Full transcript
0:00All right, it's time to do another
0:01monthly income report for my publishing
0:04business to see how well it has been
0:06doing. And unfortunately, this is going
0:08to be a really quick video because I
0:10don't have much to report and I'll tell
0:12you why at the end of this video. But
0:15first, let's start with the report for
0:17January 2026.
0:19Um, first of all, number of titles
0:21published. I did not publish any titles
0:24in January. I had a plan to publish two
0:27flagship titles and maybe a handful of
0:29other public domain or or smaller titles
0:32to go along with those, but
0:34unfortunately due to things that I will
0:36talk about later, I did not get to any
0:39of that. And so there were zero
0:41published titles. My Amazon ad spend was
0:44$171. A little bit more than the
0:46previous month, but not a whole lot. Not
0:48the kind of ad spend that could
0:51potentially see big income returns. And
0:54that's because I didn't work on my ads
0:56in January either. And so the ad spend I
1:00have there is pretty much all derived
1:02from ads I that I had previously set up
1:04in past months. So there really wasn't
1:07anything new there as well. My fiction
1:09revenue did actually go up. You can see
1:12over the past 3 months it's gone up
1:13every single month. Not by a whole lot
1:15though. And I would say most of this is
1:17probably attributed to the ads that I've
1:19spent. And so that's nice to see that
1:22there is some growth and as long as
1:24there is steady growth I'm somewhat
1:26happy because that means that word might
1:28be getting around or the algorithm might
1:30be figuring things out that sort of
1:32thing. So there has been some steady
1:34growth there. There was however a drop
1:36in my non-fiction from the previous
1:39month. I'm not entirely certain why that
1:42is. Probably just normal fluctuation if
1:45I'm being honest. We we only have three
1:46months of data here. But that actually
1:49caused me to take a little bit of a hit
1:51overall compared to for my total revenue
1:53and everything. Now, audiobook revenue,
1:56um, Audible does not tell me what the
1:59revenue is until an additional month
2:01out. So, I don't know what my January
2:03revenue was, but my revenue for December
2:05I did get, and that was $51.3, which is
2:08just almost exactly the same as the
2:10month before. So, that's what that is.
2:13So, that brings us to a total of $455
2:17of net revenue. That's income minus
2:20expenses for the month of January. And
2:23actually, it'll be a little bit more
2:24than that once I get the audiobook
2:26revenue in, but still that's going to be
2:28probably about $60 less than last month
2:32overall. Quick pause. If you're an
2:34author who wants to start writing more
2:36books, I put together my complete AI
2:38prompt pack that helped me and many
2:40others in my community write a book in a
2:42month. It's completely free. Hit the
2:43link in the description. Join the free
2:45weight list for StoryHacker Gold. Then
2:47you just answer a couple quick questions
2:49and I'll send you the full prompt list
2:50plus a few extra free goodies. I'll also
2:53email you when I open the paid
2:55StoryHacker Gold group so you can join
2:57if it feels right. There's no commitment
2:59to join though, and you'll still be able
3:00to get all of the freebies you signed up
3:02for either way. All right, back to the
3:03video. And the reason for this is I did
3:07not work on my publishing business at
3:08all last month. And this leads me into
3:11uh just some thoughts that I want to
3:13make sure I get across to you guys as
3:15I'm going and documenting this process.
3:18You see, I have two businesses. There's
3:20this business that you are participating
3:23in right now. It's a business for
3:25authors
3:27uh that consists largely of this Nerdy
3:29Novelist YouTube channel and my story
3:31hacker gold membership that you can find
3:34in the links below. that's my primary
3:38income generator and I have to put some
3:41work into it to pay the bills and in
3:43addition I actually siphon a lot of that
3:45money to pay ghost writers and audiobook
3:47narrators and other things that go into
3:48the publishing business. Uh but I also
3:50have the publishing business, the
3:52fiction especially that I want to grow.
3:56And the thing about that is that I have
3:59found and and this isn't anything new.
4:02I've been hearing it talked about from
4:04other business gurus for decades now is
4:07that it is near impossible to grow more
4:11than one business at the same time. Even
4:13if you can, you could probably, if you
4:15put all of the effort into one, if you
4:17put it into another, you would probably
4:20get much more out of that one business
4:24just by putting all of your focus on it.
