No More Financial Reports

It has been pointed out, by someone who is knowledgable and wise about such things, that despite my intentions to maintain financial transparency so everyone could know that I'm doing what I said I would do with 20% of all the proceeds I make here at Writing About Writing, it is probably not a good idea for me post money stuff online.  It leaves me open to too many vulnerabilities.  When it's tiny and the subject of some comedy, it's probably no big deal, but as it grows I should be more and more vague about it.  She told me that it probably wasn't actually identity thieves or hackers I would have to worry about, but actually my biggest concern should be people who might otherwise donate money but who then feel like I have made "enough."  She said that can be a real problem for some websites that make money.  People are willing to donate for art and support independent artists until they feel the artist is "doing okay," or doesn't deserve that much success, and then they close off.

And, unfortunately, many people who do this base these perceptions on the arbitrary feel of the "paydays" even if they represent many hours of work or there are months between them.  While I might be making less than two dollars an hour on average, what people are going to see and react to is that I have a paycheck for $300, and that feels like "a lot of money" to them.  (Even if that 300 took me months to make.)  So it will be better for me (and ironically the two "non-me" things I want to give 20% of my proceeds to) if I simply keep that aspect a bit vague.

If people can't see me sitting and working for hours on writing, they sort of get the impression that the writing (and thus the paychecks) just sort of spontaneously appeared.

And IIIIIIIIIII-eeeeeee-IIIIIIIIIIII-eeeee-IIIIIIIII
will always love YOOOOOOoooooOOOOO!

I will still give ten percent to a local children's literacy charity.  (Right now, the kids section of the Oakland Library.)  Hen Wen is still around and being stuffed with her ten percent every time Google sends me a check (and/or I empty my Paypal into my account).  Ten percent will still go to site improvement, but as long as the amount is such a trickle, Hen Wen will continue to hold this money in the interim.  Those proceeds will still be allotted to the same places--I just won't be blogging about specific numbers here anymore.  If any of you are able to accurately appraise web design, I suppose you could work backwards to figure out how much I am making.  I won't erase the old entries, but I'm going to take down The Reliquary menu and this will be my last post with specific numbers.