Bi-annual Shareholder's Report #001: April 2020 - September 2020 (Patreon)

I've always said: every dollar coming into the channel goes back into the channel. The channel has paid for my camera, my mic, every D&D book I own — everything. Maybe one day I'll be paying rent with this stuff [pause for laughter] but for now I'm just stoked it's all self-sustainable and I'm not out-of-pocket anymore.

There's a general social stigma around talking about money which I wholly reject, I think it's absolute malarky. So I want to break down some of the channel's costs and projections for you all — I'm making this available to all patrons, because you're all directly responsible for this success (and complicit in any ensuing court proceedings, har har, just a little joke for you.) Let's call this the Patreon bi-annual shareholder's report.

Revenue April-September 2020

I tend to do analysis in six-month chunks, April 1 to September 30 — arbitraryly chosen due to the time of year I started paying attention to numbers. I'm a little early with this report, but I'm a keen bean. Before we get into it, let me warn you that having some revenue in USD and some in AUD makes this a little messy in spots. So from April to now-ish, let's look at revenue sources:

Clearly DriveThruRPG is the winner here — which is bonkers, because I almost never promote my published stuff and it's almost all pay-what-you-want. But I think Patreon will become the main gig by the end of the year, slowly creeping up. I only qualified for YouTube ads a few months ago, so that's why those numbers are lower. I also umm'd and ahh'd about which style of ads I wanted to permit, which would be the least intrusive, but last month I said screw it and turned on all the ads.

Expenses April-September 2020

There are some expenses I've paid out of pocket (not included here) because they felt more like personal purchases rather than channel purchases (ie. a new desk, a steamer for the green screen). I think this is 95% accurate though:

• Monthly TubeBuddy US$9 (US$21 paid this 6mo period)
• Monthly bank fees AU$4 (AU$16 paid this 6mo period)
• Annual website fees AU$192 (paid in May 2020)
• Procreate software AU$15
• iA Writer software AU$47
• iPad and iPad accessories AU$889
• Soundproofing foam AU$67
• Wood + glue AU$37
• Green screen AU$130
• Lights AU$1180
• Light Stands AU$150
• Teleprompter AU$150
• TOTAL ~AU$2894

Cash on hand September 2020

So sitting at the end of this period (which will officially end at the beginning of October) here's the cash the channel has available:

• PayPal balance AU$378.46
• Bank balance AU$49.53
• DriveThruRPG balance AU$232
• Patreon balance US$294
• YouTube balance US$50

Future expenses

So I think this past six months has been all about improving the production — better lights, better sound, better performance. From comparing my videos to lots of other channel, I think my production is on a pretty healthy trajectory.

But other channels manage to put out WAY more content than I do, and it's working really well for them — they're pulling mad numbers. So this coming six months, I want to invest the channel's money into making MORE content, MORE often. It would be grit alone that would propel me to weekly content with my current process, and that's not sustainable.

One expense that should speed up my process will be upgrading my computer — I want to get my iMac from 8G of RAM to 64G so I can bounce out videos quicker, rather than leave it processing overnight. Other areas though... I probably need to pay more attention to how I use my time and really pinpoint what extra resources I need.

Outsourcing should play a bigger role, but my first foray into outsourcing thumbnails had pretty mixed results and saved me zero time. I'm experimenting with outsourcing editing with a mate this month, but I'd love to try outsourcing writing if I can find a writing partner — that will probably have to wait till after Corona so I can get out there and meet people.

I also haven't put anything aside for tax. I should probably look into that.

Questions? Comments?

Is this kind of feedback and reporting helpful to you as a patron? I think you deserve to know how I'm applying your generous support. I'm an open book about this kind of thing, so please feel free to hit me with any questions, comments, suggestions below.

Thanks! You legends :)