Fantasy and Fellowship is a newsletter sharing weekly micro-fantasies, filled with deep and expansive lore, that deliver a 1,000-page “adventure high” in under 60 seconds—no novel-length commitment required. If you want to read, write, and learn more about the business of short-form fantasy fiction, this is for you.

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Dear F&F Family,

Welcome to the April 2026 Fantasy and Fellowship business and financial review.

In this series, I pull back the curtains to give you a look at how I run my fiction-writing business. If you’re trying to do the same, you might get some ideas or learn a thing or two about what works (and doesn’t) for independent authors. Here’s what’s included with this month’s financial review:

• Big wins and new initiatives for the publication.

• A complete financial breakdown from the past month.

• My biggest takeaways and how I’m planning to put what I’ve learned into action.

So if you’re curious to learn more about how to run a fiction-writing business, you’re in the right place.

I’ll preface this by saying I’m no expert, and this is not financial advice. I’m just a dude on the Internet, and I am writing this to offer educational insights while helping myself make better decisions for my writing business. I’m in the trenches figuring things out as I go. But I hope you’ll find this interesting and perhaps even a little inspiring.

Now that’s out of the way… Man, April was a weird month, filled with ups and downs. Let’s look at some of them.

Big wins and new initiatives for April 2026

I got consistent with Substack Notes.

For the longest time, I struggled to stay consistent with Substack Notes—until now, anyway.

Maybe it’s because it reminds me of other social media platforms. Maybe it’s because I’m not a very “social” person in general. Or maybe I just hate always being “plugged in.” Despite my struggles with Notes, it remains one of the most important growth mechanisms available to Substack publications, and I fear my hesitation to get consistent with it has been holding me back.

A couple months ago, Substack rolled out a Notes scheduling feature, and since then, everything has changed.

Instead of being plugged in all the time, I can batch-write Notes, then schedule them to release throughout the week. All it takes is a couple of hours on Sunday or Monday morning to prep an entire week’s worth of Notes. Suffice to say, Notes has been a lot more enjoyable since Substack introduced scheduling, and I’m very happy with my current results.

For those who are curious, I may discuss my Notes posting strategy at a later date.

I tried out new writing and publishing tools.

Back when I was first formatting the manuscript for The Microfiction Method, I remember thinking how much of a pain it was.

My biggest goal with that manuscript was to make it as close to a traditionally published book as possible. You can imagine the surprise and satisfaction I felt when one of my colleagues told me that his partner, who works at a major science fiction and fantasy publishing company, thought the book's look, feel, and quality were pretty darn impressive. It made all those weeks of fighting with Microsoft Word worth it.

It was then that I decided to invest in a new tool for my second book to make my life easier in the future.

I threw a bunch of money at Atticus, a cloud-based manuscript editor for print and ebook publishing. And so far, it’s been pretty easy to use. I’m looking forward to seeing how much time it will save me in publishing my second book.

I also invested in Publisher Rocket, a platform that helps authors discover profitable keywords and categories on Amazon KDP. While experimenting with the tool, I discovered that The Microfiction Method tries to do way too much. It’s a short story anthology, but it’s also a case study and a collection of writing resources. From a positioning standpoint, it’s a total nightmare—and according to Publisher Rocket, it wasn’t finding its way into the right categories, no doubt due to my poor use of keywords.

I’ll probably write more about Publisher Rocket in-depth as I unlock its full potential for myself, so for now, I’ll leave it at that.

I dipped my toes into Amazon KDP Ads.

About six months ago, I dabbled in Reddit and Google ads to see if they could drive traffic to my Shopify store, but I didn’t see the results I wanted.

While I was earning clicks, they weren’t converting into actual sales. I decided to shift my focus to a storefront where people were already willing to buy: Amazon. With the right approach, I could leverage the inherent trust people have in Amazon to sell more books. And while the profit margin wouldn’t be nearly as high as if I sold books from my personal storefront, any amount of profit would be better than none.

So I set up my first Amazon Ads campaign for The Microfiction Method and let the algorithm get to work for me. I didn’t expect it to send me down a rabbit hole of optimization, but it did.

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to figure out how to get my book in front of the right readers with high purchase intent. This has led me to experiment with different search terms and phrases, adjusting the product description and ad copy, and designing a sleek new cover that actually tells the reader what my book is about.

I basically changed everything, and it was probably in a bit of a fugue state, if we’re being honest. 😂

And the worst part is, I still haven’t cracked the code of Amazon Ads. But you can bet I’m not going to give up till I do.

Anyway, lesson learned; any adjustments I make in the future need to be data-driven. This way, I can make smaller adjustments to see what’s actually making a difference without burning myself out in the process.

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April 2026 End-of-Month Financial Review

Alright, let’s get into it.

