Wannabe Press Income Report - Q3 - 2026

Last quarter, I said that if Q3 looked like Q2 it would be yikes o'clock. Luckily, this wasn't another quarter like the last one. Income more than doubled, which made this the “best” quarter of the year. Yet, we still lost money because the spending went up way more than the income did.

My anchor consulting contract expired at the end of June, and this is the first full quarter without it. Because of that, consulting went from 44.6% of my income down to 1%.

Happily, I built a group coaching program which filled that budget hole nicely. Part of being in this game for a long time is swiveling to new lines of business when others dry up. Courses went from nothing to our biggest line item in one quarter.

The shape of my business changed completely in the last ninety days…

…and my bank balance barely noticed, which is suboptimal.

Let's get into it. Remember, paid members can see my income reports dating back to 2018, with data from 2017, and it's really one of the most underutilized parts of paid memberships. There are not many places you can see the evolution of a creative business, with commentary from the creator, in an unbroken chain for nearly a decade.

Courses - 44.6%

Courses came back onto the board with the introduction of my group coaching program, and it literally saved my whole quarter.

Thanks to this new program, there's a pretty good bet that I'll still end up over $100k in revenue this year which is wild as all get-out since it wasn't even on my board six months ago. I mean I knew I would need something, but what, when, and how that happened? That stuff I definitely did not know.

Publishing - 38.8%

Even though its share fell this quarter, publishing revenue actually went up by two-thirds. Publishing really is the rock that it needs to be right now, as renewals for the membership and book sales were a little higher this quarter than others.

This year, I basically rebuilt my entire value ladder.

The purple new things account for the vast majority of my business right now, and they didn't exist nine months ago. The things I thought would yoke my business have underperformed, but there have been unexpected bright spots.

Crowdfunding - 15.6%

I didn't actually launch anything on Kickstarter this quarter, but the tarot campaign paid out, so it counts in Q3. Accounting is weird with its arbitrary dates for the end of things. In Q4, I will have a launch and a payment in the same quarter, though for much less than I hoped.

Consulting - 1%

Last quarter this was 44.6% of my income and now it nearly approached zero. I have approved another unsigned contract with a new company that I'm hoping to start early 2026, which would replace my old contract almost entirely.

Thoughts

I spent this year breaking my business down to find the profitable parts, and this is the first quarter where the rebuilt version earned more than the old one did.

The replacement worked, and now I hope that we can build on this for the next quarter, and next year. The end of the year is always the worst money time in my year, and unless our Black Friday special does well, I will assume more of the same.

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