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WIP / State of the ol Art Career Thing (Patreon)

Published:
2022-09-05 09:27:10
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Content

Work in progress.

Monthly cycle complete.

I am somewhat concerned, over the past few months, that I'm making the wrong decision over the structure of this patreon.
Maybe I'm giving too much out on twitter, maybe I'm severely undercharging for the amount of work I'm doing.

I'm not sure how long I can keep charging only $1 for this. I was really kinda hoping that the low price would attract a larger number of people, but I dunno. 

Thanks for sticking around despite my anxiety. 

On a lighter note, one of the exit surveys (people can optionally write things when leaving the site) thought that this was a SFW patreon. I'm not sure how many layers of the site they had to get through to miss that it's NSFW lol.

Anyway, I dont know what I'll do.


I've considered opening up a voting tier, but that would 100% have to be at 5$/month, and I wouldn't open that until next year.

I've also considered not doing that, and merely raising the price to 3$/month, which would probably only be a patch on the financial pressure I'm finally feeling to move on from years of 1$/month.

Honestly, thinking about doing that makes me feel bad.

Again, thanks for sticking around as I work through this, art will continue regardless.

Files

Comments

aabsurdity

You should definitely move up to at least $2. Patreon processes $1 pledges differently and worse than all other pledges. So, if every patron is currently paying $1, and you double the price, and half of them quit, then you'll still be better off. In terms of how much more you should charge... I'd love to say you could go much higher based purely on the very high quality of your work, but that has to be balanced against the niche subject matter. Can't help you there. This is a low interaction Patreon. Maybe you could do better by creating a Discord server? Who can say?

BroodsTheMoods

I've always adored your work, and you've been very generous about the amount you share for the rates you charge. Even at a 3 dollar minimum i feel like you're providing twice the bang for half the amount as other nsfw creators here. I have zero problem paying more to support your work. While a voting tier is enticing, I've never felt it was necessary for you work. I've loved watching you do what you do and all the world-building to boot.

Xana Synner

Your work is outstanding and I'm sorry you feel such anxiety with how things have been going. $3/m is no problem for me and I will continue to stick around for it.

Sebas

Yes you are severely undercharging and I'm amazed that you've been doing it for so long, you put in more work than a lot of people who charge $10-$20 a month, they don't even have your rendering quality and/or alternate versions. So yeah you have no reason to feel bad about raising your price to $3, it's not a problem with the amount of content and quality you put out.

Storyforge

Your wellbeing and financial stability is most important. If you have to raise your prices you should do it. Your art ist outstanding and 1$ is absolutely undercharging.

Nae

I'm probably in the minority as you're one of the few people I've been able to afford to support so far. I will try to hang on, but not sure how feasible that is. I guess commissions aren't an option for you, so I'll try to keep supporting you as long as I can. ^^ I would suggest an art or sketch raffle as a tier.

NackV

I can only ask if you have pay up front on, because I know you are being 'harvested' by the free site.

Spoony Doodle

Definitely up the price to at least $2, patreon eats almost all of a $1 pledge in fees and you get almost nothing

Strike Anywhere

Go for it dude! I think its more than fair to raise your prices, especially in the midst of increasing economic strain these days.

KidNeon

go for a price increase, do $5 even

Silibus

How'd they figure that your art was SFW? I mean some of it is but geez.

gh0st

I've always thought the $1 a month price was extremely generous on your part. I wouldn't mind paying $3 a month for this at all!

A Bear

This is one of those things where you might want to reach out to other artists - who have comparable size of outreach to yours - who are able to make more off their work. Figure out the steps they took to boost retention, build a following, put themselves + their brand out there and how to make a living from this patreon gig. Look at what worked and what didn't work. There's always a risk and a reward weighted against each option. You've got a truly massive backlog of art available for next to nothing. You could afford to experiment (even in small increments) what price most people are prepared to pay - for example graphtreon estimates the overwhelming majority of your patrons pay the lowest $1 tier. If that tier price was doubled to $2, and you lost less than 50% of those patrons, that's a net win. If that minimum tier was $4 and you lose less than 75% of patrons, still a win (assuming patron retention stays the same). I don't know much about how the independent art world works, but are you putting yourself out there to direct followers/new fans to your work & your patron? Are you cross-promoting with similar, like-minded audiences for mutual benefit? Don't be afraid to incrementally adjust things and take a calculating approach to gauge how well it's working on the macro level. Some parts of your work are going to be less adjustable (eg: work output cannot realistically increase 200%) but there are many possible strategies to work with what you're already doing for a better yield. This whole posts reads like marketing doublespeak, but tl;dr you're worth more.

