August 2023 Update - One Year In

Hello everyone!

For those of you who have joined us more recently, I've designated two months for "Big Updates." January, with the start of the New Year, is more of a 'State of the Patreon' kind of this where I talk about goals and stats. August is our Annual mark.

To give a history review of BreaktheBar:

- I started writing Erotica on Literotica in 2015. Font of Fertility Chapter 1 was actually my second erotica release ever.
- I published on Literotica, and dabbled on CHYOA a bit, through 2016.
- During this time I had moved across Canada because I had been hired by a company for a job that suited my skills and paid well. It turned out that I was good at it, and it did pay well, but I was unhappy. I didn't like the job, I was away from family and friends, and I never felt settled. Thus, Erotica writing helped me find some peace and worked as a creative outlet.
- I ended up leaving that career after some internal issues with the company (my two co-workers both said 'I'm surprised you put up with their shit as long as you did' and also left within the year.) This was around the time that I tried publishing Double-Blonde Study as an ebook. Looking back, it actually did fairly well as a single release with nothing else to my name on Amazon, but it didn't hint that I could make a living with erotica and I had dreams to be a mainstream author.
- This was when I stopped writing erotica. I moved back near my home town, considered going back to University for a second degree, but ended up finding a job in education that I loved and was good at. The problem from the start was that it didn't pay well even though the workload and responsibilities were high. I stayed there for five years, through most of COVID while trying to use every method I could to get my employer to recognize that my team needed to be valued. It wasn't happening.
- In 2022 I knew without some sort of major change, I would need to make a change. I had previously considered coming back to erotica, but I still had that 'mainstream dream' in the back of my head even though no project ever felt right. In January I created this Patreon and started converting over content to here.
- Almost as soon as I had the Patreon ready to go, some life events happened and I was pulled away from thinking about it. During this time I also had to make the decision not to return to my job for another year, committing to looking for something else. I ended the job I loved but got paid shit for in June and said goodbye to my students and co-workers.
- After taking July to try and get my head right, I realized that I really, really didn't want to go look for an office job. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be an author. Somehow, amazingly even though I had only put a link in my Literotica Bio, I logged onto the Patreon and saw that I actually had a few people signed up even though I hadn't posted anything. First, I felt bad because I hadn't been posting anything. Then I made the decision that I would give Patreon a fair shot - I had an OK amount of savings to give myself 3 months to try and see if it would be feasible to do this while taking on odd Copyediting and Copywriting jobs.
- I launched the Patreon at the start of August, putting out new content for FoF, the first chapters of QT:NW, consistent content for OFG, and blitzing out all of The Afterparty: the Bully in about two weeks on top of all that.
- By the time my 3 month window had passed the Patreon was flourishing. I wasn't at the point where it could start being my only source of income, but it was definitely growing and most importantly it had the sort of promise that said it could get there. I made new plans and set new goals.
- During the following months I went through ups and downs - I dealt with the stress of starting my own business well in some ways, and poorly in others. I put back on weight that I had lost, and I developed some social anxiety over isolating myself from friends. In the spring, when I reached my August/One Year Goal months early, I was thrilled but also realized I was dealing with some shit. The social stuff is handled now, but the weight still needs to drop back down.

This brings us to now - we are One Year In. July was a BIG month for growth even though Patreon-backend issues felt like it reversed that in the first few days. We passed my 2nd set of personal goals for coming into August, which has left me with that thrill of achievement with a (healthy) stress of wanting to maintain it and keep growing, 

I cannot explain here how much this Patreon has changed my life. I am self-employed, doing what I love to do. You folks not only support me and these stories financially, but also emotionally through every comment, message, vote and like. You are my audience, my friends, and sometimes my Bosses since I'm responsible to getting you all the content and I feel the pressure to not let you all down.

I'm also fucking THRILLED that this Patreon worked in a way that so many people in the Erotica space don't see working. Because of you all, I can release the content out to free platforms without feeling like I'm hurting my brand or my bottom line. I can share these stories with tens of thousands of people - more than if I had to try and grind through advertising and selling ebooks in the ultra-swamped markets of Amazon. I've tried to pay that forward by speaking openly with Artists and other writers who are thinking about Patreon as a viable option.

Lastly, I never imagined one year ago that not only would I be fully stable as a self-publishing author by this time, but I'm also actively working with a variety of artists to bring some of my characters to life. I love comics and art, and being able to find interesting and skilled artists who want to work with me, in a variety of styles, had been a blessing I never thought would be reasonable to reach but we're already there. AND, not only all of that, but you folks even voted for me to work on a Non-Erotica story with Starship Repo - I'm still a little shocked deep in my heart that you wanted something off-brand like that, and am super happy with the outcome so far.

So, this is my massive Thank You to every Patron, whether you subscribed for one month or all twelve (or even more). If my life continues to change over the next year like it has this year, I might look like a completely different person come next August.

On Patron Goals

So, as many of you know but with it being hard to track, I run Patron Goals for the community for when we hit milestone numbers. I base these goals off of stats from a few days after the monthly turnover for the previous month. The previous goal we passed was 500 Patrons, which unlocked going back and commissioning Bayushi to do Butt Shots for each of the character reference sheets, and adding Butts moving forward. I'm super happy with how the first set came out, and we've got a second set coming this month.

