Revenue Streams... and Why Am I Working On This Now...?

One of the keys to making money in publishing, as well as in life in general, is to have multiple revenue streams.

As an author/publisher, my revenue streams include, but are not limited to: e-book, trade paperback, hardcover, audio books, and foreign translations of all of the above. Right now, I have one. E-books. Eventually, I'll branch out to print and maybe audio, but we'll see what happens when I get there.

In general, I have my day job income, but I also have my little proofreading / website-updating / series-bible-creating side job. I have an ongoing website-updating client, but everything else is hit or miss. I had some proofing feelers, but everyone's gone dark for whatever reason. It's not like I don't have enough on my plate at the moment, so I'm not worrying about it overmuch.

On the other hand, I have enough on my plate to worry about at the moment, so why am I fussing around with cross stitch patterns to upload to my Etsy Shop?? Yes, that's another revenue stream I'd like to pump a little bit. I have one pattern up there at the moment--my BBC Sherlock sampler. I do have a pattern for my Harry Potter Spells sampler (which I apparently haven't posted about???), but it's not on Etsy as of yet.

And now I'm working on some small hockey related projects...

They're not very big, slightly larger than a coaster, but they are kinda tedious to stitch. I started #14 as a trial and discovered some flaws in my pattern, so I tweaked. Then I started #91 as the second trial run and ran into a few more issues needing resolution. So I tweaked the pattern a little more.

I also want to offer patterns for teams other than the Stars...but I sure as heck don't want to stitch one of everything, so I'm not sure how to resolve that just yet.

Anyway...as to why now... Well, because I can't be writer & publisher all the time. I need time to do the other things I enjoy and to feed my creative side from a different angle. But to be honest, a) I started this project last year and b) I'm not spending excessive amounts of time on it. It's just nice to work on something different every now and then.

But, after a hockey-filled weekend, It's time to get back to the writing/publishing related things on my plate.

Hope you had a great weekend.