So… yeah, I really haven’t been pushing the micro-business much at all this year. I will most likely have to adjust out the website hosting ($425.86) and USPS PO Box renewal ($106) in order to bring things into the black this year, but I am still holding out hope of coming closer to breaking even.
All of that income so far this year is from the Saturday Story Prompts collections and Amazon Associates referral links on the various tutorials. I normally make $3-400 from the model horses and model horse props, so there’s a chance I can turn things around before year end.
9200 Amazon
9210 Smashwords/Draft2Digital, LLC
9220 Google Books
9230 Shop eBooks
9510 Amazon Affliates
9520 Craft Fair
9530 Etsy
Which means it’s time to start getting my work out there again! (Have I mentioned my nearly year-long hiatus from doing Constructive Things? 😅)
Saturday Story Prompt eBooks
Currently, the only promotion I’ve been doing on these is setting up one of the yearly eBooks for free each week. This brings no income, but it gets folks to read through the other yearly collections on KDP and pick up normal copies of the yearlies and the 31 Days of.
I also offer the 31 Days of collections as eBooks and as printables on my website shop and on Etsy. The eBooks are also available through Draft2Digital and Google Books, although I don’t have as much traffic from those.
The plan for now is to keep the yearlies rolling and start posting the ‘free ebook’ announcements to social media. Then, if things go well, I should have new books to release before the end of the year. (I am working on the 2022 yearly collection and some new 31 Days of books).
I may expand the prompt collections into business cards and handbound books, but I’m still fiddling with the prototypes and costing.
Model Horses
I currently have 24 model horses in the shop and a bunch of works-in-progress on the workbench. I’m going to start listing the finished horses on the various websites and Facebook groups and posting photos of the unfinished ones in progress to hopefully attract some eyeballs.
Since most of the horses have been hanging out there for a while, I may end up listing them on eBay towards the end of the year. I do want to keep some stock on hand, but I also don’t want folks seeing the same horses year after year. 😅
BreyerFest is over, but the Bonnie Ellis Estate auctions are ongoing. So there’s a lot of disposable income still actively being disposed of…
I have taken the horses to the craft fair before, but they’ve done badly. Still, I may do that if the alternative is eBay, since I’ll make more selling them in person.
Props
The main issue I have here is that most of the income in years past for this category has come from commission work. And I’m going to be under a bit of a time-crunch, so I’m not sure how many pieces I can reasonably take on. I think I’m going to focus on selling the pre-made items and creating bundles of things (bases and fences) to make them more appealing.
Thankfully, I’ve already gone in and created all the listings earlier this year. Much like the magnets, there was a large backlog of things that I had finished but never posted. I still have a handful of non-fence/non-bridge items that need to get put in, but those will be easy to catch-up on.
So it’s off to check my list of places that allow me to post model horse adjacent things… *rolls up sleeves*
Magnets and Ornaments
The magnets and ornaments are what I take to the craft fair and I normally sell about $70 a year. This year I’m going to try to beat that record by simplifying what I bring and crafting some better displays. I have sold these magnets online before, but it’s rare.
I do offer customized magnets, but I haven’t pushed those in a while. It’s much harder to find places that are model horse oriented that also allow me to post horse magnets. It might be time to go digging again though… They sold okay on Etsy when I tried them before, but I will most likely need to bundle them in order to cut down on the fees.
I have a LOT of magnets that aren’t yet in the shop (literally hundreds) so part of the push this year will be to get them listed. It takes a long time to cast, prep, and paint the magnets so I need to start finding ways to batch paint things. Right now I’m just going to focus on getting through the existing stock, although it may mean I need to craft a few extra in order to make bundles.
Onwards!
Am I going to be able to make the break even goal by the end of the year? Stay tuned to find out! 😂