The financial situation of Exiern (Part 2) (Patreon)

A lot can happen between scheduling a post and the following day (hence how there's going to be not one but two posts related to Neese in the minutes following this one) and hence at least part of the post I scheduled yesterday is going to be out of date given news I learned this morning.

Anyway, moving on and trying to keep things as concise as possible (two things I fail at on a regular basis):

For many months (and probably well over a year now), Exiern has cost around $1400 US/month. This is because we've needed to have at least two artists available given the number of times one or the other has had to take a break or shift roles especially given the last 12 or so months. 

We've come very close a number of times since at least 2017 of being perilously close to not being able to update for months, never mind putting up something every week.

Your contributions have helped a lot as of our two main artists, making Exiern has provided 100% of the income for one of the artists and around 80% for the other. Not just for them either but their families as well.

That's right, Exiern has been helping to support 8 or more people for some time now!

So even if the production side of things with one or the other artist was running without interruption, we couldn't in all good conscience have dropped one of them.

As mentioned in the previous post, there was a $950 US or so deficit a month that between Scott and myself, we were making up and from January this year, just me.

It's something I can manage for the foreseeable future but the issue is the unforeseeable future. If anything were to happen to me and I were to suddenly disappear/drop offline/let's just say it - die suddenly, Scott can get access to the technical side of Exiern immediately as he still has full access to everything from the website to the Ezoic advertising platform and the Patreon.

However, the main issue (and why he handed over this side of things to me) is that Scott could no longer manage the deficit spending he was cross-subsidising (I was already paying for one of our artists when he returned and soon after had to step up as the main artist due to those situations that I mentioned coming up).

So I'm trying to future proof the financial side of Exiern lest any of our disaster scenarios ever come to pass (for numerous reasons, mostly non-Exiern related, I really hope not and plan accordingly by looking both ways before crossing the street at an approved crossing when the light is green etc) but sometimes things are out of your hands.

And that's the thing, Scott could take back the running of Exiern at anytime but it's the underlying financial situation that led to him giving up that side of things in the first place. 

I'm taking steps even if Exiern has yet to/never reaches the break even point if a one of those situations where Scott has to retake the wheel (setting it up so he'll still be able to fill the gas tank without me so to speak) and there'll be more on that later when I've actually done so (so probably at least weeks to months from now) but in the interim, I just wanted to outline the situation as things currently stand - and also that Scott may need all your help if that happens*.

(*I very much have plans to try and make sure that doesn't happen anytime soon! 

So far, so good!)

TL;DR - as long as I still have a job and am breathing, we should be good - even without the job for a bit too. However, contingency planning in the works just in case.

Now for that change in situation I mentioned in the first paragraph. One of our artists had mentioned there could be a change in situation and now it's finally confirmed. So for a few months at least, between the Patreon and Ezoic (advertising income) plus their not needing any money from us - that plus the recyclable bottles people leave on my desk because my colleagues know I collect them for $ ... Exiern is possibly going to break even and maybe even make a sliver of profit from this month and maybe even a few months into the future.

But there's still all the past debt and of course, the situation could abruptly change anytime. The last year or so has been full of unexpected circumstances, so the income boosting/deficit reducing work continues.

(Suddenly remembers Dark Reflections: Zen pages have started up again after all this time with a third artist ...)

[[[RECYCLABLE BOTTLE COLLECTING INTENSIFIES]]]