Notes about rewards + retrospective update (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Just a small update on rewards and a small retrospective. Nothing to be worried about!

I was reviewing the Exit Surveys recently (comments from people who unsubscribed). Aside from the ones in 2017-2018 (which were perfectly justified and I don't blame anyone at that time for unsubscribing due to dissatisfaction; I was going through a very difficult personal time that started immediately after I graduated that resulted in a crushing workload followed by heavy depression/burnout that I couldn't have predicted would occur right after setting up here), I didn't see too many notes about rewards until one from this year stating that rewards were too hard to find.

I had initially assumed that emails would be enough, but going forward I'll be sure to tag rewards under "rewards", and updates like this under "info"; I'm really sorry that I didn't engage with that system when it was first introduced and I had simply assumed that people would open emails about the reward posts, but I will start doing that just in case.

For anyone who may have missed this in the past, I typically process and post rewards on the 7th-9th of each month (the ones being posted tonight will be for November 2022), which is around the time payments for that month have been processed fully. If they aren't posted then, it is usually because the 7th-9th may not fall on a weekend and I ended up busy with freelance commitments that required my attention; in which case rewards will be uploaded on the following weekend after the 9th. 

Anyway, in regards to the beginning of this post, I do want to say that I am especially grateful for all of your ongoing support and patience with me over these years. I acknowledge that there was a rough start and I take full responsibility, as I had kept most of my work and personal life private at that point and never shared that behind the scenes my day-to-day was very quickly extremely busy after I entered the freelance world and no one would even know why until the following 2-4 years when the multiple projects were being revealed. It was extremely tolling emotionally and mentally as well, and behind the scenes I did suffer for it through depression and emotional breakdowns. There was not a day that went by where I didn't feel a gripping guilt for not being more on top of rewards during that period. Even today, I feel awful for that period in my life where I feel like I disappointed many people and they won't even be here to read about why it happened, but I had to get it off my chest since I never addressed it.

But, I am proud that the past several years have ironed out in terms of consistency in rewards despite my freelance commitments/schedule, and I can only hope that I continue to share work that makes all of you happy, as well as whatever personal projects I'm pursuing! And I hope that with the comic I am planning out, I can share some more Patron-exclusive content.

Take care, everyone! I will be sharing November 2022 rewards later today.