Closed Captions (YouTube Videos): $61.60
- Business Internet: $215.68
- ShipStation: $14.00
- TubeBuddy: —
- Video Capture License: —
- Shipping Supplies: —
- VistaPrint: —
- Promotional Supplies: —
- PrintMe1.com: $57.57 (2 copies of 2021 business planner)
- MyPAPlanner.com: $12.75 (2021 business planner)
Total Expenses: $2,007.35 (down $388.32 from September)
October 2020 Net Income: $5,185.47 (↑ $490.33 from September)
Another month when I couldn’t have predicted the change, but only because I wasn’t really paying attention. October was a huge month in my smutlancer life. Molly and I launched Obscene Ideas. John Brownstone and I launched his new shop, The Kinkery. Plus I had a client scare. (I didn’t get approval for a month’s worth of work until October 22 and then had to get it done by October 31 if I wanted to invoice for the entire month. Talk about a nail-biter.) It’s nice to see the upswing from the month before.
October Revenue Streams
Okay, so let’s get into the specific revenue streams. I’m going to try to break these down by all the ways I earn money as a Smutlancer (so vanilla income is not included). No expenses will be included, so these are gross totals. Be aware that the numbers will not add up cleanly to the lists above because I’m including income from revenue streams that I no longer count as “income” since it doesn’t touch my bank account.
Kayla Lords, Sex Writer
This is fairly simple. Most of the income I make as “Kayla Lords” that’s not part of a separate brand is my writing, both freelance writing and the self-published erotica that I almost never promote. I’m moving affiliate earnings to the Loving BDSM column because most affiliate promotion occurs with that audience.
Freelance sex writing: $5,150.00
Self-published erotica: $14.01
Total: $5164.01
Loving BDSM
As Loving BDSM, we generate income in multiple ways: Patreon, affiliate sales, podcast sponsorship, and more. This section may change from month to month based on available revenue opportunities. When you see “workbook sales” those are from purchases of the 30 Days of D/s workbook we offer for $4.99 each. (Participants purchase it in lieu of signing up for a free email-based program called 30 Days of D/s.)
Patreon: $880.29
Affiliate Sales: $64.48
Workbook Sales: $29.94
Total: $974.71
The Kinkery
The Kinkery is John Brownstone’s new shop for his BDSM products. I’m the marketing and shipping departments and benefit directly from any sales his store makes. That’s why his income counts as “my” income because really it’s our income under our business set-up. We launched the new shop on October 22 with a launch sale that ran through October 25. We announced it first to the Loving BDSM audience. I attribute this month’s total to the launch sale and special announcement. The real test will be to see what kind of revenue we earn in a “normal” month.
Product sales: $504.10
Smutlancers
Molly and I technically “split” this income. If we chose to pay ourselves, we would each receive half after all fees and expenses. Currently, the only income the Smutlancers produces is from our Patreon community. We hold onto that money to pay our contributors and pay Obscene Ideas expenses. Eventually, we hope Obscene Ideas will make enough money to cover its own expenses. In the past, I took this total and split it in half (including half the fees) to account for it in my income/expenses report.
Patreon: $210.00
Obscene Ideas
Obscene Ideas launched on October 5 with a pre-sale and officially launched on October 12. We believe that sales will pick up once we have more products available. Choosing the first topic (31 Days of Erotic Fiction) was tough because we knew not everyone who might be interested in our concept would want that topic. We already have the next release planned (for around January 2021) and it will be a wildly different topic and set of prompts. It will be interesting to see how this grows over time. We’re being very patient with this specific baby.
Again, Molly and I technically “split” this income and would pay ourselves half after fees and expenses if we actually paid ourselves. But we don’t.
31 Days of Erotic Fiction: $114.50
Total: $114.50
Total October 2020 Revenue: $6,967.32
Part of what I want to do is reposition revenue streams so one (freelance writing) isn’t such a large percentage of the total. That’s not an ideal way to work for yourself — because when that big revenue stream falls (and it will eventually), you’re screwed. I was almost screwed in October, and it stressed me out. By tracking these numbers, I can see the changes and watch the fluctuations.
Let’s get to the visual representation of these revenue streams with a PIE CHART:
One glance at anything from above, and we already know my freelance writing makes up the bulk of my income. The goal is to increase the other revenue streams so those percentages shift.