The next coming goals are as follows, and I'm really excited about them:

600 Patrons: Illustrated Novel - If we maintain 600 patrons, I will start a new Illustrated Novella  (sometimes called a Light Novel) that includes pinups and art throughout. We will hold a poll to decide on the genre. This will be a  multi-month project, but if we all enjoy the process and the result,  we'll do more in the future.

750 Patrons: Erotica Comic - If we maintain 750 patrons, I will start the process of developing a  full Erotic Comic one-shot. As with the Illustrated Novella, we'll hold a  Poll to decide on the genre, and it will be a multi-month project.

At the moment, due to Patreon-end issues, the stats for July are still a little off because of issues with declined payments and folks needing to sign back up. But, based on the current stats, we had 565 of you fine folks stick around. That means we're on the down-hill slope towards the Illustrated Novel!

On Commissions

I've had a background thing of doing commission work on a case-by-case basis throughout the last year, but I don't really talk about the details here on the Patreon and usually just release the content. Even OFG is technically a sponsored story as Aurelian15 continues to sponsor the releases.

The first thing y'all might be interested to know is that I don't post all Commissions here on Patreon. Sometimes I get a request that just doesn't suit my style or themes, and that I'm sure wouldn't be well received by most of you. The thing about those commissions is that they pay a premium, and are often short-lived. You can find a few of them over on CHYOA if you're really interested, but I'd suggest to just let them be because they were never finished.

The second thing you might be interested in is that I very specifically have made the decision to set aside the money I make writing commissions to re-invest back into the Patreon. That includes the current Character Art and surprise art releases, as well as development stuff like the new Banner and upcoming new Avatar, and setting aside cash for when we break the Illustrated Novel goal because that will be a costly project to pay for character design and all the illustrations.

Right now I think I'm at the peak of what I can handle in terms of Series commissions between Le Francais, Growing Affection and the OFG Variant events, but I could still be tempted into smaller ones or one-shots.

That being said, for those who might be interested and since I don't know the last time I mentioned them, here are my Commission rates that I have been working from.

For Patrons

$30 USD per 1000 words when the content suits my usual themes and kinks, and can be posted publicly.

$50 USD per 1000 words when the content includes fringe kinks, or is content that I can't post publicly for any reason.

For Non-Patrons

$40 USD per 1000 words when the content suits my usual themes and kinks, and can be posted publicly.

$60 USD per 1000 words when the content includes fringe kinks, or is content that I can't post publicly for any reason.

Commercial (to be used by someone else)

$60 USD per 1000 words for any writing that would be used in another project but includes sufficient Crediting of the work.

$80 USD per 1000 words for any writing that would be used in another project that is content I would not want credited, or that will not credit me.

So far I haven't done any Commercial work, but I've written something under each of the other categories. IF you are interested in a Commission, the best way to talk to me about it will be through messaging here on Patreon!

July Recap

July's releases were a little weird - the month itself was a busy one for me so we didn't get as many of the standard releases as I would usually want, especially of AMA and OFG. We DID, however, see a lot of uptick in Commissions, and I had my writing retreat which saw release of Starship Repo, which was a super-fun project for me to work on while I was away.

So, for an actual recap:

- Regular releases were delayed by commissions and Starship Repo. We still got a chapter of FoF and a chapter of QT:NW out though.

- Ami's character art released, along with the the first Butts release from Bayushi. We also got the new Banner and the Pokemon Cassidy and Cattie pinup from Darktoon, and the first Panel from Hydra featuring Cassidy.

- OFG Bundles didn't happen unfortunately due to time away.

- Starship Repo, the mainstream SciFi Space Adventure, had an excellent start! I'm so thankful that y'all came along on the ride with it so far. 28,000 words makes for about the first quarter of a full, mainstream book!

- I advertised on the big Harem subreddit; it was a wild 24 hours that ended in the advertisement and someone else's review getting removed since AMA isn't a "True Harem" story by some folks definition, but I have to think that some of y'all new Patrons came in from over there with how big July was for growth. And welcome!

Plans for August

- Full slate of releases for OFG and AMA. I want to get ahead of my release schedule over on CHYOA for both of them because I've fallen behind.

- At least one chapter each for FoF and QT:NW this month, and ramp up into more in September.

- Commissioner-pending, we'll likely see another Le Francais release and another small Growing Affections release.

- I want to get these OFG Compilation Bundles complete, and catch up on AMA to be current there too.

- I'd like to try and get at least 5,000 words of Starship Repo done so we see some progress there, but not enough to delay other things.

- Art-wise, Bayushi will work on August's Character Art poll winner, and Butts #2. For those who had read this far, we'll also be getting a new Avatar and another Pinup from Darktoon, and more Panels from Hydra.

- I got permission to advertise of the Romance for Men subreddit, so I need to decide on which story to promote (likely OFG or AMA)

- As a personal goal, and reflecting what I mentioned up in the 'Not-So-Brief History,' I also need to get outside more. Whether it's going for a bike ride or hitting the driving range down the street for 45min, I need to get more active again. This much time in front of a computer is a problem.

That's all for now, I think. This post is long as hell and I'm losing momentum, which means I've probably already been rambling too much. Thank you all again for your continuing support! I appreciate you all SO MUCH for how you've helped change my life.

Cheers,
~Break.