It's been a hell of a week (Patreon)

I got sick, had relatives over, had to deal with a ton of trouble over health insurance, check out the impact Patreon's new fees will have here, and just got snowed in today. It's been a lot of stress all at once, but I'm doing my best to pull through. I'll try and have both stories up for tomorrow but I'd rather make sure they're both up to snuff rather than rush them to get out.

In the mean time I've been doing some thinking about the proposed changes to my patreon tiers that I wanted to implement in March, and how patreon's new fees might impact that. If you remember I was thinking of having three tiers, with a story or two for everyone pledging $1 or more, then 10k words more for the $5 tier, and another bonus 10k words worth of stories for the $10 tier patrons. For those of you who don't know about the change in patreon, they are now charging a 35 cent fee onto every pledge you have, supposedly to make up for the processing fees that us creators have to pay. I'm staunchly against the move and have written to Patreon to voice my frustration, as have a lot of other creators, so hopefully something may change from it.

Basically the new system doesn't hurt people pledging $5 or more as much, since it's only 35 cents added to it. Who it does screw over are people who only pledge $1 to multiple patrons, since you get that charge for each patreon you pledge to. I've already had a few people cancel to protest the charge, and I completely understand. This really isn't a fair situation towards everyone who just wants to give what they can to support the artists they like, but can only afford to give a dollar or two. I've always seen the smaller pledges like that similar to putting money into a tip jar, just a show of appreciation towards my writing, and I've always tried to reward everyone as best I can. From what I can tell there are about 70-80 patrons supporting me who pledge under $2, and you're the ones who are going to be effected the most, since your pledge is going up 17-35% with this new move, vs the $5 patrons who have an increase of 6%, which is pretty negligible but still a dick move.

So what I'm going to propose is eliminating the tiers under $5, and instead putting the stories for all patrons up for free. I expect a lot of you might have to cancel pledges based on this change, and I completely understand. What I'd like is for those of you who pledge a dollar or two to instead show that support here on patreon with comments and discussions. I want to keep the stories up for everyone to read and enjoy, like I always have. Rather than $1 each month please try to give feedback on each story or chapter you enjoy. Try to spread the word about my work if you can. Fan support is really huge for me, and everyone has already proved that you're amazing with all you've done. And if you do feel like showing some love you can drop a tip into my Kofi account every few months or so.

With this new system I'd put out a story or two every month that's free to everyone to read, and then keep the $5 and $10 tiers for everyone who's able to go beyond to support me, and get more of my writing each month for it. Let me know what you think of these ideas below, and know that if you have to cancel your pledge for financial reasons I completely understand. Just shoot me a message to let me know, and feel free to keep stopping by here for the free stories that will be coming soon.