ItsDirector's Roadmap (Patreon)

March 4, 2023

Hi everyone! I'm posting this to sort of force myself to do the things I want to do in the near future. I haven't done one of these before, but better late than never, right?

This post will be available for all who follow me on Reddit, Patreon, Ko-Fi, and Discord. If you know anyone who follows me elsewhere and would like to know this information, feel free to let them know :)

Livestreams:

I want to write a somewhat contemporary novel that doesn't fit the mold of r/HFY and have decided that writing it live might be cool. It will be on twitch, and will allow viewers to see my writing process and the tricks I use from time to time. If the stream becomes popular enough that I don't need additional financial incentive (i.e. I get a bunch of subs and don't need the money), the entirety of the novel will be released publicly on my Royal Road page as well as self-published (like The New Species was and The New Threat will be).

If not, I might withhold the final chapter of the novel for patrons (ko-fi too lol) and those who are willing to published version. Or, maybe not. I'm still brainstorming this idea. The pace of releasing TNT and THFD has made it difficult to find an appropriate time for the livestream, but my original thought was to have them on Saturdays at around noon. We'll see how that pans out. I want to begin sometime in May 2024, but due to the aforementioned pace of releases for the other two stories I'm doing, I may have to delay it until TNT has had its run.

Art:

I've had some people show an interest in making fan-art, but I don't really have a place for you to post it yet. I've looked into creating a sub, but finding good moderators seems to be the biggest hurdle in that regard. The only places to post fan-art thus far are my discord and my refrigerator (but only if you do a good job lol).

I intend to hire an artist to help bring my vision of the characters in my stories to life, and create a sort of picture-book detailing each character. As I will have to pay the artist for the ownership of their copyright for their work, this will take some time due to my current financial obligations. In an ideal world, I'll be ready to start interviewing artists in early 2025. In a more realistic world, mid-2026. Worst-case scenario, early 2027.

If you want to throw money at me to speed things up, you can do so using Ko-Fi's donation feature, but I definitely don't mind working for my bread. Both Patreon and Ko-Fi have subscription features that actually give you benefits and will ensure steady progress to my end-goal. I also don't have the means to accurately predict how much donations will speed things up.

tl;dr Donations are appreciated, but not strictly necessary :)

Merch:

I've floated the idea of merchandise before, but I don't really have a solid plan for it. I've got a loose idea involving the Directorate of The United Systems, but don't have anything concrete as of yet. When I was streaming full time I had some clothing merch on Bonfire (I called my fans The Directorate, and yes that did inspire the name in The New Species lol) involving the symbol you see as my avatar. I mostly use it for new shirts now, but I may revisit the design in the future once I set my mind to it again.

Progress and Goals:

According to the r/HFY W4ffle bot, it has been 1 year, 4 months, and 1 day since I posted the first chapter of The New Species (my first novel for those of you who are unfamiliar). I have posted 268,792 words since then, with an average of 2,399.93 words per chapter.

On Reddit, each chapter receives an average of 54.94 comments, my reddit profile has gained 2,328 new followers, and I've garnered an unbelievable amount of karma (est. 39k).

On Royal Road, I have 527 unique followers and my highest ranking so far is #1821 (I don't know if that's good or not lol).

On Patreon I have 196 followers, 125 of which are paid.

On Ko-Fi... well... I have 15 followers, 14 of which are supporters.

This level of success is mind-boggling for me, and I could not have done this without all of you. Thank you so much for all of your support.

My goals are simple and attainable. By the end of 2024 I want to hit 300k words and get a total of 200 paid subscribers. To do this, I will likely just have to keep doing what I've been doing. If you'd like to help, sharing my work with others is the best way to do so :)

It's been an amazing journey so far, and I look forward to the road ahead.