November 2023 Update
Added 2023-11-06 02:10:08 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
First, I want to say if everyone else is having problems with Patreon being SLOW AS BALLS like I am, then I am sorry for your user experience.
Other than that, let's jump right into the update!
October Recap
The good news was that in October I finally started to hit my stride again and released things at a faster pace. I don't know why, but for a few months there it was just one thing after another distracting me and hurting my ability to sit and focus for a long time.
- All of the latest versions of stories/chapters have been sorted into Collections so that feature is now fully up to date if you choose to use it. (I will also continue to keep the Master List post up to date as well.)
- Technically We're Still Engaged was released. It was a rework of a previous story I had written, so it wasn't a massive endeavour, but I've wanted to do that rewrite for a while to get a version of the story here on Patreon. There is no plan to continue it, so it's sitting as a new one-shot and is 'patreon exclusive' until I release another one.
- Two OFG Compiled Bundles were finished, bringing us a lot closer to catching up with edited versions.
- Le Francais got a release with some really exciting developments, plus some new art. Big shout out to ThL for continuing to commission that story!
- I didn't hit the full volume of what I wanted to release, but AMA and OFG are on track.
- We got Leia AND Zenya Character Art from Bayushi6
- FoF and QT:NW have also gotten their updates.
- Work on the Illustrated Novella has continued, with Bayushi getting some early design tests in on Amana and Oberon, our married adventurer duo.
Plans for November
- OnlyFans Girl: So, OFG has always been a sponsored story. Aurelian15 has been super fantastic about sponsoring chapters for OFG from a few different writers, and has been very hands-off and let me do my own thing with the characters. If anyone has checked out the larger story on CHYOA, my version is very different from the others presented. But, unfortunately, at the moment the sponsorship has been put on hiatus. This means that this month I'm going to finalize the OFG compiled bundles but not release new chapters, as I need to replace the income from the sponsorship.
- AMA: We're going to continue with releases to AMA! We are closing in on the end of Day 6, though there are still some events to happen (including a Fancy Dress Party), so I don't think we'll hit Day 7 until the end of the month. If I can get through the OFG compiled bundles, then I want to start catching up on the AMA ones.
- FoF and QTNW: Continuing with our chapter releases.
- QT: Florida Man is going to continue to be sporadic as a fun aside when I need to break up other writing for myself.
- As far as I know, Le Francais will get another release soon, but unfortunately, the commissioner for Unexpected Affection has also needed to put it on hiatus.
- There will be no poll for Character Art this month, as the poll at the end of October on what we do next leaned towards us getting a Character Reference for Robbie of AMA, and then moving on to another story. So we'll get Robbie from Bayushi this month, and at the start of December we'll look at a poll for what story comes next! (I also, if you've read this far, have some irons in the fire for some more AMA art.. shh!)
Open For Commissions/Sponsorship
With the hiatus of OFG and Unexpected Affections, my two main methods of rebuilding cashflow are by breaking into a new market (which I am, as I'm going to start posting over on Inkitt to see how that goes), and picking up some new commissions.
If you are interested in being a commissioner, the standard price for members of the Patreon is $30 USD per 1000 words (or one AMA/OFG chapter). Message me here on Patreon to discuss what sort of story you might be interested in, just remember that my content policies are firm - if you haven't seen a kink written by me before, you can always ask but I might say no.
If you are interested in picking up some of the sponsoring for OFG, message me! OFG sponsorship is $10 USD per chapter.
Last Month to Vote for Literotica 2022 Awards
Polls close over on the Literotica Forums on Nov 29th, and the voting is tight! If you have a few minutes, please head over to drop a vote for...
Cattie from AMA: The Boyfriend is in 2nd place by 10 votes for Sexiest Female Character
Robbie from AMA: The Boyfriend is TIED for 1st place for Sexiest Male Character
The OF Girl Ch 121-130 is in 2nd place by 9 votes for Top Erotic Couplings Story
Quaranteam: North West is in 1st place by 12 votes for Top Mind Control Story
And now I believe I've talked your ears off enough!
Cheers all!
~Break.
Comments
I only read AMA now, but i suspect it´s either that each post contain a whole lot of bundle and/or the additional files to each post. I tend to the second one because others authors are writing a lot per post too and dont really have that problem.
