How I'm Building Toward $10K/Month — September 2026 Update
The actual numbers across all income streams, what is working, what is not, and what September's focus is — a monthly transparency post from The Builder.
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through any of these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
This is a monthly post. Real numbers, real analysis, no performance of success that has not yet arrived. If you are building a similar business — author plus courses plus content — I hope the actual data is more useful than the inspirational versions.
The goal is $10,000 per month in total income from books, Substack, Becoming Atelier, and affiliate sources combined. This is month two of tracking publicly.
September 2026: The Numbers
Books — Amazon KDP (direct, 60-day lag)
August sales (reflected in September reporting):
- Ebooks across all titles: $1,247
- Paperbacks: $389
- Best-performing title: You Are Not Fine (ebook, $4.99, 143 copies)
- Lowest-performing title: back-catalog titles published more than 18 months ago, which have minimal visibility without active promotion
KDP ebook royalty rate is 70% for titles priced $2.99-$9.99. Paperback royalty is approximately 60% of list price minus printing cost, which at standard pricing ($12.99-$16.99) produces per-unit royalties of approximately $3-5.
Books — Wide Distribution (Draft2Digital, 60-day lag)
August wide sales:
- Total wide royalties: $312
- Primary platform: Kobo (Canadian and international markets perform disproportionately well for psychology/healing titles)
- Libraries (Overdrive via D2D): 89 borrows, $67 in lending royalties
Wide distribution consistently runs approximately 20-25% of KDP direct volume for this catalog. This is below the parity some wide-first advocates report, partly because the catalog has not been consistently enrolled wide from initial publication.
Audiobooks (ACX/Findaway, 60-day lag)
August audiobook royalties:
- ACX (Audible/Amazon): $178
- Findaway (wide audio): $94
- Total audio: $272
Audiobook revenue is the smallest and slowest-growing stream. The production investment (approximately $200-400 per finished hour at current ACX rates for narrator compensation, split royalty model) has not been recouped on most titles. The exception is You Are Not Hard to Love, which has the highest audio engagement relative to ebook sales — psychology/healing titles with a clear conversational delivery perform better in audio format than business or craft titles.
Substack — The Elysian Press
Current subscriber counts:
- Total subscribers: 3,847
- Free subscribers: 3,401 (88.4%)
- Paid subscribers: 446 (11.6%)
Monthly Substack revenue:
- Annual paid subscribers (billing monthly allocation): $2,847
- Monthly paid subscribers: $743
- Total Substack revenue this month: $3,590 (before Substack's 10% platform fee and payment processing)
- Net Substack revenue: approximately $3,150
The paid conversion rate (11.6%) is above the platform average Substack reports (approximately 5-8% for newsletters with similar content categories). The higher rate reflects: the clear free-to-paid delineation (free gets frameworks, paid gets applied practice and the extended tools), the consistent weekly cadence, and the three-year audience development period before the paid tier launched.
Becoming Atelier
Becoming Atelier had no new enrollment this month. Current cohort revenue was recognized in Q2. The September focus for Atelier is content development for the next cohort launch (planned for October), not active enrollment.
Atelier MRR from current active members on subscription: $0 (Atelier is currently structured as a one-time enrollment, not a recurring subscription — the next version may shift to recurring, but that is a Q4 decision).
Affiliate Income
Amazon Associates commissions from article links and book recommendations:
- Total affiliate commissions: $89
- Source: primarily the book-linked affiliate links in high-traffic articles on the website
Affiliate income is proportional to both traffic volume and the specificity of the recommendation. The articles with the highest affiliate conversion are the ones with a clear single book recommendation directly connected to the article's specific topic, rather than lists of multiple books.
September 2026 Total: $5,757
The gap between current numbers ($5,757) and the $10K target is $4,243 per month. The two paths to closing it, based on the current income structure:
Path 1 — Substack growth: 446 paid subscribers at the current average revenue per paid subscriber ($7.07/month) needs to reach approximately 1,400 paid subscribers to contribute $10K/month on its own. At current growth rate (approximately 30-40 new paid subscribers per month), that is 28-32 months at current pace — or 10-12 months with one strong launch or viral moment.
Path 2 — Atelier launch + book catalog growth: A successful October Atelier launch at 50 enrollments at $297 produces $14,850 in a single month. Combined with baseline book and Substack income, one strong Atelier launch per quarter closes the gap in the launch months. The challenge: building the Atelier to the enrollment volume and conversion rate that makes quarterly launches reliable.
What Is Working
The content-to-paid conversion funnel. The free articles drive Substack subscribers; the Substack free tier converts to paid at a higher rate than industry average; the paid content is the highest-quality writing in the system. This is the right architecture. It is working, just slowly.
Wide audiobook distribution. Adding Findaway alongside ACX (rather than exclusive ACX) is producing incremental revenue with no additional production cost.
