August Life Update - Financial Audit (kinda)

Hi everyone!

It's been a few months since my last blog so it's time for an update.

FREE Softcover of Phobos #4

As you can see I just got the proofs for Phobos #4 (Patreon Only Softcover) and they looks great! I'll be offing to give a free copy to all my patrons ($5+) during the month of September. So expect an order form next week where you can claim your free copy. :)

Won't this cost me lots of money? Why am I doing this?

Well, in the past when I've given away free books to my patrons, it usually grows my membership list a bunch because of the giveaway. So, yes, it will cost all my Patreon money this month, but hopefully I'll have many more patrons next month.

It has worked very well in the past so I figured I'd try it again. But the internet has dramatically changed since the plague and so there is a risk that I'll just lose money. haha. But that's a risk I am willing to take. So make sure to claim your free softcover next week at my expense. ;)

Phobos #5 will be starting in October!

Yep, I'll start drawing new pages again soon once the free giveaway is over. :)

LIFE UPDATE

I've continued to see lots of new productivity in my life over the last few months. But it's been more than just comics, and that's a good thing. It's good because it seems to help avoid burnout.

Here's how it's been working and I really like it.

I'm hyper focused on comics for like 2 months straight to build up a backlog. Then I switch gears and get hyper focused on editing videos for our (Joy & I) Youtube channel and try to build up a backlog of videos to schedule for the next few months so that I can switch back to comics again.

Then during all this, Joy and I try to take off 4 or 5 days every month to remodel my grandparents old house, which is super enjoyable for both of us.

Then once a week Joy likes to go help out at the local food kitchen for 3 or 4 hours and sometimes I go with her to do that too.

It might sounds like a busy schedule but I'm able to work on several things that I love working on. And when I start to get burnt out on one thing, it's usually time to switch gears to the next thing.

So that's how I'm doing things for now. So far it seems to be working good. It's doesn't seem to solve my financial problems fully but money continues to keep coming in somehow.

Wait, how does money come in?

• Well, I just sold the Chinese rights to Cognitive Drawing this month. It's not much but they agreed to pay about $3000.

• I still have some money coming in from the remaining Cognitive Drawing books selling in the US through my distributor. But we are close to being sold out now. About $3000 is still unpaid from the last 6 months of sales. So I expect to get most of that before the end of the year.

• Every now and then I sell a digital product through gumroad. It's brings in about $300 a month. Sometime more, sometimes less.

• I get advertising revenue from my Province Smile Youtube channel at around $300 a month. Plus around $400 from affiliate commissions each month from the channel.

• Patreon brings in a little more than $530 a month. (and I'm hoping to grow that)

• I sold the "movie option rights" for Sithrah last year, and just barely got paid for the first option just this week. It took 8 months to get payment. But even though it's a good movie option contract, it's not as much as you would expect. It renews every 1.5 years and so hopefully I'll see another payment next year. Just to lay it all out, it's $7000 for a 1.5 year option. I had to pay over $1000 in attorney fees during negotiations leaving me with $6000. That comes to $333 a month if I divide it up over the 18 months.

I wasn't planning on breaking down my finances in this blog but since I went this far and listed things out, I'm curious to just total it up to see the monthly income that I currently have.

It looks like I have about $2,713 coming in per month (if I divide up the Sithrah movie option per month and do similar with the Chinese publishing rights.) This is not 100% accurate but it gives you an idea of how I'm able to afford to live right now.

Keep in mind that I have a small amount of money saved as a buffer since most of my income is unexpected (except for Patreon). If my savings gets too low, I'll be forced to go back to Hollywood to get a job again. But I keep praying that I never have to do that again. ;)

To some of you these might be depressing numbers, but it might be exciting to others. haha

For me it's a dream come true to be able to work on whatever I want to work on and be able to have enough money come in to pay the bills. And hopefully my small savings can grow instead of shrink each month.

Well, I think I've said too much so I'll stop there. :)

Remember to check back next month to claim your free copy of Phobos #4 in the mail. It's a cool little book.

Talk soon!

Jason