Darkflint
2023-11-11 23:33:02 +0000 UTCOn CHYOA, it makes sense, but I think OFG is starting to get to the point that it isn't really CHYOA material anymore. I just checked and you aren't even bothering to include questions (not a judgment). I definitely appreciate Aurelian sponsoring it, but you're the longest thread by a huge amount and the odds that anyone reading it is going to be disappointed by the POV change seems rather silly.
FlareNight
2023-11-10 03:43:15 +0000 UTCI want to be a little more explicit and say that if there's actually a risk of it being canceled, I'd join into whatever group needs to be formed. From the sounds of it though, there are actually more offers of sponsorship than there is time for you to write it. Maybe we get enough and you pick a screen name that doesn't make Sabrina a monster?
FlareNight
2023-11-09 04:59:39 +0000 UTCThank you so much for this! Sometimes I wish I wrote less sex too so I could talk about it more. But then I remember how fun some of the sex scenes are. I recently was reading some notes from a very (VERY) successful indy author about how the 'real money' is more in romance and not in erotica - I really hope that the relationships I'm showing, both the more simple ones and the complicated ones, can bridge that gap. Knowing that folks like yourself are loving my characters, and how they treat each other, is a massive boost. And I, too, get at least a couple of lines of Iris stuck in my head on a regular basis. I'm sorry for the earworm, hahaha.
BreaktheBar
2023-11-09 04:21:13 +0000 UTCI know I'd upgrade immediately to that tier and my offer in DM's for future OFG sponsorship if it becomes necessary would still be good.
Andrew S.
2023-11-08 23:23:31 +0000 UTCSo I'm not sure if there's a better place to put this, but I usually just lurk and wanted to make sure you had some feedback. I stumbled across FoF after finishing all the content available from another author, and the two of you have been the only ones I've literally read everything available from. The graphic stuff isn't the important bit though (I actually sometimes wish there was less so I could recommend the stories on merit of their characters and worldbuilding), and nitpicky grammar/editing things don't bother me as much as usual...you just have a way of making your characters lovable that gives me warm fuzzies and longing for something like the relationships (the good parts) that I've been referring to as "Love Porn". I actually had originally planned to skip OFG because of the 2nd person narration, but I'm SO GLAD I didn't because that's become my favorite series of all, and I've had Iris stuck in my head for a week now as an example of how happy the emotional parts of your characters make me. Sorry if this comes across as over the top, but I just wanted you to know how much impact your writing has had on at least one of your readers. I'm looking forward to more of whatever comes next!
MasterHarper
2023-11-08 11:15:48 +0000 UTCAfter this and your comment about the sponsorship varying, I'm still supporting the idea of a commissioner tier. Maybe one for an extra $10 where every month you list the active stories in a poll (say on the 15th or so, when your numbers have settled) and add that extra income to whatever the commissioner had already committed to? So long as the commissioner stays, they still get their steering rights.
FlareNight
2023-11-08 06:04:17 +0000 UTCFirst, want to say love your writing! I’m genuinely excited whenever a new update for one of your series comes out! Also, yes, the website is SUPER slow for me. I currently support 5 other artists on Patreon including 2 who do webcomics, and all of those seem to load in a reasonable timeframe. For some reason, it seems to be your page. Not sure why that would be, since I would think that text would be way less intensive to load than artwork, but figured I’d mention it in hopes that could help with troubleshooting the problem.
Bibliophile
2023-11-07 22:44:12 +0000 UTCGREAT NEWS, EVERYONE! The fantastic Aurelian has resumed his sponsorship of OFG, which means work will start up again shortly on new chapters. Cheers to everyone who reached out asking about chipping in on some sponsorships to help fill the gap! (Also, did anyone else raid Icecrown Citadel in WoW? I can't say or type 'Great News, Everyone' without doing it in Prof Putrecide's voice and it's been YEARS.)
BreaktheBar
2023-11-07 11:11:30 +0000 UTC2nd Person PoV isn't for everyone. I get lots of comments about it on Literotica and StoriesOnline. It's much more common on CHYOA, but it STILL screws with my head while writing other things, hahaha.
