Thoughts and plans going forward (Patreon)

Hello everyone. I've been meaning to do this post for month or so now, and finally got around to doing it. It's a lengthy post, but talks about my Patreon's status and future plans. Nothing urgent, so read when you have the time. :)

Patreon Relaunch so far

It's been roughly half a year since I started the process of moving from my previous full-time job to trying to do art for a living. I want to talk about where things are standing right now, and what challenges I'm currently facing. What I've succeeded at and what I've failed at.

First of all, my Patreon relaunch campaign started off on a great note back in May/June. There was more support than I anticipated, and the following month was also great, as revenue increased slightly. However, from there on there hasn't been much progress. In fact, last month support decreased by a tiny bit. 

A little while back I also started selling my Patreon content as archives on Gumroad. The initial sales were great, and there have still been occasional sales, which boosts my income a bit, but it's not a very reliable source. 

I also try to do commissions occasionally, but there are more taxes involved in doing business that way, so it's not been very efficient use of my time. (I'm probably moving commissions over to Patreon in form of more pledge tiers at some point.)

So, I'm making some money, and I'm still within the budget I expected to be in, but I have to be realistic and admit it. This won't work in the long run. Now, before anyone panics and thinks I'm thinking of giving up right away, nope, pretty much the opposite. But whatever I do, I have only about half a year at most at this rate.

To be as transparent as possible, my income would need to go up by about 300€ a month (that's roughly $330 USD) in order to break even with my expenses and to keep this way of living sustainable. It's not a huge amount, but how I go about achieving that can still be a challenge.

So, what's wrong?

The lack of increase in support on Patreon is of course not the fault of my patrons. People pledge and un-pledge according to their interest and financial situation.

I feel like I've succeeded in a lot of things I set out to accomplish with the relaunch of my Patreon. I've produced as much art as I've promised, based on the goals on my Patreon page, which has been '2-4 colored works, of which two are hi-res works' for quite a while. In fact, last month I did a total of 7 colored works, and a lot of variants. That's twice as much as the intended amount. It would seem increasing art quantity doesn't make a considerable difference.

I know I haven't managed to meet all the goals I set for my Patreon, like increasing art diversity. I've done a few pics that are outside my usual range of things, like foot worship, but in all honesty, I don't see slipping in an unusual pic or two here and there is gonna get me more support. Not in a way that makes a real difference. And I'd need to keep doing that stuff regularly to keep the support going. I'll still keep trying to do something slightly different each month for one pic though.

Another thing I haven't quite managed to do is regular appearances of OC's, like Harmony, the mascot. I'd like to fix that at some point though! It just keeps getting pushed behind other projects. 

And then there are also a few patrons who'd prefer more 'happy' variants of my works, but that's also offset by patrons who don't want any of that.

Another issue I've noticed is that in order to sell my stuff on Gumroad, I need to have a lot of exclusive content on offer. But if I make most stuff exclusive, I can't use them to promote my art in my galleries, except as tiny samples with 'buy the real one on Gumroad or Patreon' sticker attached, which isn't exactly appealing. It's tough to decide which is more important.

So, what are my plans to tackle these problems?

Regardless of what I do, we need to face the fact that it's going to affect the art I'm doing here in some way. However, I do intend to stick to the established goals. Just... I don't think I can afford to do as much extra exclusives as I've done in past months. I need to put some of that time towards other things. Mostly custom artwork. However, I also have to be honest and admit that doing a ton of commissions can be stressful, and I'm not sure if that's something I want to keep doing in the long run. So I need to make sure there's enough variety to keep me motivated it if I go that route.

Which brings me to a topic I've discussed before, at least on Discord, can't remember if here on Patreon, but let's go over this again. I used to do slightly less NSFW stuff under a different alias, HitmanN, over at DeviantArt. It was still mostly ecchi, nude, skimpy clothes, pin-up, etc stuff, but tries to avoid turning into porn. That account has been on hiatus for like a year now. I've been thinking about establishing a second Patreon account for that alias to also do slightly less-NSFW stuff on the side, primarily the occasional commission, and maybe a pin-up picture each month, to see if there's support for that stuff there. My primary attention would remain on Harmonist11's Patreon though, it being my primary source of income, but some of the time I normally use to do bonus stuff as Harmonist11 may be directed toward HitmanN's Patreon.

I actually have the account pretty much set up and ready to launch, so that may happen in the coming days. I just wanted to let you all read about it here first, so it doesn't come as a surprise.

Second thing I'm going to do is making less of my colored stuff patron-exclusive. There will still be a monthly exclusive work for the $5 tier patrons, but probably just one. The rest should be public to some degree to help promote my art. Some variants would remain patron-exclusive though, of course. I think the ratio I had going in June was pretty good.

Third, I will probably bring back the third art request slot to the $70 pledge tier here as well. There used to be three, but I dropped to just two, couple months back, to see if focusing on my own stuff would be better. I think I can afford one more request work per month again. Though no more colored freebies like last month. ^_^; The third slot will possibly open next month.

Content wise, no huge changes. Will try to draw more Harmony, the occasional art diversity piece and so on, but otherwise the usual butt action. 'Happy' variants or pics might also happen, but not regularly. I'm still contemplating on working on a comic this month. Lots of those unfinished and in preview state.

Now, what can YOU do to help?

First, I'm of course asking everyone to consider if they could up their pledge to the next tier. If you have the financial means and interest to do so, of course.

Those of you who already support me at the highest available tier, but would be willing to pledge more, consider subscribing over at Gumroad as well, or buying content archives again separately. I will keep thinking of stuff I could offer for tiers beyond $10 that wouldn't be counter-productive or a burden to my schedule, but right now there's nothing planned.

Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/harmonist11

At the very least, I'm hoping that you won't decrease your pledge despite a small portion of my focus possibly moving on to do less-NSFW works under the HitmanN alias. I will still hold on to the promised art quantities on my Patreon page. And of course, if you like the stuff I do as HitmanN as well, why not consider pledging in that Patreon as well, when it's up?! :)

Thoughts? Ideas?

The above may be quite the wall-of-text, but ultimately I'm just talking about shifting my timetables here. A few days a month doing less-NSFW stuff, a bit more commissions and requests instead of bonus stuff. Otherwise, same old, mostly. 

As always, thoughts and ideas are welcome! Sorry for the super long post and thanks for taking the time to read it. You guys and gals are still awesome! Thanks for your continued support!