2021 Year-End Wrap-Up (Patreon)

Normally I present my end-of-year wrap-up as something more stylish, like a PDF or slideshow presentation, but this year has been different. I didn't set any hard goals for myself last December, not wanting to jinx whatever plans I could write up. Instead, I did my best to persevere. I’ve rewritten this little essay a few times, trying not to make it sound too dire, because it isn’t, and trying not to overshare, or seem like I'm giving up - but 2021 was a year I started to make big changes, and kept struggling, and had the time and perspective to see that I don’t like the course I’m on. I need to express some emotions about my presence on Patreon, and what I really want for the future of my own art.

I can’t finish this YCH.

Sometimes I struggle with a piece so much that I just cannot finish it, not with any kind of confidence or pride. When that happens, I try to inform the client of my honest feelings in the most straightforward way I can. This YCH is one of those times, sorry to say. I realized partway into making it that I didn’t have any enthusiasm, and that my real motivation for making it was to improve engagement with the $6 tier, something I’ve struggled to do lately, since I’ve had very few ideas for special perks. I tried to soldier past this, but the realization felt … cold. I don’t hate this piece. Nothing about it is irreversibly ugly, or wrong, but it means nothing to me. It’s nothing but Content. I tried to push out Content for Engagement to reinforce Consumer Loyalty. If you know me at all, you know that’s not the art I want to make. And I know we live in a hellish capitalist system, and that to be here, I must be a capitalist in at least some way, but realizing that I was making art from a point of such transparent, empty cynicism made me take a step back and think.

I’ve been thinking for a while now, actually, about what I want to do with Patreon, and my art career in general, in 2022. Previously, the goal for this Patreon has always been “make an income, doing what I love.” How’ve I been doing on that?

Well, in four strokes: I’m overworked, under-earning, tired, and demotivated. I’ve branched out in a lot of ways – business formation, online store, con appearances, dedicated websites – and that’s because I’ve been trying to play catch-up. JAIYANDT ended its first calendar year in the black - not very much black, but a profit. Most businesses don't do that in their first year. My Patreon income, on the other hand, has been slipping downward for about two years. In 2018 it was about $1,800 a month from 450 people, its peak. Today it's around $1,100 from 350 people, a 30-ish-percent drop in both categories. This is enough that Patreon doesn’t make me a living by itself anymore. As I try to correct this by making more Content, almost literally all my time goes to some kind of work piece, whether that's a comic page, a commission, merchandise, or a rewards post. This also means that incidental “fun draws,” or art that isn't expressly for Posting, almost never happen anymore. These past few weeks of December, without anything on the docket, have shown me that I dearly miss having free time to draw art for myself, without the pretense of making it into Postable Content. 

In short, in trying to regain lost Patreon money, I'm overworking myself again. Worse still, my overwork isn't having an effect. Patreon numbers, both in money and number of Patrons, continue to slowly drop, regardless if a given month has many or few posts, and this trend hasn't reversed in over a year. So, I'm not convinced that I can grow this Patreon more than I already have, not without leaning hard into becoming some kind of unbearable Influencer. I’ve resorted to weird raffle drawings and giveaways to appease people who are already in my corner, and don’t need winning over. It smells of desperation. At the very least, it's exhausting. 

I understand that there’s a certain privilege at play here. Plenty of artists would LOVE to make five digits a year drawing furries for the internet, but these digits aren’t even high, and I don’t want it to be my living if it makes me act with a hollowness like this. I didn’t get into furry to crank out Content. This isn’t what I love about making comics. Instead, my resentment toward my hobby-made-job is building, and it is building tall. Is it entitlement? Am I unreasonably resentful that I ended up in this incredibly lucky position, and that I should have expected it to take a lot of work, to make this job work? That could be argued, yes, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t keep going in this direction. It’s not a mindset that speaks well to creating artwork, nevermind running an art business. Something must budge, and soon.


So, what to do about it? I think it comes down to two things. First, I'm losing motivation by being Online so much, and second, I need to work smarter, not harder, on my Patreon.