BreaktheBar
2023-11-07 10:42:36 +0000 UTCI'm getting lots of messages of folks wanting to chip in for some chapter sponsorships, so it looks like we might see a decent number of chapters this month! I really do encourage you to check out my other stories though. If you're looking for a similar Poly Romance situation, try out Font of Fertility. Or check out the one-shots Technically We're Still Engaged and Triple-Blonde Study.
BreaktheBar
2023-11-07 10:40:17 +0000 UTCWhile missing out on OFG isn't great, I'm not ever gonna complain about more AMA. So some bad, some good, comes out of this in my book.
zktvo
2023-11-06 18:01:36 +0000 UTCPersonally I'm glad that OFG isn't going to take up as much of your focus for awhile, I just could never get past the 2nd person perspective nonsense. Hopefully this means some more AMA, FoF, and QT:NW love to quicken their releases a bit to help feed the addiction...
Mehntal1st
2023-11-06 13:24:06 +0000 UTCA bunch of non-standard tiers would be a problem, but with the current options being "fast food on my way home from work" and "half my rent," adding a commissioner tier where you occasionally put the OFG polls would probably be a good idea, especially if the alternative is that you stop writing it altogether.
FlareNight
2023-11-06 12:12:44 +0000 UTCDamn. Just joined the Patreon to support the OFG. Only found the story around 2 weeks ago on CHYOA and got hooked on it really bad, so I decided to join and support the story as well as get ahead of the release of chapters. So the news that it's going to be put on hold or slowed down significantly is really upsetting. Tried reading your other stories, but nothing clicked as much as the OFG :(
Zerone
2023-11-06 08:46:34 +0000 UTCI'm not actually sure how popular OFG is between the various series. Maybe I should run a poll... Anyway, I think it would be neat to have 'add-on' capabilities, but you're right that Patreon isn't exactly the most flexible. It's also a big pain on the back end to track things because of how their system deals with declined payments and such. I basically can't trust anything their tools report to me in the first 5 days of the month, and then I need to double-check with the spreadsheets for anything firm after that. It looks like some folks are reaching out, so we might be seeing at least one release this month, so don't stress about missing OFG entirely! And I would never, ever ask someone to stretch themselves to fund my stories. I love them, but they aren't worth someone else feeling a financial pinch.
BreaktheBar
2023-11-06 05:20:07 +0000 UTCUnfortunately, as Toodles says below, Patreon isn't super flexible in terms of adding non-standardized tiers and their back-end is frustrating. I did consider opening up a 'Commissioner' tier or something like it, but hadn't really nailed down the details and I wanted to get the update out.
BreaktheBar
2023-11-06 05:14:15 +0000 UTCThe height was a chapter a day, so ~$300 USD a month. I'm not looking to completely fill this amount with sponsorships though, especially from one person. It's more of a 'If a few people want to chip in, we'll see a bundle of chapters come out.'
BreaktheBar
2023-11-06 05:08:55 +0000 UTCPossibly AMA will see a slight uptick back to my hoped for numbers (4-ish sets of chapters a month). I also have other projects I'm working on that will come to the Patreon as well.
BreaktheBar
2023-11-06 05:05:28 +0000 UTCSame
Andrew S.
2023-11-06 04:33:50 +0000 UTCAt $10/chapter for OFG, I could probably do 1/month, but that's a glacial pace - I wanna read at least 10 chapters a month! So maybe a consortium of us...? It's too bad that Patreon isn't flexible enough to have multiple tiers - because I think you could make MUCH more than $10/chapter if you could add a $1 OFG only tier to whatever current subscription is, that published 10 chapters a month. It would only take 101 fans to beat the current rate, and I think you'd get over 70-80% buy-in.
Toodles McGhee
2023-11-06 04:21:34 +0000 UTCI would happily join another tier of membership for this.
Jericho
2023-11-06 04:18:58 +0000 UTCMaybe create another membership tier for a group of subscribers to kick in say $5 more a month (or more) for OFG and see if what you get is worth your while?
Ztop
2023-11-06 04:15:56 +0000 UTCDo you have a ballpark on how much the OFG sponsorship runs? My initial calculation was WAY outside of my budget.
FlareNight
2023-11-06 03:35:13 +0000 UTCDoes the OFG hiatus have any effect on how often we'll be seeing AMA chapters (i.e., more frequently?) Or will something else replace OFG in the rotation?
zktvo
2023-11-06 03:29:25 +0000 UTC
