Long Update (Patreon)

I sincerely apologize for the delay in this upload. I'm embarrassed by how long it took, and I'm trying to be as transparent as possible in this post. I was aiming to wrap up Lisa by Wednesday evening, but because of the work on my job I couldn’t finish it on time. I quickly sent out a message from my phone—no preview images, nothing—just to notify you about the delay and set the goal to finish and upload as soon as I got home. Unfortunately, this process dragged on longer than expected, and I was only able to complete the scene today, Saturday, during my free time. It’s a longer upload, with the bonus image bringing it to over 100 pages, so I hope it does justice to the story. It's about a quarter more content than the previous updates.

It's clear to me that I can’t keep working this way. I already felt uneasy at the start of the month because I had very little content prepared in advance and didn’t want to publish a schedule that was more of a wishlist or guideline than a firm plan. For the past few years, I’ve been a university student, and your support has even allowed me to stop working part-time while studying, pay down some debt, and save for the future. However, I graduated earlier this year, and it’s clear that I’m struggling to maintain the same level of output next to work. Managing three different ongoing monthly stories and a monthly spin-off doesn’t give me enough time to focus on any one project at a time, and the workload is overwhelming. When the workload increases, these delays snowball, and then I have to work twice as hard to catch up while creating new content at the same time. I currently spend about 30 hours a week on this, in addition to a full-time job. Something has to change.

I’m currently considering three options:

A) Pause Patreon billing for an entire month.
This would allow me to pre-produce a full month of content, so any delays from work or life would have less impact since I’d have weeks of content ready in advance, similar to my fellow story writer and artist, Arianault. However, the way Patreon handles billing pauses is less than ideal. While it’s great for stopping billing for existing patrons, it also prevents new patrons from joining for the entire month, essentially giving no opportunity to access any content. This means anyone interested in early access to Lisa would be unable to sign up, which is unfortunate, especially since first-month patrons get a fantastic deal by gaining access to all past content.

B) Reduce the number of uploads by eliminating one Patreon tier and story.
This would cut the monthly uploads from 8 to 6. I originally made 3 tiers as that is what’s recommended by Patreon but I’d be much more comfortable with only 2 Patreon tiers.

I’m really enjoying both the Lisa and Dragon series, so it’s clear which one would have to go—Fountain of Growth. That story only has a few chapters left, while Lisa still has about a year until its finale. FOG is only a seven-chapter story anyway. The issue is that I’m very attached to the stories I create, and I’ve only ever canceled one project before because it was utterly overwhelming me at the time. On top of that, I’d feel like I’m not offering enough content to justify the tier prices if I just eliminate 1 and the Tier prices stay the same. Patreon doesn’t allow in changes of Tier prices. Coming from a poor background myself, where I won’t inherit anything and my parents can barely support themselves, I know how hard it is to budget even a small amount of money. I wouldn’t feel good about implementing something which would essentially function like shrinkflation.

C) Use my vacation next month to pre-produce as much content as possible.
I originally planned to buy Wukong and spend some time gaming, but at this point, I might need to use that time to get ahead on content, especially since I’m moving soon, too. This would mean no changes to the current schedule, but it would cut into some much-needed break from everything else.

D) A combination of the 3 things stated above:
Kinda not going fully committed into each of these directions, while still trying to steer the ship further on it’s current course.

Well but what does this all mean in the immediate short term?

Unfortunately, Fountain of Growth won’t be finished today either, as I had to prioritize my time on Lisa. Looking ahead to next week, my workload doesn’t seem to lighten up. With an estimated 10-12 more hours of work on the story tomorrow, I expect to finish it with another 4-5 hours on Monday evening, at which point I can hand it over to the proofreaders. This should allow for an upload as early as Tuesday, but it will leave me with little time to work on Lisa—creating a repeating cycle. On a positive note, the next part of the Dragon series was nearly completed last weekend and is now being proofread, so despite any challenges next week, Saturday's upload is guaranteed, and it will be available early in the morning. This gives me confidence that I’ll be back on track at the very least by next Saturday, unsure however how long that is going to last. As the problems that lead to the present situation, remain.