Patreon Check in - Follow up (A frank and honest talk) (Patreon)

A few days ago I asked what most people would like to see and whether or not they were satisfied with being a patron of mine. There's a very particular reason for this, and I have a response to the requests in that check in. 

First, 

THE SITUATION

Patreon is my main source of income, and has been since I quit my day job in August of 2016.  I quit because the job had been interfering with my ability to create work and was dead end retail work. Not only was I "on call" 24/7, (even if I was sick) but if I was at work and my boss saw me drawing, he'd assume he wasn't getting his money worth and would ask me to do something extra. It was so exhausting that I'd come home and basically collapse. Any work made between 2013 and august of 2016 was made thanks to a gargantuan amount of will power and need to create work.

Right now, after patreon's cut, I bring in around $270.00 a month. Obviously that's not enough to support an adult, but it's been a great supplement this past year as I've lived off savings. 

 Since I've graduated, I've tried getting jobs at studios only to be pleasantly rejected time and again. The more talkative among these would regail me with advice you'd give a first year college student. 

(On a personal note: the most banal advice you can give someone with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in illustration is 'do more life drawing.' Not only have I been doing life drawing regularly for the past 10 years, but even if you gave me the job I'd still be doing life drawing. Life drawing is something you're supposed to do regardless of skill level, and through out  your life. Its the single most useless bit of "advice" you can ever give. The reality of this advice is someone saying "your work looks amateurish." Fine. I guess I'm just bad. )

Anyway, after numerous studio rejections, I began to resent the notion of working with others. My only option was to grow an audience and hope they would support me.  Now obviously I need something to grow an audience around. Something like a comic, but we'll get to why that hasn't happened yet. 

When I left my job in August my goal was to make sure that this patreon could sustain me before the savings dissipated.  Next month they will dissipate, and 270 a month cannot sustain me, especially when rent alone is over 400. 

I have failed. It's ok. I'm used to it at this point. Just gonna keep moving forward. 

This means that in August I will be moving back in with my parents. 

Even though I've failed, if you look at the amount of stuff I've uploaded in the past year in comparison to the previous year, my productivity has increased by more than 2.5x. This is 100% thanks to patreon and I am entirely cognizant of how amazing that is. Some people who are way better than me, only pull in a fraction of the support I do. You guys are amazing and I love you for it. You have no idea. This is MY failure, not yours.  

After I move back I'll only have a single financial concern

 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40694526/currentsituation.png 

These are student loan repayment plans. This means that the minimum amount I need to earn to continue making work is much lower than what it was to merely sustain my current situation. I'll need to earn between 180 and 260. If you remember, this patreon currently pulls in around 270. We are on a desperate edge. 

Eitherway, I would still take Patreon very seriously, as I consider it to be my job and I take my work very seriously. There is a direct correlation between the level of support I get here and my ability to produce work regularly. There is also a correlation between the quality of my work and the amount of notoriety it gets. Every. Single. Image. needs to be good. If it isn't, no one will care and the patreon will die.  

See, on twitter and tumblr, the thing that helps me the most is retweets and reblogs. Now, my philosophy, and attitude is that I need to make work so good that people can't help but reblog and retweet it. The raven piece from last month for example blew up on tumblr with thousands of reblogs. It was great, and brought a few more pledges with it. In order to succeed, I need to make more work like that. Work that people do more than just "like" but work that people look at and think "oh, my followers need to see this." And I have been trying so hard to meet this obligation for the sake of keeping the lights on.

Thankfully this effort is slowly being acknolwedged https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40694526/effort.png but my hard fought win is, in reality, just mediocre.  For every single person that joins, another leaves. Retention seems to be a problem, so that's why I ask questions like "are you satisfied?" and "what could I do to make this better for you?"

 Right now, the vast majority of the income this patreon generates is from in expensive commission tiers. Tiers that are now hidden so they can't grow as I push for patron volume. 

I push for volume because between September and January I had many expensive commission tiers. However, around february, the individuals in those tiers left and this patreon plummetted. 

 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40694526/growth.png 

And, like, I get it. a 50 dollar commission a month is a steep monthly recurrance. I know I wouldn't be able to keep up with it. So once again, I don't blame anyone for leaving, but I wasn't happy by any stretch of the imagination.

One of the individuals who left told me "I'm glad you're taking this in stride." But I wasn't, as I watched this patreon nose dive I realized how dangerous it was to have a few people pledging a lot. My goal became to have many people pledging a little. And a lot of my recent changes, like the monthly polls, have been to encourage that kind of growth. The minute someone spending a lot leaves, it devastates the ecosystem.  

If all of the current commission tiers suddenly left, my patreon would plummet to around 30% of what it currently is and I would be forced to go back to my old job. Which, once again, would kill productivity. 

That means that although I want please everyone, the ones in those tiers are my top priority every month. Some of them have continued to support me even through missed months and I am actually astonished by their generosity. 

And that's the situation. I've failed, and I'm stressed, and I'm just out here trying to do my best. 

OK NOW ON TO RESPONSES

TOPH HEAVY AND OTHER COMICS

I had this patreon when I posted the original Toph Heavy. In each page posted I included a link to this patreon and it grew by about 3 dollars. The way I interpret this is my work not being good enough. People didn't want more. If they did, the patreon would have grown. Once again, my failure.

So there are three main factors getting in the way of any comic making. Commissions that I owe both in and out of patreon that keep the lights on and get all of my attention. My need to spend extra time creating good work so that it gets noticed. The fact that the previous comic was so bad no one wanted to support me to make more. 

If there is going to be a new Toph Heavy we need to reach the goal on the left side of the Patreon page. Otherwise, it's too dangerous to tell paying clients to go "eff" themselves. 

(As a joke, I put a new tier that completely covers this cost)

VIDEOS

Someone suggested I have timelapse videos, and I've actually been doing that. Its just been few and far between and none cares. I even have process videos frome the past couple of pieces, but since no one seemed to care, and it takes a couple hours out of my day it's like... Why bother? But if more people are interested I just need to compile them and find some music. Not sure if I'll narrate because I have nothing to say. 

THE FUTURE

Now I've mentioned a few times in this post that I've failed. It's true. I have. I don't get anything out of lying to myself, but that doesn't mean I've given up. In the pipeline is a print tier.

I'm going to start making prints and sending them out. I'm thinking they'll be of "Patron's Choices"  but we'll see.

Hopefully that will be something people are interested in.