June Monthly Newsletter (Patreon)

Another month, another newsletter! 

Well, guys, it's been 3 months since the Great Refactoring and it's time to take a look at all the progress that's being made on my end! As you can tell, there are a LOT of moving parts to this thing, and progress is slow but dedicated to getting caught up to all the special prizes.

$3 Folks

Thumbnails & Sketched Pages
It's been surprisingly tough to remember to save these versions before I move on to inks! I'm just too eager I guess, haha. But I'm getting better at it, and I don't discard the layers so it's easy to go back and save later. 

I'm unsure about delivery method right now. I've been posting them here in their own posts, but it seems to be a disconnected way to do it. Perhaps I can move them onto Itch.io, or move all of my Itch.io stuff to the shop now that it's not garbage! What would your ideal delivery method be?

I haven't yet taken the time to put together the old files for these. Are you guys invested in these? Should I move up their priority?

Bonus Comics
I put out a little bonus comic on Father's day! It's Patreon-exclusive and very cute. I hope you guys enjoyed it! I hope to put out more like it, hopefully with more polish, but I can only do so much!

$5 Folks

Polls
I've put out quite a few polls since this change. It's been really great being able to get your guys' feedback! Do you all want me to run more "fun" polls, like favorite characters? Or should I keep it to important feedback stuff?

$10 Folks

Sketchbook
I designed and distributed a 100-page sketchbook and I'm really happy with it! It's full of commentary and some art that hasn't been distributed.

Welcome Card
The welcome card took some time, and I'm still a bit unsatisfied with it. I went for a greeting card instead of a postcard, but all it seems to do is scuff up the design and make it look kinda gross. What do you guys think? Should I swap to postcards?

Behind-the-Scenes Blog
I haven't gotten a chance to go behind the scenes much recently! As y'all know, my health has been very up and down. But I have a plan to put out a post about the back-end of fulfilling an order and how all my shop organization is set up. it's my current big passion and I'm so excited to share how I've set things up, since I felt the resources for ecommerce at my level are very limited.

$25 Folks

Layered Files, High-Res Files, and Comic PDFs
Like the sketched & thumbed pages, I'm unsure if it's the right delivery method to have them all on Itch.io. Maybe I should instead make an index page on Patreon and link directly to the files on Dropbox? Hmm. It's a work-in-progress. And to that same end, I gotta recruit Panda again to help me get through the backlog of these!

Stream Sponsorship
We've got our first Stream Sponsor, thanks to Scott Fraser!! I'm sorry it happened at a time that I haven't been streaming very much but that should change soon. Thank you for your continued support!

Monthly Postcards
I've caught up on these and I've managed to stay caught up! How exciting is that? I also recruited my husband to write/find all my jokes, so feel free to blame him for your groans. ;)

Welcome Packages
I recently instituted the form for receiving your welcome package! I have sent a couple of these packages out so far with other outstanding orders, and many others will go out with the quarterly merch packages!

Monthly Store Coupon
I haven't been super on top of this one, but I've been running a lot of sales anyway. I'll get y'all your July coupon shortly! I need to figure out a good way to remind myself to do this and automate it more.

$50 & $100 Folks

Sketch Request
I'm making my way through these as fast as I can! I've managed to get most of March's sketches done and I'll be blasting through April soon. I'm terribly sorry for being so far behind, but I'm ready to get back to zero!

Quarterly Merch
July will be our first test-run of the quarterly merch shipments! I've been pondering a lot about how to organize orders for this and I'm still unsure how to best store organized envelopes/pouches throughout the quarter. I have many ideas though! 

The other thing I've been thinking about is how to balance quarterly merch with Kickstarter merch. I generally will need lots of support in Kickstarters so that they succeed (and $50+ folks are the mostly likely to spend money on a Kickstarter). So my options as I see them are:

• a) If you support the Kickstarter, you get your KS goods with the rest of the KS shipment (early, likely) and with highest ship priority.
• b) You just get a second free set with your quarterly packages.
• c) Kickstarter merch doesn't count for quarterly packages.

Do you have any better ideas? What's your take on the problem?

Lifetime & Treehollow Society Rewards

Pins & Keychains
I've got the 1st year and 2nd year lifetime reward keychains in my possession and they'll be sent out with the quarterly merch! I also have the Treehollow Society membership cards done. There are other merch-y things that need to be made for both of these rewards though! They're getting done bit by bit.

Website
I've been having issues with my Zapier integration that I used to get a detailed spreadsheet of all of my patrons and their status. As such, I haven't been able to update the website in a few months! I'll work on fixing that soon!

What's Left to Do to Catch Up?

Here's what's planned, in order of priority! 

• Mail existing packages
• Lifetime Rewards & Treehollow Society updates on the website
• Catch up on Sketch rewards (March thru June/July)
• Treehollow Society Pin (Designed, need better illustration & then to order it) 
• Make Society embroidered patches
• Make 25% coupon
• Make Beta Reader channel on Discord
• 3rd year & 4th year Keychain designs
• Design Tamberlane bag
• Design Journal, Sketchbook, Pen & Pencil
• Bonus Mini-Comics: Motherly Advice & Kitten Around
• Printed Extras Bonus Book
• Upload Sketched/Thumbed/Layered/High-Res pages
• Move the above to the online shop?

What do you think about the redesign now that three months have passed? There is still a lot to do to catch up, but I feel that the bulk of the important stuff is done. Is it too much? Too little? Am I too inconsistent? Has it felt rewarding? Are you actually interested in the merch rewards? Let me know what you think!

New & Upgrading Patrons

It's that time again! Hello my new and excitable lovelies! I hope you've been enjoying your stay! As always, I couldn't do any of this without you wonderful patrons, every single one of you. You really help my life stay stable.

On the $3 tier, welcome to Chris E! I hope you've gotten to take a peak at the sketched pages that are uploaded!

On the $5 tier, welcome to BoRhapMovieLover! Have you left a review yet? 

On the $10 tier, welcome to CT Vulpin!  Gotta enjoy the extra pages you get to read, huh? Thank you so much!

Until next time, y'all! I look forward to hearing your feedback about all of this!