Major Update Coming! (Patreon)

Hey guys, so I wanted to make this post to keep you all, my current patrons, informed and up to date on my plans over the next few months.

I'm going to start off with the big thing and put it in big bold lettering so (hopefully) no one panics:

I am planning on retiring my $2 tier and creating a new $3 tier to replace it near the end of March/beginning of April (exact date still pending). HOWEVER! This will NOT affect any current patrons because I will be grandfathering you all in under the old $2 price, which you will be allowed to KEEP paying at until you decide to unpledge from my Patreon.

I repeat, NONE of my current patrons will be expected to up their pledge from $2 to $3 in order to continue accessing my content. You will be able to continue reading my stuff on Patreon at the $2 price as long as you want.

With that out of the way, let's get into the nitty gritty of why I'm planning to do this. There are a couple of major reasons. The first is the easy answer... that being inflation. $2 just isn't worth as much money anymore. Prices for services rendered have to go up eventually, and that's true for my stuff as well. My original lowest tier started at $1. 

In fact, hundreds of my patrons from back in those days are still at the $1 tier, affirming my commitment to those grandfathered in after my first change to $2. Meanwhile, my commission prices originally started at 1 cent per word. Both have gone up intermittently over the years.

The second and bigger reason, at least in my eyes... is the value I've added to my Patreon and will be adding to my Patreon permanently over the next couple of months.

First, there's the fact that I have two Weekly Prompt Polls now and have for quite some time. I intend to continue running those two Weekly Prompt Polls going forward.

Second, I've been semi-regularly writing what I've termed 'Free Writes' in 2022 and now 2023. Stories like Maidenless No Longer, Blasting Off, and most recently Breaking Providence have all been a massive value add to my Patreon. Of course, they don't last forever and there tends to be periods of down time between these stories... but I do intend to continue writing stuff like that going forward and expect them to be a regular part of my Patreon from now on.

Third, going into 2023 I have officially started two new Story Polls, bringing the total number of Story Polls that I'm writing on a twice-monthly schedule to TEN. On top of that, after doing Vibe Checks for all of my existing stories, I've started up four other new Story Polls under the existing (mostly) fandoms and I'm hoping that those stories will be much stronger/better then what they replaced.

Fourth, I'm planning on expanding the Patreon Exclusive backlog of all ten of those Story Polls to 4 chapters going forward in 2023. This means that the six new Story Polls will all reach five chapters before the first chapter is posted publicly. After which, I intend to put the four old Story Polls on a temporary public hiatus for a month to build the Patreon Backlog up to 4 chapters as well.

All of this taken together, in my eyes, hopefully justifies the price change from $2 minimum to $3 minimum for new folk. After all, that $3 a month will now be getting you, in total:

- The ability to vote in the two Weekly Prompt Polls, as well as early access to two Poll Winners each week.

- Early access to my Free Writes, be it 6 chapters ahead like Breaking Providence is, 8 chapters ahead like MNL was, or even 10 chapters ahead like BO was.

- 4 chapters ahead on all 10 of my Story Polls and the ability to vote on their direction.

So with that said, I'm first planning on building up all of my new Story Polls to a 4 chapter backlog here on Patreon. Once I do that, I intend on announcing to my public websites the date at which my base Patreon price will change from $2 to $3, giving them at least a month (if I've done the math right) to pledge under the $2 price in order to be grandfathered in before that tier is retired. And then from there on, making the $3 tier my minimum Patreon Tier.

I'm pretty confident that I will be doing this, which is why this isn't a Poll asking for you to vote on whether I should do it or not. For the reasons outlined above, I feel like I'm justified.

THAT said, I'm not just posting this to give you all a heads up, but also because I do still value your feedback and always will. I want to hear back from all of you, even if this change won't necessarily affect you. Do you think I'm right to want to do this? Or am I being crazy/too greedy?

Lay it on me and don't feel like you have to hold back. You guys are the ones who have been willing to pay me for my work after all, your opinion is incredibly valuable to me.