Halfway There, After Just a Week! + Feedback Time (Patreon)

Hey there again, Nintendo Force fans! Lucas here just past the one-week mark since we launched this new Patreon page, and my goodness, you guys have made it take off like a rocket! With just one notice posted over on last year's Kickstarter page, a single Facebook message and a handful of tweets from our @NintendoForce account, over 850 of you have already heard the call to action and jumped on board here – either renewing your existing NF Magazine subscription or signing up for the first time ever! Thank you all for such a fast response!

What's more, our volume of supporters has already propelled us way up in the all-time Patreon rankings, such that we're sitting at #108 right now. #108 out of all Patreons ever made, after just seven days? You guys are crazy! (The best kind of crazy.) We should crack the Top 100 before long, and then keep steadily climbing the rankings!

If you take note of our "Next Goal," you'll see we're also already past the halfway point in reaching the funding level we need to keep NF going in printed form for the long haul. That $8,000 is the critical number – if we kept going with printed NF editions without hitting that threshold, we'd be taking a loss every time and wouldn't be able to keep existing too long. :p But I'm confident we'll surpass that goal well in advance of our cut-off date for our next issue, which isn't until March 7.

Most of our existing subscribers will likely be reminded to renew by the arrival of the printed Issue #19 in their mailbox, as I made sure to trumpet this new Patreon page loudly just as soon as you flip open the new issue. It's heading out to thousands of subscribers right now, and among those thousands will surely be at least 750 more returning Force fans who'll also want to keep NF coming to them throughout 2016 and beyond. Added to our current number of patrons here, that would make around 1,600 total subscribers – which is roughly what we'll need to hit that $8,000 printing cost threshold.

Having said that, please don't rest on your laurels waiting for other returning subscribers to be the ones to jump in and push us past that minimum goal! We really need your help to get the word out to friends, family and online acquaintances – because it's going to be new subscribers who've never had NF delivered before that will really grow our audience and allow us to keep doing bigger and better things for you all!

So, Feedback Time: What would motivate you all to be active on our behalf, working to recruit new subscribers? I've tried a few referral incentives over the past few years, but each time it seems my ideas for what would get you all most energized haven't actually been interesting enough to spur you on. So I want to hear your ideas! Discounts? Giveaways? Prizes? Extra copies of issues? What's the thing that would really make you hit the streets and work diligently to recruit new fans to the Force?

Respond here and let me know! And, once again, thank you for your mind-bogglingly fast, Week 1 patronage of the new Nintendo Force Patreon page!

~ Lucas M. Thomas