Tonight, I did a quick rundown of how much I've made so far this year on my prints, stickers and things and it's up from last year which is awesome! My net is a little pathetic due to buying business cards and stickers for an author but it's still exciting to see how it's coming together.
I do need to keep a better track of expenses/income. I do keep a separate 'account' in my bank for all of my sales and take out of there when I need to invest in my business. But that said... I don't keep great track of my website fees and things like that... which I should.
At some point in the near future, I'll need/want to find a financial tracking system for this stuff.
I am opening up commissions for quotes and things. I'm focusing a lot on book quotes but am open to other quotes as well.
You sound like me for tracking 
I have a separate account in my banking stuff for all business income, but I almost always forget to actually use it for expenses because my 9-5 covers most of the expenses but I should be balancing better. I'm trying to track things with excel or a receipt journal now. but it's slow going
I have a separate account in my banking stuff for all business income, but I almost always forget to actually use it for expenses because my 9-5 covers most of the expenses but I should be balancing better. I'm trying to track things with excel or a receipt journal now. but it's slow going
and your book quotes are SO PRETTY but the way
it's awesome that you're getting things rolling!
thewrittenfae Hah yes!! I figure I should keep better track of things and see how it's coming together! AHH Thank you! Thank you for letting me letter things from your books!
baoshan Thank you!!!! <3 <3 This will be relevant to your interests - I hope to letter an Uncle Iroh quote soon too. When I do, I'll definitely show you!
oh my gosh i'm excited to see which one you go for! he's got a lot of good ones
baoshan He does!!! And who knows it may be a series of three because I love Uncle Iroh and he has so many great lines!
i have tracking stuff on excel (i don't even have a separate bank account but i don't need it) and while i can share, it's very... accounting geared 😅 and it might not make sense for a non-accountant, oops
notanybunny Hee! I love that! I probably need something simpler for my life but that's amazing! I've thought about just tracking it all in excel, I just need to sort out what I need to track specifically.
UPDATE - I have my first commission! It's an author friend of my SIL's! And now I need to look into licensing things but eee!
As someone who bought commercially licensed art in the past, since you don't make any royalties off what they're selling it on, it is okay to charge a commercial licensing fee for your work if authors or other people are looking to put your lovely things on sellable items. =)
(I pay between $50-80 depending the detail and time of the art piece, just for the licensing)
re what to track - technically anything that's for the art/business - paper, pens, if you need a new charger for your digital stylus, if you need a new tablet, etc. If you print and sell like prints of your stuff, printer ink, even technically the printer should count, as well as any tent and tables and display things, fair fees, etc
In the US, if I remember correctly, anything that runs in the red for three or more years will be demoted to 'hobby' not business. but I'm also bad at accounting for all those costs on the tax side of things, for myself, so my business has been running in the black tax wise for several years before it started actually making money
thewrittenfae THANK YOU!! That actually really helps because I'm like UM do I need to actually have an agreement that she needs to sign? Or... idk?
I told her my ballpark was between $50-75
I told her my ballpark was between $50-75
My artists usually have it in the saved conversations that I’m buying a commercial license for the work, and I have it on the invoice as it’s own line, no contract
thewrittenfae I am so glad I put this out there because I'm so glad to know that! Thank you!
thewrittenfae Because this helps a TON!
<3 <3 I'm glad to help!!
Now, I just need to ask her what size of things she's wanting so I can make sure I create it to the right size.
thewrittenfae and notanybunny tagging you both - so far what i've done is word of mouth. So if either of you have ideas of where else I should promote these commissions, I'm all ears. 
For author-y things, specifically.
i swear by social media 
it's hard and time-consuming, but so far i've made the most sales from twitter. you just have to... pick a platform and focus on growing it. network with authors - and also readers, bc a lot of them are ready to throw their money on bookish merch LOL
it's hard and time-consuming, but so far i've made the most sales from twitter. you just have to... pick a platform and focus on growing it. network with authors - and also readers, bc a lot of them are ready to throw their money on bookish merch LOL
notanybunny That's what I've heard!! My SIL also says a lot of authors have been moving over to threads as well so I'm tempted on tossing my work on there as well.
i think it ultimately doesn't matter which platform as long as you really put your focus and effort there. tiktok or instagram might be good for you since your products are visual?
A good Chunk moved over to threads - I’m there technically but haven’t worked to really dig into it. I think hashtags on instagram help too because pretty and already a visual media
and by focus and effort it's not just posting about what you have but really engaging and connecting with people. which you have to do regardless of where you go.
tl;dr pick a platform you like and grow your presence there. choose one and ignore the rest, because they can quickly suck the time and life out of you LOL
it's better to concentrate on one place than spread yourself too thin and you don't make worthwhile connections. trust me, it's so easy and quick to burn out 
that's why i'm still on twitter - my book reviewer community is still there, my author friends are still there, the local author community in my region is there, the authors aiming to traditionally publish are there 😂 i grew my instagram mostly to show publishers i have a pretty feed so they'll send me books to review LOL
(i also like the text-based nature of twitter. sure a lot moved to either threads or bluesky but my usual haunts have remained, so i stuck around.)
if i were crafting or doing book merch, i'd suck it up and go for tiktok
That makes a ton of sense. Thank you both! That really helps! I know I need to be more engaging on IG and I think I may do some things on Threads as well to engage with authors who are over there.
TikTok... I need to work on my video game.
anytime friend! i... have experimented and done a lot of marketing the past months so i have some horror stories to share LOL
tiktok is less fancy than insta though, i found? like my husband scrolls tiktok a lot and the popular vids are like... people just doing their regular thing hahaha
whereas the craft reels on instagram are super pretty and aesthetic
example, tiktok:
TikTok · Bespoke Strokes Calligraphy
TikTok · Bespoke Strokes Calligraphy 
Nhuan Dao✨Calligraphy & Lettering❤️ (@nhuandaocallig...
there's the expectation that tiktok is "authentic" while insta is "aesthetic"
Ahhh, gotcha! That really really helps to have that differentiation between Insta and TikTok!
photos work now for tiktok though! when i was still posting the other month, i just posted pics of books i'm reading hahaha
Oh good!! <3 Thank you, thank you!
engagement is key though, regardless of platform. it's like dwrp - you got to tag out in memes if you want cr!
That makes a lot of sense. I need to be better at engaging with other lettering artists / authors / things. <3