Weirdly, I was very motivated indeed during the creation of ATW#5, when I stopped posting WIPs, and didn’t say very much about it until the issue was completely done. That felt far better, when I waylaid the urge to post every single page like breadcrumbs, and instead presented a satisfying, finished concoction at the end. When not every single drawing was posted as its own Piece Of Content, the complete book was so much better. I don’t rightly know why that was the case, but it was, and I think ATW#5 is the best comic book I’ve made in my career so far. It’s also sold very well, with more unique payments in its first 3 months than ATW#4 has had in its entire life – but that’s another thing I need to stop worrying over. As important as it is that I sell items, it’s more important that I feel proud of those pieces, and I can’t feel that way if I’m exhausted, just slugging from one to the next. 

Why am I so uptight about all this? Fear, to be honest. Fear that people want to see other things more, that making comics will take too long, that I’m not producing them fast or reliably enough to keep up, slip from people’s timelines, and run out of money. Not an unreasonable worry, but one that keeps me chained down too much. As contradictory as it sounds: less work would be more effective! People are here for Ask The Werewolves, and for horndogging foxes and well-dressed skunks, even if those things don’t get mainlined into their veins. The real effort, this year and every year, is getting over my own frustrations and self-doubts.

So, 2022 will feature some experimentation.

1. Ultimately, what I want to do is get this comic business into a position where Patreon is no longer necessary. This means making up about $1,100 more per month in comic sales, merch sales, a bigger reach, and maybe even an entirely different method of subscriptions. It’s a tall order. If I can’t satisfactorily step off of Patreon by around the end of 2022, then I’m probably not going to keep doing this job at all in 2023. That’s a harsh pronouncement, but one I want to stick with. I don’t know if I can summon the energy for another year of Patreon, otherwise. Either I find a healthier, happier way to make this business work, or I get out of this business.
2. I’ll be focusing largely on drawing and finishing ATW#6 and #7, but not at any absurd crunching speed. Two issues in one year is around the pace I’ve averaged in the past, so that seems doable.
3. The “JD Laclede” label is getting dropped in favor of “JAIYANDT.” This is not just to synchronize the term across everything I make, but it also makes it clearer that this comic enterprise is not specifically about me – the collaborators I hire deserve just as much spotlight, if not more.
4. JAIYANDT is meant to be about comics, first and foremost, and so I want to make more of the black-and-white zines with fellow artists, like FMG: Helium Holiday that I made with Mimi! These short (heh) subjects are a great way to make comics more quickly, experiment with fun smut ideas, and get other artists involved all at the same time. I can even print and sell them in paper form much more easily than the full-color comics.
5. This means less time to spend on Rewards posts. I’ll still make wallpapers, but not on a regular basis. I can make fun activities out of them, but the more complex ones take several days, they risk turning into more filler Content when I don’t have a strong idea, and in most months, less than 50 people (not even 15% of Patrons) participate in them. Let’s be honest: you probably didn’t come here for the monthly wallpapers.
6. This Patreon will move to a weekly format, like a newsletter. If it does turn out that I can step off of Patreon, I would most likely replace it with a mailing list of some kind. I also want to post more small incidental sketches (the "fun draws" that I miss), and I won’t be posting every last crumb of comic, the instant it’s baked, as I have before. In the past, I’ve talked about making up for this deficit with a “special edition” of future comic issues for Patrons, and that’s something I’d still like to do. 
7. I want to get back to selling in-person at cons (vaccinations and safety permitting, of course). This winter and next autumn have been taken up by other, non-furry-related travel plans, so my travel budget might be used up before this year even begins! That means I might be restricted to more regional West Coast and Southwest cons in the summertime, like BLFC. We shall see.

All of this is, of course, subject to change. These new methods might work out, they might not. This burnout might fade quickly, or take longer. But as I’ve expressed, I’m almost at the end of my rope with Art-On-Social-Media, at large. I want to make more comics, better art, and more of it. And however 2022 ends for JAIYANDT, I’ll be confident and responsible enough to say that it was my doing, come what may.

Thank you all, so much, especially now, for all your support. I hope your holiday went better than mine did, and I hope you have a wonderful New Year’s. See you in the next one.

JD