diff --git a/.npmignore b/.npmignore
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ce2763e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.npmignore
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+# Logs
+*.log
+npm-debug.log*
+yarn-debug.log*
+yarn-error.log*
+
+# Runtime data
+*.pid
+*.seed
+*.pid.lock
+
+# Directory for instrumented libs generated by jscoverage/JSCover
+lib-cov
+
+# Coverage directory used by tools like istanbul
+coverage
+
+# nyc test coverage
+.nyc_output
+
+# node-waf configuration
+.lock-wscript
+
+# Compiled binary addons (https://nodejs.org/api/addons.html)
+build/Release
+
+# Dependency directories
+node_modules/
+jspm_packages/
+
+# Optional npm cache directory
+.npm
+
+# Optional eslint cache
+.eslintcache
+
+# Optional REPL history
+.node_repl_history
+
+# Output of 'npm pack'
+*.tgz
+
+# Yarn Integrity file
+.yarn-integrity
+
+# dotenv environment variables file
+.env
+
+# next.js build output
+.next
+
+# OS X temporary files
+.DS_Store
+
+# Rush temporary files
+common/temp/
+**/.rush/temp/
+
+# IDE
+.idea
+
+# don't check in build files
+/temp/
+
+#  Don't commit tsdoc meta
+/src/tsdoc-metadata.json
+
+# Ignore source on NPM
+/src/
+
+# Ignore banchmarks
+/benchmarks/
+
+# Ignore Tests
+/tests/
+
+# Ignore Docs
+/docs/
+
+# Ignore Examples
+/examples/
+
+# Ignore Git hooks
+/git-hooks/
diff --git a/package-lock.json b/package-lock.json
index c712c861..033c9db2 100644
--- a/package-lock.json
+++ b/package-lock.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "tslog",
-  "version": "3.0.3",
+  "version": "3.0.5",
   "lockfileVersion": 1,
   "requires": true,
   "dependencies": {
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 769a7505..a63b72ef 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "tslog",
-  "version": "3.0.3",
+  "version": "3.0.5",
   "description": "📝 Expressive TypeScript Logger for Node.js: Pretty errors, stack traces, code frames, and JSON output to attachable transports.",
   "main": "./dist/cjs/index.js",
   "module": "./dist/esm/index.js",
diff --git a/src/LoggerHelper.ts b/src/LoggerHelper.ts
index 52665e19..e4d8991c 100644
--- a/src/LoggerHelper.ts
+++ b/src/LoggerHelper.ts
@@ -155,7 +155,7 @@ export class LoggerHelper {
             resultStr
           );
         }, str)
-      : str;
+      : `${str}`;
   }
 
   private static _stylizeWithColor<T>(