Margaret Trauth

I haven’t run the numbers because I’m on pay-per-thing but the general opinion I see is that $1 gets totally eaten by the transaction fees and that $2 is really the minimum. Also dude I just went looking at the front of your Patreon to try and see the rough size of it and failed to get that but I saw someone asking you for a $10 tier that adds the source files and you turned them down, when a fan is saying “please give me this way to give you some more money that means no extra work for you” then the right action IMHO is “Wow, thanks, I will shut up and take your money!”. :)

Margaret Trauth

At the very least consider adding a few higher tiers. I have like 4 and everything above $1/post is very explicit that it will give you *nothing* more than the lowest except for more money leaving your wallet at the end of the month, and a little more pride in supporting the arts. AND PEOPLE SIGN UP FOR IT. Nobody's signed up for the $500/post or $1000/post one and I don't expect anyone to ever do that but they play some little psychological games to make everything below them seem a little more reasonable, the bulk of my 85 patrons are at $1/post but thirteen are at $5/post and four are at $10.

Maximum

You got to do what works for you. You make excellent art, and so far you have done well by only posting one image of a collection of images.

Jumpin' Jeff

I think raising the floor to $2 or $3 is 100% reasonable. It'll cause some to leave sure, but I think by and large people will understand. Just speaking personally, while I don't mind it for stuff like voting or WIPs/PSDs and the like, I've never really liked when unique content is gated behind higher tiers. That's the one that usually tends to feel kinda bad. But that's just me.

Jane Comstock

Personally, I would not have a problem at all paying $5/month for your stuff, even if it didn't come with voting. If it helps keep you going, then it's worth it, cause I think your stuff is awesome.

Petsinwinter
>>91025662

Raffles are against Patreon terms of service. It often takes months but they crack down on them eventually.

RiverWillows

It's sorta hard to say what you should do without knowing what your goals are for your art career. Do you want to give quality work to the masses? A voting tier or other additional services provided at a higher price would probably be best. Grow your base to drum up more buisness? You'll want to focus on engagement, posting stuff on not just Twitter, but other platforms as well. (Which ones I've got no clue, but one step at a time) Do you just like making things and sharing them with people? Making that process as smooth as possible should be your focus. If you're worried about bills, that takes mental energy that could be spent on more art, so raising your prices could help with that. If that's not appealing, you could go the opposite direction and see what costs you can cut, moving to a lower rent place or something. How much work do you want to put into this, and what do you want to get out of it? Whatever you decide to do, I'll do my best to support one of my favorite NSFW creators! You can do whatever you put your mind to!

Natak Marko

Honestly I’d be fine with the increase to 3 or 5, you do great work

Samuel Albert Mell
>>91029687

They can pay more money if they want. The tier prices are a minimum, when you actually become a patron or choose to edit your pledge you may pay MORE than a tier costs.

Samuel Albert Mell

While naturally I don't want to pay more money, I'm willing to pay $3 since you produce consistent, high quality work. One thing you might consider instead/in addition to that is to put a delay on making stuff public. Have everything you make available on your Twitter, but a month or two after it was actually finished and made available to your patrons. That way, people who genuinely cannot afford to pledge still get your excellent masturbation aids, and people who can afford to support you get access to it early.

Futamagus

You should do a survey - I would pay more, you have a LOT of output for a $1 tier only patreon by comparison to $5 or even $10 tiers Most people don't offer their PSDs until the $10 tier It's usually $1 for base images, $5 for full res + variants (which I don't think you could do because variants are so important to your style, and $10 for PSD

Futamagus

I would also set up a Ko-Fi; you would be REALLY surprised how generous people are. I set up one for my Old Mods, since I'm not very active anymore; and I've made enough money to pay my friend who set up my website and hosting. (not a lot; like around $100 - buy you're VERY active)

Kitten Boogers

Your output for $1 is insane, you could definitely bump it up a dollar or two at least. Don't feel guilty about asking for more. Your time is valuable.

Begemott

$1 is an absolutely insane bargain for the quality and quantity of work you put out. Heck, it would be an amazing deal for $5, I think raising it is completely reasonable. For posting stuff on other platforms... it's weird thing, obviously it drives people to engage and find your work here. But like... the weird thing is that the stuff you give away for free is always the most broadly appealing and "vanilla" version, which sort of hides the most unique aspect of your work. I'm just talking out my ass, but maybe picking one set and giving it away with all the alts would be a better approach? To show off the work you're doing behind the paywall?

Snao
>>91040650

The reason I'm not considering Ko-Fi is because I'll get banned from it very quickly due to size/presence on Twitter. Ko-Fi's moderation team is very aggressive. Patreon itself is eventually planning on enabling tips.

Snao
>>91040283

I do post patreon-only work, but I attempt to make the delay very very long, longer than a few months. I'll have to modify the way I do public teaser images.

Snao
>>91036655

Yeah it's difficult to say what to do exactly but I feel like my primary problem is admitting that people are probably comfortable with paying a little more. I appreciate your help. Thank you.

Snao
>>91035588

Unfortunately, the only reason that this Patreon got off the ground at all, from the old Tumblr days, was by restricting content behind a paywall. I originally launched this as an optional tipjar, and gave away 100% of my work for free on Tumblr. It was a dramatic failure. If I do any restrictive content tiers, it will probably be for clip / photoshop file access. I dont plan on altering the content access for the foreseeable future. Thank you for helping me.

