Creators, authors and musicians

How creators, authors and musicians get paid#

Money reaches a creator, an author or a musician a few ways. Each has its place in EscBooks:

• Brand deals and sponsorships: the brand is a client. Add it on Clients and send it an invoice, as any client is billed; its payment is recorded on the invoice. See Invoicing and getting paid.
• Platform payouts: what YouTube (through Google AdSense), Twitch, Patreon, Substack, TikTok, X, Spotify for Creators or Kick pays you from your channel, members or subscribers. Record each as a Platform payout on Income.
• Affiliate earnings, like Amazon Associates commissions, are platform payouts too.
• Book royalties from Amazon KDP (Kindle Unlimited among them), Audible (ACX), Apple Books, Kobo Writing Life, Barnes & Noble Press, Google Play Books, Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, Spotify for Authors (once Findaway Voices) or INaudio are platform payouts too, under Authors in the platform list.
• Music royalties come from whoever pays you, not from the stores: Spotify, Apple Music and the other streaming stores pay your distributor, and DistroKid, TuneCore or CD Baby pays you and sends the 1099. Bandcamp pays its sales through PayPal, and your songwriting and performance royalties come from ASCAP, BMI or SoundExchange. Each is a platform payout, under Musicians and bands in the platform list.

Client is EscBooks' default word; you can change it in Terms and features.

Gross, fees and what was deposited#

A payout has three figures, and each goes somewhere different:

• Gross earned: what the platform paid you before its fees. It's your income: gross receipts, with what clients paid you, on Schedule C line 1 or line 1a of Form 1120, 1120-S or 1065. It's also what a platform's 1099 reports.
• Platform fees: what the platform kept. It's a cost of the business, recorded as an expense in the Fees category: Schedule C line 10, Commissions and fees, or among Other deductions on the corporate and partnership returns.
• Deposited: what reached your account, the gross less the fees. It's what your bank statement shows.

Many platforms take their share before they show your earnings, so nothing comes off the payout and the gross is what was deposited. YouTube is one, and book royalties come this way too. Patreon and Substack list their fees with each payout. Try a few:

In the general ledger a payout is one entry: the account it went into is debited what was deposited, Fees is debited the fees, and Income is credited the gross. See Reports and taxes.

Recording a payout#

1. On Income, click Other Income (or Record in the Other Income card).
2. Pick Platform payout as the Type, then the platform. Yours has the ones you've been paid by before and the ones you added. For any other, type its name in Search platforms, or open All platforms for the whole list. What it needs saying shows under it.
3. Type what was Deposited, and the Platform fees if the platform shows any. Gross earned fills in as the two together. Or type the Gross earned from the platform's statement, and the fees fill in as the difference.
4. Pick the Date received and the account it was Deposited to, add a Note if you like (like the month it's for), and click Record.

• It counts the day it came in, like a client's payment: in Received and the chart on Income, on the dashboard, and in every report. Its fees are an expense on the same day, from the same account.
• The fees are listed on Expenses, named for the platform, as Platform fees on a payout. They follow the payout: opening them says so, with Open the payout, and only a receipt can be added there. Change the payout's fees and the expense changes; set them to nothing and it goes.
• The pencil corrects a payout and the bin removes it, with its fees. One recorded from a bank statement shows From a statement: its amounts, date and account follow the line, and only its note changes on Income.
• Amazon KDP pays each marketplace (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and the rest) as its own deposit. Record each one: they add up by platform.
• Some platforms pay into PayPal, Stripe or X Money first. The payout is income once, however it reaches your bank: record it once, and moving it on to your bank later isn't more income.

Don't see your platform? Add it#

Any platform, affiliate program or store that pays you can be added once and picked from then on. Under Yours, click Add a platform…, or search for its name and click Add “…” as a platform…:

• Platform name: what you call it. Its payouts are listed and added up under this name, on Income and on Reports → Taxes.
• Statement words (optional): the words on its deposits on your bank statement, like KOFI PAYOUT. A deposit with those words is offered as its payout when you review a statement, as the built-in platforms are. Whole words count, and numbers are ignored, as an import rule's words are.

Click Add Platform, and it's picked for this payout. Edit yours renames one, changes its words, or removes it. Renamed, the payouts recorded under it follow; removed, they keep its name.

Payouts on a bank statement#

Accounts/Checking/October 2026

October 2026 Checking

Checking · Oct 1 – Oct 31, 2026 · 4 lines

Checking

Ticked lines go into your books when you approve. Add a charge now with its + icon. Unticked lines stay out.

