Announcement! Things are changing!

Hey there, squish here, with a very big announcement! I’m going to be dramatically redesigning the way things work around here, everything from how I handle requests and commissions to what the patron tiers offer. I’m not gonna lie, it’s a little complicated, and I’ve been putting this off for a while, but I think, ultimately, this will make things run a whole lot smoother from here out.

To start with, I’ll get into the stuff that’s relevant to all my patrons: the changes to the patreon. As you may have notices, in the last few months I’ve been having trouble keeping up with the guarantee of two chapters a month, and three is just not happening. On paper, it seems reasonable. I should be writing 3000 words/day, so it should take 4 days to write and rewrite a 6000 word chapter, so I should be coming out well ahead of the goal. But ‘should’ seems to rarely apply to reality… And since racing to keep up with the deadline just ends up stressing me out, I’ve decided to cut back. From now on, I’m going to guarantee you at least one chapter a month. I’ll still be trying to write more than that, and I’m not gonna start taking days off, but I’m not gonna stress myself out over it, either.

Another thing I’ll be doing is changing how the monthly bonus chapter works. I think you’ll like the idea I have for this. Instead of one bonus chapter each month with a length set by the number of patrons, they’re going to be 1000-2000 word shorts, and each month I’m going to write one of them for every $100 pledged. I’m tentatively calling them ‘musings’, for reasons that will be explained shortly. Now, here’s the cool part: you guys, my faithful patrons, will get to decide what the musings are about! Each month, my muses ($10+ patrons) get to suggest topics, and everyone gets to vote on which one they like the most! And at the start of a new month, I’ll make a big post releasing last month’s musings to the internet at large and announcing last month’s winners!

There’s also going to be a change to how I handle requests and commissions. The biggest change: I won’t be doing requests anymore. I know, I don’t really want to do it, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to run out of commissions to work on anytime soon, especially since I have a couple people waiting for me to get an open slot on the commission list. I never planned for the possibility of getting actually popular, and now, it just doesn’t seem fair to the requests to leave them waiting for eternity. I’m going to expand the commission list from 5 slots to 10, and I’m not going to rotate through the whole list of commissions anymore. The whole rotation thing was weird and complicated, and it just doesn’t seem wise, or fair, to keep high-paying commissioners waiting months and months between installments. From now on, when I finish a chapter of a commission, the next slot will go to the highest bidder on the waiting list. No commission gets two chapters in a row, though, so no one commissioner can entirely monopolize my time. Hopefully, that’ll keep things from getting too monotonous, and keep things at least a little fair to the rest of the list.

Now, I’ve gotta start making these changes, let the requests know, and then get started on this month’s bonus chapter. In the meantime, let’s get things moving! Muses, if you would, if you’ve got ideas for next month’s Musings, leave them in the comments! And to the rest of my generous patrons, feel free to vote for the suggestions you like (just reply to the comment so I can count them easier), or just leave a comment about the rest of the post!