Clarifications to Reward Schedule (and Free Art to Make Up for Missed Rewards)

I've had a few people reach out to me with confusion regarding my request submission deadlines, and/or wondering why their submission wasn't featured in that month's batch, and similar concerns.  I take responsibility for what I assume is poor communication on my part, so here's a more detailed explanation of how the submission process works:

Requests are always drawn the month after the request is received.  This gives patrons an entire month to decide what they would like.  For example, if a patron submits their request on March 30th, their request will be drawn in April.  If they submit their request on April 1st, their request will be drawn in May.  I feel like there may have been some confusion in the way I word certain things such as my monthly updates; I will do my best to be more clear about that in the future!

In the past I've been more flexible about these deadlines, and would squeeze late submissions into batches as long as they were submitted before I started drawing anything. But as my Patreon has grown, the amount of requests I receive per month has grown as well.  Which is great and I'm very thankful for it!  But it also means there's a lot more stuff for me to keep track of, and it puts more of a strain on my schedule.   

An issue that I'm becoming increasingly aware of is that Patreon is becoming a bit of a time sink for me; $15 for a sketch is probably too low, especially considering part of the price is also intended to cover the other stuff I do for the Patreon, such as monthly comics and general administrative stuff.  Ergo I feel like I need to do things as quickly as possible in order for it to be lucrative, which in turn makes makes me less flexible.  I'm still learning how to value my time and treat my work as a business.  That's my excuse, at least!

Retrospectively, I really should still be more flexible about it, since I'm being paid for it regardless.  In complete transparency, part of me has been looking at pledges more like donations, just because of the way Patreon itself is structured, which is absolutely not the correct way to look at it given that I have openly promised to perform certain services in return for those pledges.  Supreme-Tier patrons get monthly sketches if they choose to request them, and providing anything less is irresponsible at best, and deceptive at worst.  At the very least I should consider offering refunds for months with missed sketches, which I only just now realized is a thing I can even do via browser.  At this point I don't have a policy in mind to enact for that, but I'll keep it on my radar for people to request if they are so inclined.

I absolutely don't want people to feel they've been ripped off, especially if it was due to poor communication on my part regarding deadlines.  I also worry that this has happened to more people than have contacted me about it, since I do notice that not all of my eligible patrons submit requests every month.   

So! I want to do a li'l make-up batch later this month for folks who've missed a request they'd paid for.   If that applies to you, you can submit an extra request this month before March 20th, in addition to your regularly scheduled request.  Please make sure to do so before said deadline so that your submission can be added to the batch.  I trust y'all to be honest, but also keep in mind that I can check to see if you've actually missed any. ;P

I ask in return for everybody to be mindful of deadlines going forward, as it does make things a bit easier on my end.  Part of the reason I can justify the $15 price, is because I can do the whole batch in just a couple days without having to coordinate individually with every person.  In order for that to work, I need to trust that people are going to take responsibility for their own submissions.   I cannot promise that no requests will ever be missed in the future, but I hope to be more clear about what I need from people in order to things work smoothly.

I'm always open to questions if you have them!  Or if you have suggestions for how I can improve clarity in the future, feel free to comment below or DM me.  

Anyway, sorry if that was a bit rambly!  Thanks for reading, and thanks even more for continuing to support me as I fumble around a bit.