Smutlancer Revenue Report: February 2021
Last month’s new revenue report seemed to go over well, so I’m sticking with this at least for this year — or longer unless I get bored again. February is a short month and, even with a holiday like Valentine’s Day, a relatively quiet one for me. Let’s see how that pans out in the numbers.
February Revenue Streams
This is a breakdown of all the ways I earn money as a Smutlancer (vanilla income not included). No expenses are included, so these are gross totals. It represents revenue generated during the month even if I haven’t received the cash yet. I differentiate between income and revenue this way: Income is money that’s hit my bank account that I may or may not have earned during the month. Revenue is money earned before fees that may not have paid out yet. In some cases, like affiliate sales, workbook sales, product sales, and sponsorships, it’s technically both because I’ve already been paid.
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 freelance writing as well as income made from my personal site (KaylaLords.com).
Freelance sex writing: $4,150.00
Self-published erotica: $3.27
Total: $4,153.27
My freelance writing revenue went down in February because I spent money to get time back. By that I mean I’ve subcontracted out some of my freelance work to another writer. In doing so, I’ve gained nearly a full day back to work on other projects. I have less money, but I have so much more time, and (so far) it feels amazing.
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.
Patreon: $846.32
Affiliate sales: $162.31
Workbook sales: $14.97
Podcast sponsorship: $150.00
YouTube AdSense: $21.77
Total: $1,195.37
For February, our Patreon was back down to a more “normal” number, as were our affiliate sales. YouTube AdSense continues to grow but as most videos on our channel have limited monetization (essentially the same thing as being demonetized), the growth is painfully slow.
The Kinkery
The Kinkery is John Brownstone’s new shop for his BDSM products. As his business partner, life partner, as well as the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Shipping Department, I have a clear vested interest in the growth of this source of revenue.
Product sales: $491.43
When we compare February sales at the Kinkery this year to our old no-name shop last year (that we barely promoted), there was a definite increase. I don’t like to compare the sales numbers monthly because every month is different. But a year-over-year comparison lets me know we’re still growing, even when the number is smaller than we’d like.
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.
Patreon: $182.86
This number has held fairly steady over the past few months. While we would like the community to grow, neither Molly nor I have done a lot to help that along. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have plans.
Obscene Ideas
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: $15.00
31 Days of Self Reflection: $15.00
Total: $30.00
Obscene Ideas had a slow month but we also experimented with Instagram ads. It’s rare that anyone in the adult realm can pay to boost a post or run an ad on Instagram or Facebook but we focused on the Self-Reflection prompts and watched our wording very carefully. The good news is that we made our money back which gives us more incentive to continue experimenting with paid advertisements.
Total February 2021 Revenue: $6,052.93
This number is more in line with a typical month. January was an outlier because of the Loving BDSM Membership Drive we did through Patreon. While it looks like a big drop from one month to the next, I’m more focused on what happens over the span of a year or more. And now that I pay for help in my freelance life, I have time and an incentive to build the other revenue streams to (at least) make up the difference.
Get Your Graph Kink On
I like to see these percentage fluctuations. A decrease in my freelance income is okay as long as it correlates with an increase elsewhere. Remember, the entire point of having multiple streams of revenue is to spread your income fluctuation risk around. Yes, of course, I want to make more money — that’s the goal. But I don’t want stress over one revenue stream to consume me, either.
It’s a stark difference from last month, but I’m fine with that. The real question is…where do the numbers go from here?
So, those are the numbers. What do you think about this new format?
I do like that even though your income from The Smutlancer (as a *brand*, because all your work is smutlancing as a *verb*) is small, it’s a visible chunk of your revenue stream pie chart! Also seeing that number when I know how much I personally give you for access to the community, etc. is really interesting – I kind of feel like I’m not paying you enough for all the support and encouragement and friendship and advice! That does kind of lead me to an Actual Question though – are there particular income streams that you feel you get paid for the amount of work you actually put in? Like, do you feel like you put a lot of work into The Smutlancer and Obscene Ideas, for example, to get relatively little revenue from that project, or do you see that work as an investment in a project and brand that hopefully *will* eventually make you money that kind of equates to the number of hours you’re putting in? (I hope that makes sense!)
Would I like to make more from both Smutlancers and Obscene Ideas? Yes. Are both currently a lot of work for not a lot of money? Also yes. But I see them both as investments in the future. We have plans to expand the Smutlancer revenue streams with new offerings (as passive as possible because there’s just not a lot of time). And we always assumed Obscene Ideas would take a while to take off because we’re adding new titles so slowly, but we also have plans to expand that in new ways to (hopefully) increase revenue without adding a lot of work as well — watch this space, as we’ll announce both expansions.
That being said, all projects need to be assessed and reassessed to determine if the work going in is worth the revenue being received. At that point we either decide to try something new or we decide to cut something. For now, we’re full steam ahead. We don’t plan to reassess anything until the end of the year. 🙂