The Reality of Running a Bookish Small Business While Working a 9–5 (and Raising a Family) - Part 3: The Money Nobody Likes Talking About.

Welcome back to Part 3.

By now, we've covered the dream versus reality of running a bookish small business and the absolute chaos of living a double life as an employee, mum, writer, and business owner.

Now it's time to talk about the least aesthetic part of the whole thing. Money.

I know. Nobody starts a bookish business because they're passionate about spreadsheets and profit margins. We start them because we love books, stories, creativity, and the idea of building something that matters.

Unfortunately, Etsy, Wix, suppliers, Australia Post, and literally every other service involved in running a business seem deeply committed to reminding us that passion is not legal tender. I know, super rude of them.

Every time I create a new product, there's a little moment of excitement.

Maybe this is the one. Maybe readers will love it, and it will finally become the thing people associate with Tales & Trinkets. Then reality arrives wearing a high-vis vest and carrying an invoice.

Before one of our products even reaches a customer, there's research, testing, materials, shipping costs, packaging, failed prototypes, replacement supplies, platform fees, payment processing fees, and the occasional "well that was a complete waste of money" purchase.

And somehow, despite working in digital all day, I still occasionally convince myself that buying one more piece of equipment is absolutely essential. It rarely is.+

Small business owners are excellent at creating convincing arguments for purchases. I usually sit there for a good day or two going, "I need this", shortly followed by "but do I really need this?" Then it's a day or so of "this will save me time" and "but what if I don't sell anything and I waste money I don't have to spare?" Constantly arguing for and against the purchase of new equipment. It's hard when the money is coming from your own pocket to justify spending money with the potential of not earning it back.

Meanwhile, my bank account is quietly filing a complaint about it all.

The funny thing is that from the outside, people often assume a business is doing well because it's visible. They see Instagram posts, products launching, orders being packed, or blog posts going out. What they don't see are the weeks when sales are slow, the advertising experiments that fail, the products nobody buys, and the hours spent creating something that earns less than the coffee consumed while making it. Sometimes you can spend twenty hours building something that makes twenty dollars. If you're lucky.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned so far is that revenue and profit are not the same thing. Getting an order is exciting and seeing a notification pop up never gets old. But then comes the mental maths. How much did the materials cost? What about postage? Packaging? Platform fees? The replacement supplies I had to order last month? Suddenly that exciting sale starts shrinking faster than my motivation on a Monday morning.

That isn't me complaining (though I guess it sure seems like it haha). It's just reality. A lot of small businesses aren't making huge profits behind the scenes. Many of us are reinvesting everything we earn straight back into the business in the hope that it grows into something sustainable. We're building first and benefiting later (or sometimes it feels like not at all). At least that's the theory.

Some days I feel optimistic about it, and other days I stare at a spreadsheet (I've got about 10) and wonder whether I've accidentally started the world's most time-consuming hobby.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, because despite all the financial stress, the uncertainty, and occasionally questioning my sanity, I still keep showing up. Not because it's making us rich or because it's easy, but because every now and then something happens that reminds me why I started.

A customer leaves a lovely review, or someone tells me they discovered a new indie author because of a post I shared. A reader buys something I've created and actually loves it, even better when it's a repeat customer! Those moments don't pay the bills, but they do fuel the part of me that believes this can become something bigger, and right now, that's enough to keep going.

Because maybe success isn't just about profit margins and sales targets. Maybe, at this stage, success is simply refusing to quit, showing up again tomorrow, learning one more lesson, creating one more thing or taking one more step.

Even when nobody sees the work happening behind the scenes, and trust me, there's a lot happening behind the scenes.

We'll talk about that in Part 4.

Because next time I want to pull back the curtain on what actually goes into keeping a small business visible online—the content creation, social media, marketing, and the never-ending battle against the algorithm.

Until then,

Kristie