Thinking about Updating Reward Tiers (Patreon)

Hey guys. So yeah, another one of those self-reflection posts because I'm sort of on a break month and all that and if I'm gonna change things then I should probably do it on a sort of off month. So... I've been thinking about exclusive pictures and how they've been affecting my schedule both in drawing and colouring them. Like alot of the pics I've been doing they've sort of gotten a bit out of hand since I came back from break with some of the biggest pictures I've done that month being tied to them, which not only makes me less active in the early month but also gives me a headache at the end of the month as I have to figure out how to colour them. And in cases like this month, it sort of bleeds over to the next month anyways. I've actually thought about shortening them and making them smaller. In fact I've thought about doing that for several months but I sort of feel like that's to be expected of me nowadays too. At the same time I feel like people aren't really too interested in the exclusives anyways.

Plus there's also leaks which kind of defeat the purpose of doing them as well. I've occasionally found them posted on other sites, in some cases not long after they're posted on here. It's a part of being on the internet and if some anonymous person is dead set on leaking my stuff out then I can only do so much to stop it, but it is discouraging whenever I see it happen.

If I'm being honest with you, it's sort of the part of the month I dislike since I feel like I'm not being as active as I'd like, and I'd rather just go about pics on a request by request basis instead of breaking up my time between doing exclusives and requests. So I'm thinking about replacing the exclusive pic rewards with something else and making my schedule more consistent throughout the month. I mean, I was okay with doing exclusives before, but it seems like times have changed along with the way I work and I feel like I need to readjust. I apologize for those who were looking forward to those sorts of rewards but on the flip side I'll probably be working more on requests and colouring them and you guys no longer have to wait a week for me to post something at the beginning of the month like I've been doing recently. Also means I'll open up the suggestion box earlier too.

So what does this mean with regards to the current tier system? I'd thought about introducing new tiers at different price points and asking people to switch over before deleting the old ones but, after looking into it, I think it'd be a hassle to deal with, so I've decided to just adjust the current price tiers with different rewards instead.

One of the biggest changes that I'm considering is to introduce different suggestion boxes for different tiers. Since most of my pics nowadays tend to be classified into either shorter one-offs or longer 3+ page miniseries anyways, then I'll probably think about allocating the rewards based on that instead of the types of colouring. More specifically I'm thinking about a small suggestion box which will be more for smaller pic suggestions (like up to 5 panels) and ones where the suggestions can be more elaborate. I just think things would be more fair this way, especially since I found myself doing fairly large requests for patrons in the $1 tier who shouldn't even be able to see them at times. And yeah, I'm still trying to get a balance between bigger and smaller pictures as well, so this is another reason why I'm leaning in this direction.

Another idea I'm considering is introducing polls for some pictures. Since ditching the batch format late last year I have found myself conflicted between different suggestions and what to do next and given the limited amount of time I have I can't really do all of them. So in those cases I've been thinking of letting people decide. Along with the different tiers of suggestions there will of course be different sets of polls as well.

Finally there are commissions. I've been getting into the habit of doing commissions again since it seems like there are people interested. Since I'm not really picky about commission pricing and all that I've thought about adding discounts for patrons as well along with some guaranteed # of slots for people in upper tiers.

So here's where I'm currently leaning with regards to the new rewards:

$1: Just a tip jar.

$5: Access to early high resolution pics, access to the smaller suggestion box where the suggestions are 1-5 panels, the ability to vote on all sketches for colouring, ability to vote in polls for smaller suggestions.

$10: Previous rewards + access to the bigger suggestion box, more likelihood for commissions to be chosen (I will guarantee some # of slots to this tier), 10% off commission prices, ability to ask for minor edits to previous pictures, ability to vote in polls for bigger suggestions.

That's sort of the idea for now. Hopefully you guys think this is a fair system. If anybody has any critiques or suggestions of what else I can add then I'm open to hearing them. I'll probably make an announcement of the new tiers sometime later so people are aware of what's going on.