April Newsletter (Patreon)

Wow, time flew by!! What the heck! How is it already May? That means the year is nearly half over already. I feel like I blinked and 4 months exploded into nothingness.

This month has been one with a lot of ups and a few downs. 

Most Importantly...

Tamberlane returned! After months of waiting to not feel like gaaaarbage, I have improved well enough that the comic has come back from its break with flying colors. Hooray! 

Of course, I'm not all better yet. The healed site is still a bit tender, especially if I sit on it for too long, so my work hours are still reduced. I'm chomping at the bit to get more done, but resting has to come first!

Frustratingly, I got hit with a bad fibro flare last week and was unable to do much of anything for a few days. That's a big boo from me. But I'm feeling a bit better and ready to catch up, especially with today and yesterday full of overdue doctor appointments.

Kickstarter Fulfillment

Early in the month, while I was convalescing, all of my shipping supplies arrived and I decided as long as I was sitting on the couch, I might as well test out some of the tools I'd set up. 

Turns out that when you're binge watching Jane the Virgin and just sort of going at your own pace with a more-or-less straightforward packing order, it's really easy to breeze through an entire Kickstarter's worth of fulfillment in two days. Wow! That's never happened for me before. But then again, this is the first Kickstarter I've done that didn't require me to draw 500 extra pictures, so... there's that.

Last month I mentioned that I had picked up a Rollo thermal printer. I got to test it out with Kickstarter and it is SPECTACULAR. I can just, woosh, print 70 labels a minute. More than 1 a second. How is that even a thing??? I also have it hooked up to ShipStation, so now, when my store is officially set up, I'll be able to chew through orders like nobody's business. I can't wait!

The Store

This is coming along very slowly because I have other priorities right now. I really want to focus on getting all of my Patreon systems smoothed out and ready. And really, the biggest sticking point right now is getting good product photos. I am honestly a bit hopeless when it comes to good photography, but I'm working on it. Just means it's a bit slow.

Of course, the next problem is that I am still unsure which platform I'm going to use. Shopify is my first choice, but I absolutely do not make enough shop orders monthly to pay the $30/mo fee. The current Tamberlane shop is using WooCommerce, which honestly, if I could never ever touch again I would be happy. 

I'm really caught up in wanting the whole process to be smooth and integrated and look nice. WooCommerce does very few of those things without a lot of arm wrestling from me, and man, I do not have the energy to fight the Wordpress Crocodile right now!

But rest assured, it's coming, one way or another. Before that happens...

Lifetime Rewards Fulfillment

$3+ folks got a chance to preview the new keychains for 1 year and 2 years of pledging to this campaign!

Those keychains will be ordered ... -checks watch- ... Tomorrow! Along with the stickers to fulfill March's special offer, and some extra goodies as well. As soon as all that is in, I'll start chipping away at those,

In addition, I got my special pens in to write names on the Treehollow Society membership cards that I showed off last month. I'm going to wait to send those out until I get the enamel pins done. I know what I want to do for them, I just haven't had the extra time to work them out just yet. Blast!

Upcoming Priorities

The biggest priority on my list right now is that I am supposed to have a (relatively short) book written and printed up before June. Haha!!! Who left it to the last minute?! NOT ME!!!! Just kidding, it was me.

This book is supposed to be about marketing art online, and it's aimed at older audiences who aren't entirely sure how to handle social media. I'm going to be writing this book as a series of blog posts for you guys and then gather them all together, add illustrations/graphics, and edit them into a book. Here's hoping my plan pays off, lol.

Other than that, there are a few more things to be aware of:

I'm in the Pokemon Tarot project and I have until May 10th to finish my card! So that's priority 1.

I have chapter 4's first page nearly done. Probably another hour or two of work and it'll be finished and ready for me to move on. It's complex, so it's kind of sucked up all my work time! Hopefully the next pages will be easier.

Patreon sketches are my highest next priority. I'm going to start doing 3 a day until I'm caught up. You have until May 8th to get your requests in for May. You can request your sketches here.

And a Little Life Aside...

My husband and I got to visit New York for a few days this month for our wedding anniversary! We got to see three Broadway shows while we were there: Be More Chill (our favorite musical!), Dear Evan Hanson, and Mean Girls. It was absolutely AWESOME! For Be More Chill, we were front row center. We got spit on a lot, lol!

It was just awesome getting to explore a new place, revisit some restaurants we enjoyed the last brief time we were there (What was that... PonyCon 2014 or something?), see AWESOME musical theater, and we even tried renting a wheelchair for me. My goodness, that made everything A THOUSAND TIMES better. There's no way I could have walked downtown with just my cane. We're planning on getting a wheelchair for home now, for any longer treks like that. (Or maybe for speeding down Seattle's hills. Wee!)

If you're a fan of Be More Chill, the Broadway version of the play really upped their game from the NJ version. Much bigger budget.

Don't know much about Be More Chill? It's High School Musical meets The Matrix meets Little Shop of Horrors. Jeremy is a dork who wants to be popular and gets some help from a bunch of supercomputer nanobots he ingests from a little gray pill. (It's from Japan!) Hijinks and world-ending (or at least school-ending) drama ensue.

Listen to the Soundtrack and/or watch some AMAZING animatics put together by Claudia Cacace (who has a Patreon!) 

Me? Shilling for my favorite musical? You bet.

New & Upgrading Patrons

We had an amazing month here! Thank you so much for choosing to support Tamberlane, and by extension, me! Your faith in my art is absolutely heart-warming.

Welcome to Andrea, Taylor, Lauren, Joshua, Alon, and Tori to the $1 tier! I hope you've been enjoying the return of early pages!

Welcome to L Bassett to the $3 tier! Did you enjoy the keychain previews? It's nice to get eyes on cool stuff early!

Welcome to Henrique, Gary, Ian Matthew Burch, Tyler, and Callum to the $10 tier! There have been a few new pages up this month. I hope you enjoyed them!

Welcome to Scott and Allaze to the $50 tier! I am looking forward to weaving your cameos into the story!

That about wraps it up for this month!

Don't forget to add your address to your pledge if you haven't already (or select the "no physical rewards" option). See you all soon!!