4:26And this past month, I've really learned
4:30just how much of a case that is. While I
4:33do think it's possible to sort of
4:34maintain one business while growing
4:36another business, it's very difficult to
4:38do both, to grow both at the same time.
4:41And so if I want to put more of my focus
4:44on the publishing business, I have to
4:47put less of my focus on this channel and
4:50on the StoryHacker Gold membership. Now,
4:52thankfully, you can hire people and I've
4:54been working on doing that inside of the
4:56Story Hacker Gold business and as many
4:59things as I can outsource for this
5:00channel as possible so that I have more
5:02time to focus on the publishing
5:04business. But it has been very very
5:06difficult to try and work like if I have
5:09a project here on this channel that I
5:11want to work on uh or a course I'm
5:14trying to create inside of the story
5:15hacker gold membership or something like
5:18that. I you know maybe it's just the way
5:21mind works but I have trouble being able
5:22to switch even in the same day from one
5:25project to another. It really helps me
5:28in terms of my productivity to just have
5:30one thing that I'm focusing on for at
5:33least for a day, ideally for like a
5:35whole week until the project is
5:36completely finished or you know and that
5:38and that could go even beyond a week if
5:40I wanted to. So the reason I mention
5:42this is because right now I have a goal
5:46with this channel and the story hacker
5:48gold membership that I am pursuing very
5:51relentlessly at this moment. So, Story
5:53Hacker Gold is built on a platform
5:54called School S K O L. And they do they
5:57do this um quarterly competition called
6:00the school games, and I think I have a
6:03shot at being in the top five or so
6:06winners of the school games for my
6:08category. And so, as a part of that, I
6:11want to really focus on the growth of
6:14the story hacker gold membership for
6:16this quarter. And so, starting in
6:18January, I started putting a lot more of
6:20my focus on that group. I've since
6:22learned that just putting your focus on
6:24the group is not enough because I was
6:25doing a bunch of projects inside the
6:27group to kind of make it more awesome in
6:29there. But I found that even that might
6:31be splitting my attention too much. And
6:33that I also have to put a lot of focus
6:35on the marketing of that group. And so
6:38you're going to see over the next few
6:40months a lot more videos go out on this
6:42channel as a part of that push. And I'm
6:44also branching out into advertising and
6:46stuff like that. But I'm really trying
6:48to grow this group aggressively for just
6:51the next couple of months to see if I
6:52can win this competition and and meet
6:54this goal that I have. For that reason,
6:57I am putting the publishing business
7:00kind of on the back burner until I
7:01finish that, at which point it will
7:03become my next main focus. And I'll
7:07probably be putting out like 20 30
7:08titles every month. Uh that's that's the
7:11goal that I want to get to. not all like
7:14uh flagship titles, but like if we're
7:17counting translations of books and
7:19adaptations of different books and
7:20public domain books and uh little mini
7:23books and stuff like that, all of that I
7:25count as the the 30 titles. But that's
7:28probably not going to happen until April
7:30at the earliest. And so, while I have
7:33committed to making these videos that
7:36you see with the monthly reports, it's
7:38probably not going to be very
7:39interesting for the next couple of
7:40months. I'm just being honest here,
7:42right? Because really all my focus is on
7:44on growing the Nerdy Novelist channel
7:46and the Story Hacker Gold membership for
7:48the next couple of months until that is
7:51done and I'm able to sort of get a
7:54little bit more hands-off, you know,
7:55outsource what I can, reduce the amount
7:58of work that I'm doing on this business,
8:01then I'll feel like I'll be able to
8:02devote a lot more of my time to other
8:05projects in the publishing business that
8:06light me up. And I really want to do
8:08that because the publishing side of
8:10things when I've been working on those
8:12projects has been the most fun that I've
8:14had in a very long time. So that is my
8:16update for uh you know coming out of
8:19January 2026. That's what we're looking
8:22at for the next couple of months and
8:24hopefully you guys will forgive me for
8:26these next couple of months as not much
8:28is probably going to change. Uh but
8:32once I get done with my goals with the
8:35story hacker group, things are going to
8:37look very interesting on that publishing
8:40endeavors. All right. So, uh that's it
8:43for today and I'll see you in the next