make me pay taxes!!!

That’s two years in a row I haven’t earned enough money to be charged tax from HMRC. I say it because there’s probably always going to be this image of us earning well and living luxuriously because we have a book out with Penguin and we have 100 thousand followers, an established ten-year-old website full of hard graft, and we get invited to everything, every day, everywhere. So I will state it again. Last year I got a big rebate, this year I got a modest 100 quid rebate. We are not rolling in it. We are trying to roll towards it.

We wrote a book called Poor Artists and I think we may have cursed ourselves?? but in a way that’s kind of funny?? kind of. A little bit. I earn just enough to pay rent in Liverpool and pay for everything else that life costs, but I haven’t been able to save in years. So much of this is the conversation of the book, which is why it’s getting funny. Or honest?

It’s like a deal with the devil to live with art (writing) at the centre of everything. But it’s also a deal I had to make? I would be in a much better position financially if I had the health for a second job like I had in the past to support my time on The White Pube. But I am still trying to figure out how to live with hypovolemic POTS, and the upkeep to stay moderately well is like a part-time job in and of itself.

Maybe this year I’ll get the funding I’ve put in for and everything else will be easier? The thing with art is it’s easier if you have a physical thing you can peddle, and we finally have the book but it’s not paid off yet. We got an advance enough for two people to write a book. I think it worked out at like 14K each back in 2022, which was obviously great at the time. Sort of, minimum wage to be a writer for a year. Fine! But we won’t see royalties until the book has sold that much to pay Penguin back, and only £2.50 of each hardback goes towards that repayment, and £1ish from each paperback. So it’s a lot of sales needed. It’s a lot of time to wait.

I guess on tax day I am thinking: I hope we find new ways to market the book so we can reach the point of royalties, but whilst it’s in every bookshop and people are reviewing it incredibly well and we’re tagged in shit all the time (very very nice shit), all the press has died down so it’s hard to get the cover in front of new people. I want to ask people who have read it to recommend it to other people but I guess I just hope that stuff is happening anyway? I think it might be. I hope, omg.

I want to be someone who gets to publish more books, because it’s something my health can handle, and something my heart enjoys, and needs. Yeah. I hope I get funding this year. I hope more people find out about Poor Artists! I hope new Poor Artists readers leads to new website readers leads to new Patreon supporters. I guess I hope next year I earn enough to pay tax.

fwiw:

we have been publishing our accounts since 2017 live on this page of our website if you want to snoop. i love to snoop