State of SaunterWing (11/2/2019) (Patreon)

Wow! Here we are in November! What a wild ride its been so far, huh?

Last month was a doozy, and the months before, just as much so! 

First, lets clear some of the elephants out of the room. There are, unfortunately, some elephants in the room that are going to need to be addressed going forward. ...Unfortunately, I think most of this post is going to be elephants, unfortunately...

Elephant #1: Birthdays.

There were A LOT of birthdays between August and September. Most of that probably beign due to how many peeps fuck during the holidays (December, January, February), as a time for love, family and celebration. Doesn't make sense? Count back 9 months (period beween conception and birth) from Aug/Sept/Oct and you'll see what I mean. As you guys know, I do Abby/Nabby Birthdays for peeps I like. I don't have to do them, and there's no real rhyme/reason TO doing them other than I like the peeps involved and they have enough information (personalized/branded OCs, public information about their kinks) that I can make art for them. When its one or two per week/month, I can do them with enough efficiency that they don't disrupt my schedule. Usually. That was NOT the case for the last few month, where, at their peak, I was doing three cards per WEEK, in addition to the random card where I don't have advanced notice on Deviantart. It was a bit much, honestly, and, combined with my new life changes and schedule (see below), a little overwhelming, and damaged a treasured relationship.

I also ended up dropping the ball on my SFW birthday card to work on my NSFW one, which doesn't see much use anyway because I have so many custom cards that I almost never need it (in five birthdays since, I've only used the generic Abby card once).

 To that end, I've started making a "Birthday Calendar" on google to give me a little more advanced notification on birthdays. It's not perfect (I have no plans to go through my calendar and hunt down every birthday), but it should allow me to buffer this time of year next year better. 

Next year, you ask? Well, yeah, I have no plans to simply make this a one off deal. I like doing them, and I like celebrating the people I do them for. Also, I plan to be much better next year than I am this year, both in terms of skill, creativity of the cards, and familiarity with the people I'm doing them for. For example, compare last year's Waggling Mermaid Card:

with this year's:

I think its a marked improvement, and not just for the usage of ink line, color and Nabby! I'd like to keep getting better every year until I am disincentivized from doing so. I'd also like to track down the birthdays of some of my favorite peeps who aren't artists, but still have characters and tastes I can use to craft beautiful celebrations of their life and creativity. So yeah, look forward to that!

Elephant #2: the Schedules:

So, around July of this year, I got a new full time job and moved 1/3rd of the way across the United States. At the same time, I also increased my production schedule from two-three guaranteed days of content/week (Monday with the AbbyCaper comics, Work-in-Progress Wednesday and Friday with animation in general), to five guaranteed days of content/week (comics, images, WiP, loops/images, game-over) with a sixth promotional day on Saturday. Technically 10 posts go out per week, since Patrons now get buffered early access content! 

Part of the reason I did so is that; you guys aside, my style is very niche, and Abby as a character is even more so. Put another way, my style and characters are not inherently easily popular, and to overcome that, I rely on my animator chops to grind out content at a rate and quality nearly unmatched by anyone else on the internet (the rate moreso than the quality). 

This would be fine if all I was doing was SaunterWing work. It might even be fine, if I was a full-time adjunct professor of animation (i.e. teaching classes, but no expectation to develop the department/faculty). But its not, and not for the reasons you might think.

Despite my grind, I'm not really in much danger of burning out. I like drawing, and I try to keep my ideas simple enough that the executions don't feel like they overlap too much. I try to treat each individual work as its own piece, rather than a continuation of a previous work, and so far, its been working. And whenever I feel drained of ideas, you guys always bustle in with more! I also know when/how to take breaks so as not to burn myself out physically, and buffer enough content that the breaks aren't super noticeable. Even theoretical hiatuses like the one during my move.  So burnout isn't really the problem.