DateVendor · StatementCategoryAmountNote

Oct 3AdobeADOBE *CREATIVE CLOUDSoftware$59.99

Oct 22—GOOGLE YOUTUBE_PA PPD 7731What is this?Payout from YouTube?-$1,284.16Deposit

Oct 27—PATREON PAYOUT 10/26What is this?Payout from Patreon?-$566.10Deposit

Oct 28USPSUSPS PO 4821120Shipping$18.40

2 expenses · $78.39 · 2 lines stay out

DiscardAdd 2 Expenses

Step 1 of 4PauseStart over

1. 1On a bank statement, a deposit worded like a platform's payout is offered as one: Payout from YouTube? under What is this? The payout opens with YouTube already named.
2. 2YouTube pays net, so the deposit is recorded as income, with no fees to enter. Mark it as a payout.
3. 3Patreon lists its fees on each payout. Type them in: the gross earned follows, deposit plus fees.
4. 4Approve the statement. Each payout is recorded: its gross as income, its fees as an expense, and Income lists each platform beside your clients.

When you review a bank statement, a deposit is set aside as Deposit until you say what it was. Under What is this?, pick Platform payout… (under Income with no invoice), then the platform, and click Mark as Payout. A platform that lists its fees on each payout (Patreon, Substack, Bandcamp, Airbnb) asks for them: the gross is the deposit and the fees together. One that pays net (YouTube, Amazon KDP) asks for nothing more: the deposit is the gross. Add fees is there for the odd one.

• Some deposits are worded so EscBooks knows where they're from, and offer it under What is this?: Payout from YouTube? for a Google deposit that names YouTube, Payout from Patreon?, Payout from Twitch?, Payout from Audible?, Payout from Kobo?, Payout from Apple Books? and the audiobook distributors. Click it to open the payout with that platform named. If the wording misled and it's another platform's, Not YouTube? opens the full choice.
• Google and Amazon word their deposits alike for different programs, so those are offered as Payout from Google? (YouTube or Google Play Books) and Payout from Amazon? (Amazon KDP or Amazon Associates): pick the one it is. If you've only been paid by one of the two before, it's picked for you. KDP pays each Amazon marketplace on its own, under names like Amazon Media EU or Amazon Australia, so a month can bring several small Amazon deposits.
• A platform you added is offered the same way when its Statement words are on the deposit.
• Other deposits aren't recognized, often because they name PayPal or Stripe instead: pick Platform payout… yourself.
• Already recorded the payout, by hand or by approving your assistant's request? The deposit offers Already recorded: with that payout, when it's for the same amount deposited, within a week, into this account or none yet, and isn't tied to another line. Click it to match the deposit to it, rather than record it twice. Approving the statement puts a payout that had no account into this one.
• On a statement waiting for review, the payout is recorded when you approve it (Undo clears it before then). On an approved statement it's recorded at once, and Undo takes it back out; a matched payout stays recorded, just no longer matched.

A payout recorded with no account waits on Month-End among the money received and not deposited, at the amount deposited. More in Reviewing statements.

Who paid you, and each platform's 1099#

• On Income, each platform that paid you is listed beside your clients, under Paid by, with its gross, its number of payouts and its fees.
• On Reports → Taxes, the Platform Payouts card lists each platform's gross for the year, all its payouts added up, with the 1099 to set it beside: a 1099-MISC from YouTube (Google) and Amazon KDP, a 1099-NEC from Amazon Associates, X, Spotify for Creators and Kick, often both from Twitch, and a 1099-K from Patreon (or from Stripe, for Substack) only above the IRS's threshold. The Patreon 1099-K shows the gross, before its fees, as EscBooks does.
• A corporation, an LLC taxed as one among them, usually isn't sent a 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC: for one, the card says each platform's total is your record.
• A 1099 counts what the platform paid in the calendar year, as EscBooks does, by the day each payout came in. December's earnings paid in January are on next year's.
• The Accountant Packet lists each platform's payouts with its income, and the gross is on the form's gross receipts line.

What you can deduct#

A cost of making your work is a business expense: record it on Expenses and it lowers your profit. For creators and authors that's often:

• Platform fees: recorded with each payout, as above.
• Equipment you buy, like a camera, microphone, lights or a computer: record it on Equipment, where it's written off in full or over its useful life. See Equipment.
• Software and subscriptions: editing and design software, music and stock licenses, your newsletter or website tools.
• Contract labor: an editor, a thumbnail or cover designer, a narrator paid a fee. See Subcontractors.
• Advertising: promoting a video, a book or a newsletter, Amazon Ads among them.
• Supplies, Travel to a shoot or an event, and Legal & professional fees, like an accountant.

Money you take out for yourself isn't an expense: see Owner money.

Your assistant#

A connected assistant can ask to record a payout: the platform, what was deposited, and the fees or the gross. It waits for you under Requests, showing the gross, fees and amount deposited, and Record Income records it as if you'd entered it on Income. See Connected assistants.