Getting that first royalty deposit is one of the best feelings in the world for someone who wants to be a career author.
However, managing your royalties so that you can sustain yourself through the highs and lows of indie authorship is another matter entirely.
Luckily, there are many ways to create more revenue for yourself, lower your expenses for future projects, increase your profits for current revenue streams, and save in ways that involve higher interest rates and lower fees.
All this and more is coming to the Money page for Apprentices.
Here’s a lesson excerpt offering a tip that can be helpful for both author and non-author financial situations!
Checking Accounts are Only for Deposits
Setting up your checking accounts so that they are only for companies who make deposits is a critical first step to creating buffer accounts. The whole point of the buffer accounts is that no one will be expecting to withdraw whatever you owe them from that account. The Writerwerx University account is only for deposits from platforms our customers pay on like Square, CashApp, or PayPal. Royalties from Writerwerx University books are deposited into that account each month. Sales revenue from the Writerwerx University store is deposited into that account each day. The account is not set up for any single or recurring payments to come out of the account directly.
If there is a situation in which account and routing numbers are required for a payment, a different account is used (for example, Square offers a business debit card that provides a checking account that can be used in these circumstances).
And it can be helpful to make sure that none of your checking accounts are linked in such a way as to release funds because someone does attempt to get money through a buffer account. For example, if you have you checking account tied to your PayPal account as a way of paying charges, PayPal will take money directly from your checking account, which would defeat the purpose of the buffer account method. In this case, making sure that PayPal only uses your PayPal balance to release funds ensures that you won’t be caught off guard by PayPal pulling money from your checking account, especially for surprise/forgotten and fraudulent charges. If you don’t set this up, then someone can attempt to take money from your PayPal (or other platform) account, but the transaction will simply be declined. You’ll get a notification that it was. Then you can review the transaction and decide if it’s legitimate and if it’s something you want to pay. A good example is a subscription fee. If you regularly forget to cancel subscriptions after you get your “Free White Paper,” “Bonus Book,” or whatever the subscription provider selling, signing up with a buffer account card instead of your debit card keeps you from having to worry about canceling so you won’t get charge. When the subscription fee tries to come out, it won’t be able to. But the insufficient funds notice will prompt you to go ahead and cancel the subscription (or, of course, you could just let it fail a few times and the subscription will be cancelled due to nonpayment!).
Ready to learn more?
Check out the full lesson on the Money page!