Search-optimized articles. The SEO strategy (long-tail research-backed keywords, formal FAQ sections, internal linking) is producing consistent organic traffic growth. Articles written three months ago continue to generate traffic without additional promotion.
What Is Not Working
Affiliate income relative to traffic. $89 in affiliate commissions against the current monthly article traffic suggests the affiliate link placement or the link-to-sale conversion is low. The likely cause: affiliate links buried at the bottom of long-form articles rather than integrated into the article's specific recommendations. This is a systematic fix.
Atelier enrollment pace. One cohort per year is not sufficient for the income goal. The October launch needs to test whether a quarterly cadence is achievable with the current audience size.
Back-catalog visibility. The older titles (published more than 18 months ago, before the current SEO and content architecture) have minimal organic visibility. The options are either dedicated relaunch campaigns (not currently planned) or accepting that the back catalog earns at a low baseline and focusing new energy on recent titles.
September's Focus
Two priorities for this month:
Prepare the October Atelier launch. Sales page, email sequence, and content calendar for the pre-launch period. The goal is 50 enrollments at $297.
Fix the affiliate link architecture. Audit the top 20 articles by traffic and restructure affiliate links from buried-footer to contextual-recommendation placement. Expected impact: affiliate income from $89 to $200-250 per month.
Next update: October 7, 2026.
Keep reading: → The Complete Content Distribution System — how each piece of content feeds multiple revenue streams simultaneously → Why Writers Who Don't Own Their Platform Are Building Someone Else's Business — the canonical URL, SEO, and platform-ownership argument
This post connects to The Life That Is Already Yours — on building the work and the platform from the resources that are already yours.
Subscribe to The Elysian Press — weekly posts on psychology, healing, astrology, and building. Subscribe here →
References
- Matthews, Gail. "Goals Research Summary." Dominican University of California, 2015. (Study on written goals and accountability.)
- Substack. "Substack's Writer Revenue Report." Substack, 2025. Internal platform data shared with writers on conversion benchmarks.
- Lavingia, Sahil. "Gumroad Creator Economy Data." Gumroad Annual Report, 2024.
- Koe, Dan. The Art of Focus: A Path to Personal Genius. Portfolio/Penguin, 2024.
- ACX. "ACX Royalty Rate Schedule." Audible/ACX, 2026. (Platform documentation.)
- Amazon Associates. "Associates Program Advertising Fee Schedule." Amazon, 2026. (Platform documentation.)
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why publish income reports publicly?
- Income transparency in the creator economy serves two distinct purposes. The first is practical: other creators building similar businesses benefit from real data about what income streams produce at various audience sizes and time horizons — most income reports online are either vague inspiration or inflated vanity metrics; specific numbers with specific context are more useful. The second is personal: the act of publicly naming a goal and publicly tracking progress creates the accountability structure that research on goal commitment consistently shows increases follow-through. Gail Matthews at Dominican University (2015) found that people who wrote down their goals and sent weekly progress reports to a friend completed 76% of their goals, compared to 43% for those who did not write them down at all. Public tracking does for goal achievement what written tracking does for financial spending: it makes the real picture visible, including the uncomfortable parts.
- What income streams does this track?
- The income streams tracked in this report: (1) Amazon KDP royalties — ebooks and paperbacks sold through KDP direct, reported 60 days in arrears; (2) Draft2Digital royalties — wide distribution across Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Scribd, Overdrive/libraries; (3) ACX/Findaway audiobook royalties; (4) Substack paid subscriptions — both annual ($99/year) and monthly ($9/month) paid Elysian Press subscribers; (5) Becoming Atelier course and community revenue; (6) affiliate commissions — primarily Amazon Associates for the book links in articles. These streams are tracked separately because they behave differently: royalties lag by 60 days, Substack revenue is recurring and predictable, course revenue is lumpy and launch-dependent, affiliate income is proportional to traffic and grows slowly.
- What is the $10K/month goal based on?
- Ten thousand dollars per month as a target for a creator business corresponds to a specific threshold in the creator economy research: it is the point at which a creator business becomes a viable primary income in most developed markets, which is also the point at which it becomes sustainable to reinvest in production quality, hire support, and build the infrastructure that enables the next growth phase. Dan Koe's research on one-person businesses (The Art of Focus, 2024) and Sahil Lavingia's data from Gumroad's creator population (published in Gumroad's annual creator reports) both identify the $10K/month threshold as the inflection point between a side income and a primary business — below it, most creators remain in the 'grinding for growth' phase; above it, compound growth from existing audience and catalog becomes a more significant driver than individual launches.
Recommended resources
A few relevant resources I would actually recommend for this topic.
- The Life That Is Already Yours — Nikita Datar — On building the work and the platform from the life and the resources that are already yours
- You Are Not Fine — Nikita Datar — On seeing clearly what is running your life and your business
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I wrote more about this in The Life That Is Already Yours — The Neuroscience, Psychology, and Hidden Cost of Not Choosing Yourself.
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