Here’s what my writing business brought in this past month:

Read more

Fantasy and Fellowship is a newsletter sharing weekly micro-fantasies, filled with deep and expansive lore, that deliver a 1,000-page “adventure high” in under 60 seconds—no novel-length commitment required. If you want to read, write, and learn more about the business of short-form fantasy fiction, this is for you.

Dear F&F Family,

Welcome to the first monthly Fantasy and Fellowship financial review.

Since this is the first time I’m pulling back the curtains on how I run my fiction-writing business, I’m not entirely sure how to structure this. But I’m hoping I can make these monthly newsletters valuable to you all the same.

For now, I’m going to structure these updates as follows:

• Major updates for the publication

• Big wins from the past month (or major initiatives for the next month)

• A financial breakdown of all profits generated by Fantasy and Fellowship

• The biggest takeaways (and how I’m planning to put what I’ve learned into action).

So if you’re curious to learn more about how to run a fiction-writing business, you’re in the right place.

Keep in mind: I am by no means an expert. This is not financial advice, and I am simply writing this to offer you some educational insights and to help me parse through the gazillion choices I need to make in the future for my own business. I’m very much in the trenches and learning the ropes. But I hope you’ll find this insightful and perhaps even a little inspiring.

Ready to get started?

A financial recap for 2025

This past month was pretty exciting, as I had to do business taxes for the first time!

Well, sort of. Since my business is a single-member LLC, I file taxes as if I am a sole proprietorship, meaning I report my business income on my personal tax return. Still, it was a bit of a frustrating experience, and as my business grows, I will undoubtedly want to work with an actual accountant to do my taxes. After all, I expect growth and expansion, not stagnation.

Anyway, here’s what those numbers looked like for my first year in operation:

• Gross Profits: $803 (adjusted to $664 after cost of goods sold) – This number represents:

  • Books sold on my Shopify store ($494.50) – Most of these sales came from The Microfiction Method’s first two months, July and August 2025.

  • Paid subscriptions to this Substack publication ($270) – This was a combination of annual and monthly subscriptions, mostly from generous friends and family.

  • Amazon KDP royalties ($38.13) – The smallest percentage of profits, mostly because Amazon takes their cut and leaves me with the rest compared to if people buy from my online shop.

• Expenses: -$1,399 (YIKES) – Yeah, I know this doesn’t look good, but this number includes:

  • Advertising ($206) – I got a little trigger-happy with X and Reddit ads without taking the time to learn how to use them effectively. So, this is an expense that I could have avoided, as it didn’t yield any real return on investment.

  • Depreciating assets ($48) – I bought a new computer last year that is used primarily for business purposes, and since the value of the computer decreases over time, it counts as a depreciating asset.

  • Legal and professional services ($166) – I believe this is just for the annual cost of my registered agent. In order to start a new LLC in Kentucky, you need to have a registered agent available to accept service of process, which is basically a fancy term for accepting legal documents or proceeds in the event you get sued. (I’m basically paying for this agent to be available and for my own peace of mind.)

  • Office expenses ($4) – I think this was just a roll of packing tape for when I ship books to people, lol

  • Supplies ($102) – This consists of other office supplies like shipping envelopes, bubble wrap, tissue paper, bookmarks, and business cards.

  • Taxes and licenses ($160) – This includes business licenses and filing fees for my LLC (J. Louis Creative LLC), DBAs (Doing Business As names for Fantasy and Fellowship, Your Path to Publication, and another venture called The Ghost-Type Ghostwriter—more on that later, maybe?)

  • Apps, software, web services ($604) – Hosting for my website, domain name renewals, and my Shopify webstore.

  • Other business expenses ($109) – This was for a workshop I attended on ghostwriting. Not particularly helpful for Fantasy and Fellowship, but it could be helpful for a different vertical later.

Profit/Loss: -$735 – So I took a loss for my first year in operation.

I filed to start my LLC toward the end of June 2025, so I had barely six months to report on. But there are definitely opportunities here to run a leaner operation. For example, I could ditch the author website entirely (not sure I’m ready to do that just yet) and focus on Substack, and I could learn more about ads before I start lighting money on fire.

Also of note: many of these expenses were one-time startup fees. I expect this year’s expenses to be significantly less than what they were for 2025.

Leaning into short-form fantasy fiction

Perhaps the biggest realization I’ve had these past few months is achieving clarity on my niche and my publication’s unique value proposition here on Substack.

If you’ve been here a while, you know I primarily write micro-fantasies—very short fantasy-fiction stories that range from 100 to 300 words in length. I do this for three reasons:

• Micro-fantasies help me practice so I can improve my writing long-term.

• Micro-fantasies are easy to publish consistently so I can test ideas and see what my audience likes.

• Micro-fantasies provide something different for the fantasy genre compared to long-form serials and novel-length works.

