IMPORTANT POLL: 2021 Roadmap (Patreon)

Hey guys! Still on a break, and I've been genuinely taking time off this time, I swear. (Mostly going, what's a hobby? How do I fill this time?? The answer has been Webtoons!) But while I've been taking time off, I've been thinking about where to focus this year, and figured I'd get your guys' opinions.

Right now I'm tugged in a lot (a lot) of different directions. Drilling down to only 2 or 3 big focuses will help me keep my output consistent and turn away work that doesn't fit those goals. Anything that falls outside of the 3 main goals will be delayed.

So without further ado, here's all the different focuses that've been bouncing around on my mind lately. In the end I'll probably pick 2-3 to focus on, but it'll be really helpful to know what you guys want to see from me.

Please note: No matter what gets voted on, the comic will continue to update once a week and Patreon will continue to get early updates. That won't change!

The Comic: Increased page production on the main comic

This would mean prioritizing making pages above most other things. That can mean Patreon incentives are delayed. It also means focusing a lot on making the current comic-making pipeline more efficient.

What This Means:
Theoretically at least it means more pages more often. It means hopefully finding ways to make the process easier. And it means more comic pages out for $10 and up!

Uplift Other Artists

One of my main goals with my work, broadly, is I want to be able to use my platform to uplift other artists. What this means in practice is paying other artists for help, showing off other artists' work, and directing my audience to others' work as well. Focusing on this would prioritize bonus comic production, cross-promotion like the Foxglove Collaboration from Halloween, and fanart/fan-comics for other comics. 

What This Means:
You'd be seeing a lot more diverse art from me, as well as more Tamberlane content from other artists! This means more canon content for you, more stand-alone illustrations and comics from me, and the added bonus of more money going to support other independent creators.

I'd also be putting more infrastructure, marketing, and pipeline behind selling the Bonus Comic PDFs and getting half of all sales to the artists who did them!

Patreon Growth

In the long-term, I would love to get this Patreon up to at least $6k a month so that my husband can, potentially, drop to part time work and be my office manager! This focus would mean prioritizing the incentives on Patreon. Making things more efficient so that I can pack more incentives into a month, and offer more incentives in general. Some things that have interested me: more character Q&As, time-lapse videos, increased availability of sketch commissions, redraw your art, redlines, and so on.

What This Means:
It's probably fairly obvious, but this means that I would be focusing on providing more value to you guys. My biggest concern is going to be how to increase value for y'all without overdoing it on my end. How can I create content for you without putting stress on myself? That would be the puzzle I would be solving.

This priority also is sort of exploratory. It will help me figure out what kinds of things I am comfortable with providing, and explore different avenues I haven't had a chance to really do or try.

Patreon Growth would allow me to afford more help and to get a stable place from which to provide help to others.

Merch/Swag Production (or some other word that doesn't sound like I'm coming from an early 00's tech conference)

I would love to be able to strengthen my ability to make good product designs, and sell a small range of satisfying products. My goal is to get to 100 orders a month, to make it financially feasible to outsource my fulfillment to a company. This priority would involve having a merch design cycle every 2 months or so, and put a lot of effort into sales and advertisement. 

Note: The sales and advertisement part is already outsourced to Thornwolf and Hope. So it would really just be merch dev on my end.

What This Means:
There would be more merch available for y'all, and I'd probably include some more coupon codes for Patrons. This also means I'd put more focus into finding a way to make a Belfry plush happen, since it would have to be prioritized to take up that much attention and time. You'd get monthly updates on how this is going and what I'm doing to learn how to make efficient use of merch! So you'd get lots of insight on how to do the same for yourself!

Video Production

I'd like to be able to put some effort into my YouTube channel with timelapses, maybe some tutorials, maybe some "redraw your art" challenges? This would involve developing a pipeline and hiring a video editor, and putting more time and effort focus on to video projects. Plus maybe some animation memes for fun? I want to practice more animation for funsies.

What This Means:
I already have a weirdly large YouTube audience considering how little I've uploaded, and there's already a pretty sizeable funnel from YouTube to my comic. So that means more readers! Plus this could be an alternative monetization opportunity. 

For you guys, it would mean more video content, and probably more insight into how I'm trying to build a pipeline like that! You'd be seeing how it runs on the back-end.

Work-Life Balance

Okay, okay, I know I need to slow my roll and get better at this. But focusing on this means that a lot of things are going to get slowed or reduced while I find the happy medium. I will be trying to get better at this regardless, but putting heavy focus on it means dialing waaaaay back on what I do throughout the year so I can figure it out.

What This Means:
Heavy emphasis on work-life balance means I'm going to basically be tossing nearly every idea that comes to mind into a "someday" pile. That means very little in the way of innovation, change, merch, video, commission opportunities, etc. I don't foresee my current Patreon structure being too affected by it, but it does mean I would be forcing myself to put a bit less effort in, which means potentially less reward for you.

It also means I'll probably be spending more money to hire a manager to help me out. (This is something I'm considering anyway, but it'll definitely get bumped up the priority level here.) 

But it also might mean that I do a better job producing consistently, and it's possible that it will increase my comic output in the long run. I'm not sure.

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So as you can see, there are ways to boost all of these in a kind of interconnected way. If Patreon gets to a stable $6k, my husband can be my office manager, and then I can deal with better work-life balance. Or with a better work-life balance, more comics could potentially come out. Or by uplifting other artists, Patrons get more fun incentives.

So you can see how I'm always running in every different direction!!! So you tell me, folks: what's important to you? What excites you? What do you think I should be focusing on this year?

Drop me a vote of up to 3 focuses, and I'll think about the results when I'm back from my half-break. 

No matter what gets picked, you'll be getting a monthly update in what I'm doing to achieve those goals in the newsletters. So if you want to know more about what it takes to run a YouTube channel, pick Video Production! If you want to know more about comic production pipeline, then pick Comic Production! You know what to do.

Thanks as always, folks! I'll be back soon. <3