3OS, Chapter 6 & commission announcement (Patreon)

Since TIOS is at least in part a story about life in high school, I try to include some of those tropes. This particular chapter is the senior's final k-12 spring break, with a couple TIOS-imposed twists to make it a little more fun. With each book, I try to pick an early-ish chapter to tease the book to the lot of you fine folks, and this one's going to be it for TIOS vol 3 (which I've been calling 3OS in my chapter releases to the $50+ crowd). There's some stuff that happens before this, of course, but I think it's easy enough to follow nonetheless. If you're spoiler-averse, of course don't read this. I'm making good progress so far, and if I can keep focused, I should have it done before too terribly long.

Speaking of having this done before long, I wanted to announce an update to my commission fee structure. The short version: starting in March, my commission rate will be increasing to $0.05/word. I will also be extending the 20% discount previously reserved for the $50 tier to the $20 tier (i.e. $0.04/word). ***Anyone who is already in discussion with me about a commission will be charged the OLD RATE ($0.03/word).***

The longer version: I've been getting fairly slammed with commission requests of late. Commissions are generally pretty fun, but like most creative folks, if I had my druthers I'd be working on my own content. So, in order to winnow out some of the requests, I'm getting a little more particular about what I accept, and prizing my me-time a bit higher. The result of this should be a little less commission work, though there will still of course be the monthly drawing.

For folks at my $5 level, I recognize the main benefit of that tier is access to commissions, and this may reduce the number of commissions produced. For one, note that I never delete these posts and hardly ever share commissions elsewhere, so you still have sole access to a lot of past material. For two, I had a couple ideas for how to balance this out so you're still getting your money's worth out of me. 

1) Do two free drawings instead of one. This essentially makes an extra benefit for the $5 tier as an additional commission, and a benefit for the $10+ crowd as it's an extra chance to win a commission.

or

2) Simply do a short story of my own design that is exclusive to patrons $5+. Most of you came here I know to read my stuff, so maybe just having an extra Ice Bear original is the way to go?

Feel free to leave comments with your thoughts/preferences. In any event, for now, 3OS must go on!