The extreme end of the short fiction spectrum is a lot of fun and a welcome challenge, but starting last year, I started to feel restricted by the micro-fantasy format. It has become increasingly difficult to stay within the word count limits; my ideas are too ambitious and I have too much to say with my storytelling. So, in an effort to give myself a little more freedom with my writing, I added other short-form fantasy into the mix.

And the result? People loved it.

“Aschnard One-Hand,” a story about a treasure hunter looking for his missing hand, went on to be my most-read story ever. “Casimir, Lord of Crows,” a tale of revenge, is not far behind. In fact, looking over the numbers now, just about all of my fantasy shorts have earned more views than my micro-fantasy stories. That’s pretty telling.

Moving forward, my micro-fantasies will continue to remain free for all readers, but I have moved my fantasy shorts behind the paywall.

Some writers might find this controversial, but let’s be honest here: Writers deserve to get paid for their hard work—myself included. Yes, I write because I enjoy it. But I am also trying to make a living from my art, and that means charging people money for it.

If you don’t like that I have my stories paywalled, that’s your right. But it doesn’t make me morally inferior to other writers for wanting compensation for my time and effort.

Reestablishing my priorities as a writer and professional

It shouldn’t be news to anyone that I’m pretty vocal about working two jobs and having literally zero time to do anything I want to do.

Right now, I work full-time as a student support services professional at a private liberal arts college, but I also work part-time during evenings and weekends as I can for a small business based out of upstate New York. This company is one that I’ve worked for on and off for the past decade or so, writing blog articles about small business technology and B2B managed service offerings. They don’t pay me very much—especially considering the minimum wage in New York State is not far behind my hourly rate for this company, despite working there for more-or-less a decade—but it’s been a steady (and stable) source of income as I’ve navigated some serious life changes these past few years: moving cross-country, buying a house, and getting married.

With the rising cost of living and all the crazy shit going on overseas, it’s tempting to hold on to this income for as long as possible. But it’s time I ask myself, “What purpose does this work serve for me as a writing professional?”

If I’m being honest with myself, the answer is, “Not much.” It gives me more expendable income to promote my books and short stories, takes the edge off when the bills are due, and helps me feel just a little more secure when I worry about if my full-time job will exist in the future. But that comes at a cost as well: mental clutter, the constant stress of having to do more, and the 8 to 16 hours I could be spending on writing that fulfills me or builds my business. I only have so many good, productive hours for the deep work required to write good content, and throwing it away writing about managed IT services sounds less and less appealing every day.

So I’ve decided to reduce my part-time hours—slowly at first, with the intention of cutting ties with this business entirely at some point. I am grateful for the opportunities they have given me, but I cannot in good conscience ignore my own entrepreneurial and creative pursuits for a measly $18/hour any longer.

It’s time I reinvest my time and energy into my business so I can discover what’s truly possible.

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January to March 2026 Financial Review

Alright, let’s get into it.

Normally, I would only cover March, but since this is my first financial review of the year, I figured it would be prudent to include January and February as well.

Here’s what my writing business brought in the past couple months:

Read more

I’ve been away from Substack for a while. Here’s why.

Late last summer, we started the process of buying a house. This also happened to coincide with the start of the fall semester—one where I taught two sessions of a first-year summit for our incoming cohort of students. Add in the responsibilities for my full-time job, the workload of my part-time job, running my writing business, writing stories…

Suddenly, it’s no surprise that I had to take a step back from something.

There were a couple of times throughout September and October when we thought the process was just about wrapped up. We put in offers on houses we really loved, conducted home inspections, and went through with appraisals. One home appraised under our agreed-upon price. Another home sold for a higher offer before we could even begin the process.

We felt frustrated and defeated, unsure if we would ever find the perfect home.

Until we did.

2,400 square feet. Four bedrooms, two baths. Fenced-in backyard. A two-car garage. Heck, it’s even right next door to my fiancée’s parents. It was a no-brainer, and we officially closed on December 5th.

But you’re probably wondering, “What’s the catch?”

Well… It smells like dog piss. It did, anyway, until we ripped up the carpets and rolled Kilz on the subfloor to seal the odors. Seriously, that stuff is magic. Now, we have brand-new vinyl plank flooring scheduled for installation tomorrow.

So that’s where I’ve been—cleaning up our piss palace so we can get moved into our new home.

It’s been a pretty involved process and one that I’m glad is almost over, at least for now. I know home ownership and maintenance is a never-ending process, but I’m looking forward to actually living in it and enjoying the fruits of our labor.

Along the way, I’ve been reflecting on all the writing I haven’t done and wondering if this experience with home-buying and renovation might teach me a lesson or two transferable to writing. Today, I want to share three of them:

Know when to accept “good enough” instead of “perfect.”

One of the most fun parts of buying a home is making it your own, and one of the best ways to do this is with a fresh coat of paint.

