October’s Billfold LLC Update

It’s October, which means it’s time for another Billfold LLC update. Are you ready?

October budget

Here’s the budget I’ve been working from this month:

Fun fact: we’re going to run exactly the same number of freelance pieces in October as we did in September, but it’s going to seem like fewer pieces because October has more weekdays than September did. (Months are weird, right?) I won’t actually skip any of our publication slots, but I will be filling a few more of them in with Nicole pieces instead of freelancer pieces, like I did this Tuesday when I ran one of my Doing Money interviews in the 10 a.m. slot.

I did very much want to run more freelance pieces in October, but if I’d run a full 38 pieces that would have brought my freelancer payment cost up to $1,520 and my own monthly income down to $1,188.79. I’ve mentioned before that I need to earn a minimum of $1,500/month to make The Billfold LLC a sustainable job for me, so… that’s how I figured how many freelance pieces to run this month.

I’m still reaching out to potential sponsors and working on increasing The Billfold’s income, especially because I’ve set that goal of increasing freelancer pay rates in 2019. I’ve also wondered if I should set myself a flat monthly pay rate for 2019, instead of giving myself “whatever’s left over.” I wouldn’t want to set that pay rate at $1,500, though; that’d be the rate I’d drop to if The Billfold doesn’t hit its income goals.

I know it sounds a little self-centered to talk about how much I should get paid for all of this, especially because I’ve got a couple of well-paying freelance gigs that are covering a lot of my financial needs. However, part of the point of running a small business is to make money for yourself — the other parts are asset-building, creating something other people value, and in this case creating opportunities for writers — so it’s only fair to think about how everyone involved with The Billfold LLC gets paid, including me. (Currently, we’re all a little underpaid.)

Financial Fairy Tales

I’ve set myself the goal of getting Financial Fairy Tales to final-draft stage by Sunday, October 14. That way, I can focus the rest of the month on formatting the text for ebooks and print books and setting up the preorder. Ideally the preorder will go live beginning of November and the book will publish beginning of December, although I’m going to ask that you not hold me to those dates.

You’ll note that I am doing a lot of what you might call “outside work” on Financial Fairy Tales, aka “after hours” or “unpaid” work. I’ve asked myself whether I should take a cut of FFT sales just for me or whether I should put it all in the Billfold account (which does mean that some of the money will eventually go to me as part of my monthly rate, but doesn’t mean that I’ll take a special payment for writing/creating/publishing the book).

I am pretty sure that all the FFT money will go into the Billfold account, first because I want to pay writers more in 2019 and second because one of my goals with this project is to bring in enough revenue to fund an anthology in 2019, paying writers/illustrators/cartoonists/etc. to put together a larger book that we might take on tour.

So I have no real issue with putting FFT together “for free,” because it’s helping support my larger goals of asset-building, creating something other people value, and creating opportunities for writers. But part of me is all “you cannot launch a small press without increasing your pay rate,” and then the other part is “we’ll see what the budget says, honey.”

Ultimately, the amount any of us get paid comes down to how much money I (we?) can rustle up for The Billfold, whether that’s through sponsored content or ad revenue or pledge drives or book sales. FFT is also serving as a good test drive for the book project, since I can use what I learn to determine how much I can expect to earn/spend on the anthology book, and whether there should be any additional books after that.

So that’s what I’m thinking about, this month. Thank you again for all of your support. ❤︎

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