No the problem is that SaunterWing is currently eating up so much of my life right now that I'm in danger of not growing anymore because there isn't time to, with a full five day posting schedule. As an assistant professor of animation at the school I teach at, I am expected to be the foremost authority on a variety of subjects, some of which, I have no experience for, and must acquire the prior semester. For me, this means learning 3D (and its subcategories), graphic design (and its subcategories) and a variety of other topics. As I work currently, I have no time to do so, which will be a problem next year. Similarly, I also have SFW content that I work on and publish, and unlike SaunterWing and my IRL day job, there is no external incentive to work on them. But I still do want to do said SFW content. For example, this animation:

https://youtu.be/gFJp-1eE3CQ 

has waited 2 years for completion, admittedly because I didn't know I'd be busy, then lose my job, then spend the next year finding a new one, then moving to said new job, and then becoming busy with SaunterWing. And, as you can see, there's only one shot left to finish! (not including credits) I'd like to finish it, so I can move on to the next animation on the backburner. Despite my workarounds for avoiding burnout, I need interests and finished creative work outside of SaunterWing, if only to find new ways to inspire and revitalize SaunterWing, and to be able to create that work, I'm going to need time to dedicate to that other side of me, as well as other ideas as well. So, at the very least, the publication schedule is going to need to change.

The other reason the publication is going to need to change is so that everything I do can get the appreciation that it deserves. I'd be lying if I said that, with a five day per week publication schedule, I'm worried my stuff isn't getting the appreciation it deserves because you only have 3 hours to appreciate it before the next thing comes in and wipes the slate clean. And as you guys know, I work hard on my stuff. Harder than most, if you've been around this scene enough to know why most artists don't have comics or animations. That work deserves its time in the sun as well. And getting that appreciation means giving it time for people to appreciate it as well. This honestly deserves its own full post (which I will give it), but if you have any thoughts on the current posting schedule, what schedules with other creators have worked for you, let me know in the comments of this post.

Elephant #3: Social Media: This Patreon, its growth and Piracy:

So, the other day, while browsing the premiere pirate site for Patreon pages, yiff.party, I discovered that I have a page there, where all my public posts are available for viewing! Despite what you might think, I was honestly amused and honored. I'd say about 80% of my content is, or will be, available for free (Thanks to you guys), so there's not much point in pirating it. I was also honored in a dark way, because someone thinks my content is worth pirating. Unfortunately, it has made me a little suspicious, but not enough to take preventative measures beyond the existing ones. That's why Dropbox links go out as direct messages, rather than just posting the links publicly. But yeah, that's a thing now, which is weird, because there isn't really a reason for it. Milestone achieved: "worth pirating!"

Something else that's been on my mind is how to grow socially. I like where things are, and have found a routine for posting, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about that routine being derailed at some point. My eye and money are on DA and Patreon going the Tumblr-pocalypse route, but without the catastrophic loss in usability that happened with Tumblr. I'm not worried for now, but I am keeping my eye on things.

Less negatively (but still not positively), I've noticed that my growth on DeviantArt has stagnated since I started posting on Twitter, and posting my links to Discord from Twitter rather than DA. The reason for the latter is that Twitter posts preview images regardless of their NSFW content or not, whereas DA will block the image posting with a mature content image, forcing users to click through the link to check them out. This would be fine if not for the fact that Twitter and Patreon have ABYSMAL archival methods. 

On Twitter, you can only go so far back before the system refuses to cooperate, and its unwise to have a purely promotional Twitter account that has no personality imbued through, so if you want a specific post, you have to dig through the trawl of non-content related tweets. On Patreon, very few creators archive their content properly, with tags that don't help with finding posts, and, like Twitter, the archive only working so far before the posts are pretty much inaccessible. 

That's the reason for having both a Dropbox archive and DeviantArt account. Its also why those accounts are organized the way they are; if you either want to peruse everything, or look for specific works, they are either organized into the appropriate folders (within reason), or tagged appropriately, so finding the specific post is easy. Heck, I do this when I want to reference something I've already done! Both so I don't have to dig for it on my computer, and also so that I can link an account the curious party can also follow!

