One of Tim Ferriss questions for different experts is what activity is a waste of time and while I’m not going to be totally binary on that front, I would like to talk about business activities you need to start publishing right now and which ones you can wait on.

For a start I’m going to go over some of ERGs expenses and choices we’ve made. Also might do a MoSCoW table of things that do and don’t contribute to a finished book, a lot of things you could have don’t contribute to sales.

Web Hosting with WordPress and WooCommerce store. $203.88 annually we could pay more to have Godaddy keep up the security updates for us, but I pay my webmaster to do security and software updates and site updates. FREE Option: Use Social media and WordPress only, don’t host your own site.

Domain Name, if you’re using a WordPress blog, you might not need your own domain. $17.99 annually. FREE Option: Use Social media and WordPress only, don’t host your own site.

Extended Validation SSL Certificate, Google has started telling web users that websites aren’t safe unless they have an SSL Cert which usually costs money. If you are asking people for money it’s a good idea to have one. $79 annually FREE Option: My webmaster tells me there are free SSL certificates available.

Stat counter you used to get something like this free from your domain host, this tells us how many views our website gets, what pages are most popular and where all our website visitors come from. $9 monthly FREE Option: cPanel has Awstats and Webalizer. If you’re paying for the hosting, you may as well use the tools.

Cuttly URL shortening, it’s free, there are other services with more features that have a cost. Bittly is $29-35 monthly Even if you don’t run your own website, URL shortening is useful for telling your customers on social media about your new products and gauging how much reach those platforms give you.

Mailchimp, emails collected at our website go there, but we don’t have an active email campaign and don’t send out newsletters, so this is a waste until we do something with it. $9.99 monthly FREE Option: If you do business through DriveThruRPG and your customers have opted in to let you contact them, use that email list function instead.

Webstore	Percentage	Affiliate	Customer Emailing	Print on Demand	Bundles	Setup	Marketing	Freelancer Royalties	Payout
DriveThruRPG	65-70%	5%	Opt-in	Yes	Yes	DIY	Yes	Yes	PayPal or Check
Paizo	75%	?	No	No	No	Submit	No	No	Check
OpenGaming Store	80%	Yes	Yes	It has been done	Yes	Submit	Yes	No	PayPal
Itch.io		?

Social Media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) are free to use, please see the Traction book review for steps to determine which social media sites have the biggest audience for you and act accordingly.

Social Media Ads (Facebook, Reddit, Twitter) all of them cost money, none of them lead to sales, but Reddit did give me interesting demographic area information about the people who clicked on my ads. Facebook and Reddit both tell you male and female, age and country, but only Reddit gave me city and state info. Facebook didn’t have a Starfinder group so you choose Pathfinder and RPGs and likes science fiction movies, Reddit lets you advertise directly to members of a some subreddits which included Starfinder.

Desktop Publishing Software Adobe Creative Cloud, it’s an ongoing cost whether you use it or not. $52.99 monthly

Service	Provider	Annual Cost	Alternative	Cost
Website Hosting	Godaddy	$203.88
Domain Name	Godaddy	$17.99
EV SSL Certificate	Godaddy	$79
Traffic Analysis	Statcounter	$108	Awstats, Webalizer	Free
URL Shortening	Cuttly	Free
Mailing List	Mailchimp	$119.88
Desktop Publishing	Adobe CC	$635.88
Layout	InDesign		Affinity Publisher	$49.99
Vector Art	Illustrator
Raster Art	Photoshop
Total		$1,154.63

If you have any feedback about this post or our books please feel free to contact us.

Paul

Evilrobotgames at Gmail.com