Patreon Changes for March 2019 (Patreon)
Content
Hi everyone!
This is a long post, so if you're stuck for time, please scroll down to the bolded 'Tier Revamps' to see a quick overview of changes I'm planning on.
Back in September I talked about making changes to the Patreon in order to bring you some new, fun things but also make my work here more sustainable. If you didn't see that post it's here.
So far, the month of request streams was very helpful, allowing me to script and thumbnail six months' worth of pages. After I run out, I'll do another request stream while I build up the script/thumbnails again :) This also helped in that the streaming was lots of fun, and many of you showed interest in streams becoming a more regular thing!
Another addition I'm not including here but is definitely a possibility: adding writing/drawing tips to the Fetching Fox tier. I've received a lot of really positive feedback on my book/writing in the past couple of years as well as my art. I've learned a lot that could be useful to share. It's just time consuming to write up a post/make diagrams/tutorials so I don't know that it's a good idea unless a decent proportion of people are interested. I may put a poll up for this, but please feel free to give feedback in the comments!
I'd also like to make some changes to tier level perks and pricing. This is a bigger change that I want to be super clear on before implementing, so everyone can adjust their pledges the way they see fit and no one feels blindsided. All this said, here are the adjusted payment tiers and changes I'm planning for March 2020. None of this is set in stone, so please feel free to give feedback.
Tier Revamps:
Darling Deer - $2 ($1 increase)
- Perks include: Polls, Pinup & Livestreams twice monthly
Winsome Wolf - $3 ($1 increase)
- Perks include: Cinderfrost Pages & Sketchbook (10 sketches)
Pretty Pony - $5 (same)
- Perks include: The Sword of Souls comic pages
Fetching Fox - $10 (same)
- Perks include: All of the above plus comic sketches & hi-rez PSDs
Unique Unicorn - $100 (same)
- All of the above plus commissions. I've reduced the number of available slots in this tier though because I struggled to keep up.
I'll explain below some of these changes and why I feel they're necessary.
Darling Deer Changes
I'd be adding Livestreams to this tier and placing the Cinderfrost comics in the Winsome Wolf tier instead. I want livestreams to be most accessible because no one likes a dead chat, so putting them in the lowest tier makes sense. At the moment, most $1 pledges get eaten in fees, and this tier is currently the most work.Most Patreon advice I've seen advises against having a $1 tier because it's statistically got the lowest retention with the highest proportionate cost in fees. The Cinderfrost pages are also some of the most time consuming perks, so having them in the lowest tier doesn't make a lot of sense.
Winsome Wolf tier from $2 to $3
I really enjoy time to sketch and the sheer variety of ideas you guys give me for this tier. While I was considering reducing the number of sketches to help with my workload, I'm not quite ready to let go of sketching, since it can be very liberating compared to final/fully painted work. Instead I'm bumping this tier to $3 and including the Cinderfrost pages in it.
More specific reasons for price increases
In the interest of complete transparency, I want to let you know why I need to start making these changes. Over the course of the past year, the Patreon has steadily decreased in income at an alarming rate. My monthly takings decreased by over a third. This means I'm paying a disproportionate amount of tax because my previous year's earnings aren't even close to reflective of the coming one (if this is confusing, as a self-employed person in the UK I'm required to pay for the 2019-2020 tax year before it's even happened, and they base the amounts on my previous yearly income). Unless I can get the Patreon's earnings back up, this is going to quickly lead to even more financial instability.
I attribute the reduction in income to a few things. A small portion was intentional. I needed to cut down on perks that I was finding impossible to keep up with. Part of it is my own fault for falling behind with posting updates to FurAffinity, where the vast majority of people find my Patreon. However, I've also seen such a drastic decrease in activity on Furaffinity, even when I am posting. In the beginning, a new post on Furaffinity usually resulted in 3-4 new pledges. Now it's closer to 1. The final reason is most outside my control: it's just a case of diminishing returns. I've been working on the same comic for 7 years, and it's only natural that some people lose interest, or their interests change, etc.
But what if too many people leave because of the price increase?
Then I'll have to continue revamping the Patreon perks and tier levels until I hit some kind of happy medium, but I'm hoping the increases are so small that people won't begrudge the need for them. If this isn't possible, and I continue making less each month than the previous, I'll have to look at alternate revenue streams and significantly reduce the Patreon perks to make time. I'd rather finish these comics first though, so if it's possible to boost the Patreon, that's what I'll do. Most resources say 'change up your tier levels and get rid of the $1 tier because it's not cost effective' (in a nutshell) so that's what I'm aiming for.
I hope all that's understandable, and sorry for the wall of text! As I said, I'm open to feedback and suggestions on how to better balance this. I'm optimistic! As always, I appreciate you all so much and all your support means the world. I'd love to get these comics completed within the next three years so here's to that!
Much love <3
Demi
EDIT: For clarity, the amount you pay will not change automatically. For security reasons, Patreon will never charge you more than you originally agreed to. So when these changes are implemented, you will have to manually adjust your tier level to whatever you choose. Hope that makes sense!