Back on topic, its sad that my DA account is starting to drop off in terms of growth, but I feel it doesn't have to be that way, and there are should be principles of social media growth I can apply to get it back up again, like my Twitter. And in general, I'd like to grow my presence socially, on different sites, rather than finding a plateau and simply resting on existing followers and patrons. The goal would be for peeps to be enamored enough of my work to link back to it, similar to this post on Hypnohub. 

Similarly, I would like to grow this patreon as well, if only by getting more $3+ tiers (though, obviously $7+ and $10+ are greatly appreciated). The reason for this isn't just pure greed, but trying to grow and improve myself as much as possible, with my social media numbers being one of the expressions of that growth. I do do comparisons with my peers to see how I am doing, and some of the results are interesting. There are few peers with whom I am doing better on Twitter, but not as well on Patreon. There are peers who have more patrons, but I am making more money due to having higher base tiers (my lowest tier being $3, vs their lowest tier being $1). And of course there's the baby elephant in the room that I've done better in one year of doing boob/dick art than I ever did in 10 years of trying to do SFW content. I don't think comparisons have to be innately harmful, nor growth purely financial. But I think they help figure out where you can grow, and how, if you should.

So when I'm doing something right, I like to know what it is, and how I can do it better. I'm not looking for Patreon to replace my day job, But I am looking to take this as far as it will go, and I know that Year one has not only been a great year, but its only the beginning.

Speaking of...

Elephant #4: Goals and Growth

This is another elephant that deserves its own post (subsequently, please leave your comments in the comments), but I want to get the conversation started. You might have noticed that there aren't any Patreon goals. This is because, thanks to my new day job, I don't need to. Now, sure, I could create goals that would take care of various financial responsibilities that would reduce the tension and stress of being me (i.e Rent = enough money to cover rent), but the other reason I don't have goals is that I don't have any rewards that could be attached to those goals. Its like the achievement system in games; sure, we've reached the goal, but what would I have to reward you guys with? Most other artists expand their patreons with ventures into alternate media, like comics and animation, but, as you guys might have noticed, you guys get that by default, and I am not looking to restrain myself to nickle-and-dime you guys. Nor have I ever been; I could have when this started, but I will not now. That being said, would you guys like something like an achievement system, even knowing there aren't any rewards? Let me know in the comments. As mentioned before, this will get its own post, but I'd still like your thoughts on it.

So, where does that leave someone like me to go? I could try telling long-form stories with Abby, but if that was something I was interested in, I already would have. I could go bigger with long-form animations (rather than just the game overs or loops), but such a load would be unfeasible in addition to my current schedule (see above), and the rewards (maybe more followers) would not justify the expense. I could try making a game, but I'd run into the same issues, compounded by the fact that I'd also need to learn HOW to make a game, which, again, with the current schedule is mildly untenable.

I could introduce new tiers that allow for custom art beyond just the sketch suggestion thread, like full illustrations, loops and game overs, but right now, the suggestion thread isn't stable enough to suggest anyone would WANT to pay that much (on a regular schedule, not just the one-off) for custom work. At least, not from me. And before I inadvertently lay the blame at your feet, I haven't exactly been stellar in honoring my side of the arrangement as well, either. Not consistently, anyway. Maybe the suggestion thread needs more reminders during the month, rather than just the one post at the beginning of the month? Let me know in the comments. 

I think that's all the major elephants. As you might have gathered, a few of them are still here to stay while they get hashed out, but at least they're out in the open, and its not my responsibility to handle them alone. They're also not your responsibility either, but perspectives other than mine help a lot. 

Thank you for your continued patronage (or following, if being a patron isn't for you yet), and I'll catcha over Yonder!

-Saunter!