Update: Schedule changes ahead (Patreon)

I have been back at doing YouTube full time for a few months now and I have been running into some familiar problems. The scope of the videos I'm interested in doing are hard to fit into a weekly format. I really enjoy making long form in-depth videos on a topic and taking my time with the writing and research process to make something that I'm really proud of. And for the first time in a long time, the numbers on what I'm putting out are reflecting that my audience mostly feels the same way. 

The problem I'm running into is that in order to put out content frequently enough to make ends meet right now, all of my time for weeks on end goes into making bite sized videos. And while these are fun, they're making it hard to put time into reviews and essays. This is especially an issue this week because I attempted to write an essay type video in two days and realized that it's just not possible to be that fast, accurate and well thought out. Revising takes time. So if the issue is funding in order to give myself more time, I just need to restructure  my business model to make it work with what's available to me.

At the moment, I am considering switching to a model that consists of uploading one to two times a month, with one video a month containing a paid sponsor. This way I can still stay afloat while putting more time into each video. And also that way I can stop charging Patrons multiple times a month, which I feel is probably not a sustainable practice in the long run. One video a month can still contain free promotions for black owned businesses assuming there are businesses that are interested in the idea, the other will be a paid sponsorship. And some months if I really just want to go all in on a big topic I can just drop down to a single video with a sponsor. 

So to clarify, the adjustment is that I'm going to switch, starting next month, to charging one to two times a month on Patreon rather than three. The trade off is that one Patreon supported video will also contain a paid sponsorship from a brand. Also of course, fewer videos, but hopefully higher quality ones. I realize this is super common practice on YouTube these days, but I just thought I'd be completely transparent and keep you guys in the loop about what  my plans are. Please let me know what your thoughts are!

That said, I outlined my plan for this month's content in my last post and pretty obviously I'm going to need to rework that as it is now Wednesday and I have to start over on a new video idea. This week's video will probably be available in early access on Friday and go live on YouTube on Sunday as a result, and my plan is to talk about the process of transferring Pokemon from a GameBoy Color Crystal cartridge up to Pokemon Home. So yeah just keeping you all up to date.

Very grateful for the support of you all that allows me to be so flexible and explore different models. When I was relying entirely on ad revenue in the long ago times it was extremely difficult to make this kind of a change. I'm glad I have that freedom now :)