[Blog] Considering a Change - Voting Polls (Patreon)

Experiments:

If you're a long-time patron of mine, you'll know that I like to experiment with new ideas every couple of months to find ways of improving the experience and keeping it fresh. While the current arrangement has given me a lot of freedom during the last few months, it's clear that I'm not using that freedom very effectively to acquire financial success.

This time, instead of introducing completely new elements, however, I think I'll instead be introducing ideas we've used in the past, but handling them differently -- Voting Polls & Suggestions.

One of my weaknesses as an artist is that I don't draw enough horny art of popular characters, sticking primarily to original & niche content, severely limiting my growth. As a result, I don't seem to provide enough value to the average consumer. My Patreon has not seen any substantial growth in 2 years, only earning $100 more per month in that time.

Consider these ideas a mere trial run; perhaps we'll try them out for a month or so and see how it feels. That said, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below before I implement any of these ideas.

Proposed Reward Structure:

$1

• Popular Character Poll #1
• Bonus Sketches (the collection posts, but lower priority)

$3

• Popular Character Poll #2
• Major Illustrations (comics, image sets, etc.) (if available)
• Illustration Variants (undressed edits, etc.) (if available)

$7

• Dropbox Archive
• Concept Art

$10

• Suggest characters for Voting Polls
• Suggestions may be used for extra illustrations if time permits

Bonus Sketches:

I never intended Collection posts to be the focal point of a month, so I don't want to lead people to believe they should always expect to get 30+ pieces of art every month. As great as that is, I'm worried I will force myself to outdo myself each time, increasing expectations, as this is something I've done in the past with various other features. You can see this in action with the Concept Art posts - the earliest ones transitioned into massive design essays.

By focusing on Voting Polls, perhaps we can lower expectations in regards to the quantity of content every month. That said, I hope the value offered by the polls will make up for that - as you will be getting to actively decide what I draw. In which case, the sketch collections will just be extra content instead of the main attraction.

Voting Polls:

By building the experience around voting polls, I will hopefully create more opportunities for popular characters and entice more users to join the Patreon. I'd be lying if I said this change wasn't being made in the hopes of acquiring more money, but my financial circumstances are tough right now and it's clear that I can't afford complete creative freedom.

In the past, we've often had characters that would steamroll the competition. In order to solve this, I started featuring two winners per poll so less popular options had a chance. By featuring two polls, I may be able to simply separate the

Popular & unpopular characters so they're on equal footing with their peers.

Anyway, that's it. Again, feel free to share your thoughts on this matter. I plan to continue thinking about these ideas and studying other creators to see how they're succeeding.

Don't forget to eat & sleep.