Update: Survey, Plans, Considering Changes

Hey guys, just gonna make a post to jot down where I've been at the last while. 

I prepared this Patreon around the time where memberships were about to be phased towards different, less preferable models and initially intended it to be fairly discreet (I don't even have a public-facing profile yet!), but I have been overwhelmed by the support through word of mouth to get to a readerbase; I appreciate the support of all of you that continue to subscribe for my content and who continually support me financially. 

 There are a lot of aspects of the Patreon that haven't been adjusted since creation, and a lot has changed about my creative output since then, so I'm going to use this post to put out my thoughts on where I currently stand. As it stands, an update to the Patreon is overdue, but I don't want to make a lot of sudden changes to scare you guys. 

I prepared a survey to gage user feedback; please fill it out at your leisure and let me know what I can do for you guys! 

Establishing a Public Facing Profile

Patreon is not a platform built to grow an audience, so it has come as a surprise that the audience has grown in the way that it has, largely through word of mouth (again, I appreciate you guys so much for sharing my work!). I feel like I could reach a broader audience and better support my craft establishing a public facing profile and perhaps a proper website to host my work on. 

I have considered uploading previously released stories to the public on a chapter by chapter basis (I have already provided preview material for various Discords in the past), but I aim to strike a balance between this Patreon's exclusive content and what is publicly available. 

My current instinct is that recent commissions that are already available to the public will be reposted elsewhere (with consent of course), along with several chapters previewing some of my major stories. I'm looking into options for establishing a public profile; I've considered dA, Gummyroad, and Ao3 as options, but let me know if you frequent other places that would be good options!

Flexible Thinking Conclusion + Future Plans

The Iris story was one of the first stories I was working on, and it's not far from completion. I want to finish it entirely within the next couple of months and move onto new projects. 

I've put a lot of work into it, and have considered working with an editor and an illustrator to prepare an eBook for online retail; it needs a thorough edit pass, but having a couple books to my name has been on my mind, and Iris deserves the treatment. If you may be interested in helping, or know anyone who might be capable, let me know and share your rates! 

Future Project: Mia and Celes Story

A project that I have been working on for a long time was a visual novel featuring Mia and Celes in collaboration with Amy Wamboldt; you might recall them appearing together in various holiday specials that I made free to the public. They're a couple that's near and dear to us, and we've been considering story beats for a long time. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that I got into creative writing specifically to realize their story. 

For various reasons, we determined that a visual novel would be too intensive and expensive for both of our respective schedules. We settled on the idea of a novel with illustrations and ongoing chapters released to the public; this emphasizes our skills better, plays better with my release strategy, and appeals to the visual nature of social media promotion. 

After the conclusion of the Iris story, I intend on pivoting towards that story, adapting the plot beats from the visual novel and expanding it to a format more suited to my style of writing, accompanied with illustrations from Amy, who created Mia. 

This particular story will have ongoing chapters released to any public-facing profiles, and we hope that if it's successful and commands an appreciable following that it may potentially be adapted to future light novel releases. But that's way off and very optimistic; right now I'm just saying "this is a story we're gonna do together, please look forward to it, they are very cute and wholesome together". 

Commissions and Ongoing Story Polls

I've been taking a lot of commissions over the last few months. My financial situation is a bit dicey; my region is on emergency lockdown and I have been unable to go to work, so I have been prioritizing commissions. I greatly appreciate support, though I am concerned that my pivot is at the expense of regular projects. 

I will be putting up regular polls to help determine which ongoing story chapters will be receiving regular updates; the winning story will be guaranteed an update in some form for that particular month, with commissions and other story updates. getting posted as they're produced.

Commissions will continue to remain free to read going forward (unless otherwise requested by a client), as they have been great for bringing in new eyes. 

Value Of Higher Tiers

Over time, I'm a little concerned that I've devalued some of my higher-tier offerings. My priority from the start was to emphasize a very low barrier to entry to incentivize people joining and offering a good array of content at that tier. 

Initially, commissions were part of the 5$ tier (and several comms are still exclusive to that, including prompts). Nowadays, commissions (barring prompts) are free, and most of my ongoing stories, including "Melty Mercury", "Flexible Thinking", and "Space and Time" are all available within the 1$ tier. 

I am currently considering adjusting tiers to add more value to higher tiers; I don't want to touch the 1$ point of entry, and as plans indicate I may be releasing more free content than before. As it stands, the tiers and the content provided are a bit of a jumbled mess (they were largely placeholders from creation in Summer 2019), so I'll be looking for feedback and adjusting tiers and goals appropriately. 

That about summarizes my current thoughts going forward. Thank you everyone for your past, present, and future support! This is something I'm happy to do and I'm thrilled that other people are happy with my work in turn.