Paint is hella expensive, but it’s still one of the more affordable ways to update a home and make it feel less… well, old. The problem: this house’s previous owners had the exact same idea as us, only they chose the most hideous shades of green and blue. I’m talking sky blue and barf green, all over the house.

For someone who appreciates muted, neutral colors, it was a bit of an interior-design nightmare.

Painting, like everything else with this house, took forever. We had to repair cracks in the drywall where the home had settled, fill in the dents and dings from where the previous owners scuffed it all up, and sand down their shoddy paint job. So much to do, so little time.

Still, there was something therapeutic about focusing on the job in front of me. I spent hours mending all the little imperfections in the walls. And it was in these moments of zen that I reached a shocking conclusion.

I was trying to make the walls perfect.

Whether it was the master bedroom, the office, or the walk-in closet, I continually strove for perfection. In a 50-year-old house. It just seemed like the right thing to do, to respect our new home and make it feel as loved and cared-for as it deserved.

And I realized I do the exact same thing with my writing.

I could spend months fixating on every single word, every minute detail of each and every story I write. But if I did that, I’d never publish anything and keep spinning my wheels. Sometimes it’s better to just let go, put it out into the world, and acknowledge that you’re always going to be the harshest critic of whatever it is you write. So I’ll urge you to get out of your head, trust your gut, and learn that “good enough” is a perfectly acceptable outcome.

Because if your goal is perfection, you’re never going to get there.

The work will take longer than you think.

When we closed on our house on December 5th, our major goal was to get moved in and settled by Christmas.

If you’re laughing out loud a little bit, I don’t blame you. It was an incredibly ambitious notion that we could uproot our entire life in just a couple of weeks. (But hey, at least we got the Christmas tree up just in time!)

Despite our best efforts, Christmas came and went, and we still had a laundry list of work to do on the house to make it livable. Complications arose with our flooring order, which was a significant setback and influenced our decision to push back our move by a couple of weeks. Instead of Christmas, we convinced ourselves that maybe, just maybe, we could make it work for New Year’s Eve.

But that didn’t work either.

I’m writing this on January 5th and 6th, and we still don’t have flooring. It’s scheduled to arrive tomorrow, Wednesday the 7th, when it will be installed. It’s been over a full month since we bought the house... I guess sometimes things are out of your control, whether you like it or not.

But that brings us to our lesson: the work will take way longer than you think, in renovations and in writing.

I remember when I was publishing The Microfiction Method and how I encountered setback after setback long after I wrote the final sentence. First, it was with manuscript formatting. Then it was all about the cover design. THEN it was about the pictures not appearing properly in the e-book format (I never could figure that one out).

Order the Microfiction Method

The point: some setbacks you can predict, and others you won’t expect until they’re staring you in the face. Lean into it and learn to anticipate them. Then, plan accordingly.

And maybe, just maybe, don’t try to be so damn ambitious for no real reason.

Don’t try to do it all alone.

One of the first tasks on my list as a new homeowner was to change the locks.

The home was already equipped with doorknobs and deadbolts that could have been rekeyed with one of those neat little Kwikset SmartKey tools. Rekeying the locks would have taken a couple of seconds, at most. But I didn’t know this was an option—not at the time, anyway.

So instead of simply rekeying the locks, we bought brand-new, beautiful, rubbed bronze doorknobs and deadbolts to update the look and feel of the home.

When swapping out the front door’s deadbolt, I found the new hardware was too big to fit in the existing hole. I stood there for a while, freaking out about how I was going to lock the front door to our new home. I seriously contemplated putting the shitty old deadbolt back on the door just so it would stay secure.

But a friend of mine had another idea: go to the hardware store and get a hole saw bit for our drill.

I’m not a handy guy. I didn’t even know these types of drill bits existed. But it turns out, there’s one that fits the size of your standard doorknob and deadbolt hardware. After we got back from the store, we drilled a new hole (scratching up the front door in the process—nothing a little wood filler won’t fix) and got the deadbolt installed in no time at all.

My point: You don’t have to rely solely on your own knowledge and expertise. Not in home ownership, not in writing, not in any facet of life.

Working with others reinforces what we know with what others know. It brings in multiple perspectives that you might not otherwise have access to. This is why I always like to say writing should feel like a social activity rather than an isolating one. The more eyes on your work, the more ideas and conversations you can have with others about your work, the better off it’ll be.

Sure, you can write all alone in a vacuum, but you’re robbing yourself of one of the most joyous parts of the writing process.

Have you learned any writing lessons from just going about your life?

With writing, there’s always more to learn, and these lessons can come when we least expect them.

If you have a writing lesson to share, leave it in the comments!

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And I’ll be back with a new story hopefully in the next week or two.

Ya know, after we get our floors installed and moved in…

Priorities, people.

Until next time…

- Josh

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