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September 2025 Income Report

October 30 2025 – 09:11pm

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September’s revenue was $5,649, up from August’s $3,493. Profits were $4,106, up from August’s $942.

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A rebound…for now (but record low income and profits)

A nice rebound in revenue, as I got an injection of cash for Chinese rights to Mind Management.

Unfortunately, this is an anomaly and doesn’t mean revenue has rebounded sustainably. 12-month income was at a new record-low again this month. I broke a nearly seven-year-old record last month at $64,925, and this month broke it again with $61,968.

12-month profits are also at an all-time low. Last month I also broke a six-year-old record low with $29,916 profits. This month I broke it again, with $28,274.

Low book income and profits

My income from book sales were low, but the records broken are not as old. My 12-month revenue from books was $43,582. Last time it was that low was July of 2021, when I had made $43,066.

12-month profits from books were $21,479. Last time they were that low was also July 2021, when they were $20,383.

Mind Management Simplified Chinese rights

The highlight of the month was a Simplified Chinese translation deal for Mind Management.

Simplified Chinese rights tend to go for quite a bit. This deal was “only” $3,000 – I could imagine having done better. Around $500 of that was taken out for tax withholding and agent fees, but I still just count the top-line revenue in these reports.

Recently signed another smaller deal, and awaiting payment.

Mind Management in Kindle Unlimited

I started Mind Management’s first-ever Kindle Unlimited term on October 9th. So far, the results have been underwhelming. If you squint, maybe sales rank has increased since then.

Page reads have begun to trickle in. The nearly 2,000 page reads (my whole book about eight times) amounts to less than $8 in royalties.

I did increase the price to $9.99 for the beginning of the term, to try to increase borrows, and haven’t yet run a Kindle Countdown Deal, which I plan to do over Black Friday – maybe another right after Christmas.

I was 80% sure I’d make more during the KU term than the previous 90 days, and it is looking like I’ll be 80% wrong about that! But there is time for page-reads to compound – I also didn’t consider that many will probably come in after the term ends.

Design for Hackers payment!

Another slight anomaly in this month’s report is the payment I received for Design for Hackers. I get a payment every six months, and this time it was $342. My previous payments have been $411 and $426.

Still really cool to keep getting paid for this “technology” book (short life), I was writing exactly fifteen years ago!

Finish What Matters progress

I’ve now brought my fifth chapter of FWM to satisfaction. I also have an Introduction and there are four more chapters planned.

Damn, writing this has been so hard, but I’ve learned so much. Sometimes I think it’s really beautiful and other times I feel like Jackson Pollock, asking, Is this a book?

This week I’ve been coming up for air a bit. I printed out the intro and first four chapters and read it through a couple times. I’m about ready to start getting reactions, so if you’re interested in alpha (maybe beta) reading, fill this out.

I am so good at reels

I’ve been publishing on Instagram the TikTok reels I made two years ago, and have even found the time and motivation to make several new ones, and they have been kicking ass!

I only wish it did anything for my business!

In the past 90 days, I’ve generated nearly 4 million views.

I’m giving away WAB in my bio, and have tried attracting email sign-ups through pinned comments on viral reels, but I’m seeing almost no discernible bump in email sign-ups. Branded search (searches for my name) have gone down during that period.

The one upside is I’ve gained about 21,000 followers. I sense some of this is fake bot traffic IG is pumping to compete over creators, but I’m definitely getting DMs from friends, acquaintances, and strangers – sometimes people I’ve heard of!

My reels haven’t been directly about my books, and rarely touching on adjacent subjects. Integrating anything promotional into them is a difficult tightrope walk I definitely have not mastered. I actually suspect that they sniff out promotion of any kind and suppress it, to encourage ad purchase.

It really is exciting to have people responding to my reels. It feels validating, because my lack of engagement on X and Substack both make me feel like I can’t write for shit. But, it does feel draining to work hard on reels and either have them flop, or have them do really great and do nothing for my business.

Well, I have at least earned like $70 on TikTok, which I will hopefully one day receive.

I’d love to drop everything and go all-in on reels, but I need to Finish What Matters, so I’m doing my best to see if I can use reels to test out ideas I’m working on for the book. While there’s no clear tangible benefit, this is the first big growth channel I’ve shown any talent in since Hacker News, circa 2010 or Medium, 2016. Seems it would be unwise to pass up the opportunity.

It’s also getting me thinking about ways I can expand into wider-appeal subjects that would reach more people, and in an impactful way. Perhaps some kind of media commentary or wider self-help. Homing in on such a thing would be a bottom-up process, but I’d need to take the time and energy to make more reels to get somewhere.

Thank you for having me on your podcasts!

Thank you to Sagar Soni at Beyond the Speech. I think this interview turned out really well and is a nice summary of the most powerful ways to improve creative productivity.

Income

Book Sales

Misc. Products

Affiliates / Advertising

Reader Support

Services

Expenses

General

Advertising

Hosting

This post is filed under Income Reports.