Margaret Trauth
>>91029687

This is true. But having multiple tiers brings up the idea sooner - “hey you can spend $X for my stuff and my thanks, or if you are flush you can spend $Y or $Z for the same thing; from each to each according to their needs”.

Snao
>>91030462

I dont know if I'll add comedy charity tiers but I suppose I'll consider it.

Snao
>>91029082

Patreon and other sites talking about monetization psychology do recommend 5$ as the sweet spot. I have long been stubbornly against doing things like this. My main goal was to suppress individual costs through having a larger number of supporters, but I'm starting to honestly fear that the 1$ price isn't working, and I am still getting a surprising number of people say, in exit surveys, that the cost isn't what they expected (I'm guessing they're complaining about Patreon's fees or VAT taxes, which I cannot control regardless). I think my main problem with retention though, is that I'm having trouble sticking to more storyline-motivated content that I have to eventually return to. Other things like moving just aren't a realistic option to me. I already moved to a cheaper place, and my main option for an even cheaper apartment would lay in moving from the midwest to the deep south, and I'm extremely unconfident in doing that since they're experiencing a water crisis right now, and I don't want to live in the hurricane zone if I can help that. I have been slacking on cross-promotional things, but I don't think that's the absolute core of my issue, but it wouldn't hurt to re-prioritize that a little more. Thank you for your help

Snao
>>91027678

Yeah, it's a bit of a double edged concern I suppose

Ramako

Don't have a Twitter account so anything you posted on Twitter that you didn't post here, I never saw it. Had always been surprised you never created a tier system even later on but recalled when I joined your patreon that this was solely a tip jar. I will continue supporting you, it hasn't changed.

Izzy

you could definitely up the price for the work on offer here, easily 5$ worthy

Snao
>>91026491

Yup, pay up front is enabled. Patreon is aware of these issues and while they've claimed to be concerned, also claim they're powerless to help

Snao
>>91025662

I appreciate your help! Unfortunately, raffles aren't gonna happen.

Snao
>>91024481

Thank you, I appreciate that a lot, and thank you for being so generous, I did see what you did there. Thank you

Snao
>>91023937

Definitely not gonna do a discord if I can help it. Just keeping up with Twitter is too much. I do appreciate your help though.

Snao
>>91044248

Yeah, I do try to post the base version for advertisement reasons. Yeah, I could be doing a better job of screenshotting galleries of alternate versions, as I don't actually get too many complaints about the weird versions

Snao
>>91046550

Thank you so much for your generosity, and yeah it was launched as a tip jar before.

Snao
>>91046742

I'm still mulling over how I'm gonna structure it, but there will be a 5$ tier in that somewhere. Thank you.

Cuda

I haven't kept up with the most recent patreon charge changes, but I believe it's something around $0.60 per patron, so if you are charging us all $1 then you are only taking home $0.40 per person, but if you changed it up to $3 then you'd be taking home $2.40 per person, so everyone pays 3 times as much but you end up making 6 times as much per person. I think an overwhelming majority of your patrons would be okay with that change.

Snao
>>91047944

The thing I am the most uncertain about, is whether or not to require the price increase for everybody

Cuda
>>91047944

Could always just put up a yes/no poll saying "would you leave the patreon if the base rate went up to $3" and see what the results are.

Burbaz

There are patreons at 5$ or more that give half, if not less of what you give, so i wouldn't worry too much. Probably there will be someone that doesn't like that, but until now you always gave us quality content, not just raw material. You could also make multiple tiers and keep the 1$ for the same content you post on twitter... that's a tip jar for who wants to keep supporting without the benefits of a higher tier, but honestly i would go directly with the 3$ like someone else said, and make a 5-6$ for premium content like the multi stage works, or what takes more time to make. (sorry for my english but i hope you understand)

Docperian

You're the only person I'm supporting who offers so much for so little, like there's people that would offer just your base image for $5 and have all the variants at the $10 tier. I'm not saying that's what you should be doing as I personally don't feel it's worth for them, but that's all up to you. Most of the other suggestions seem on par with standards ($10 for PSD's and voting, $5 for variants, etc), so at the very least realize the work you do is certainly worth more. I'll certainly continue at at least the ~$5 tier, whatever you end up going with

box-s

You should totally go for it! The amount of work and quality you put out is insanely good🙏 but I’ll say you just definitely think about doing 3 tiers or at least with something you’re comfortable with

Snao
>>91049460

The PSD stuff is definitely something to consider further down the line.

Snao
>>91049161

Yeahhh, sometimes I do look at other creators and wonder what I'm doing differently. Like. I definitely. Like. Man. It's so hard to talk about lol. It's like I am definitely not messing things up as far as the work goes, except in being too ambitious and except in pricing. I am still stubbornly against carving up the actual content behind tiers except for weird extras like PSD/clip files etc. Thank you for helping me though, I appreciate it.

Spacey

Last month, I had to cancel a few memberships due to finances being tight. And I based my cancellation on the creator's work/ activity and whether it was worth the price they charge. This is an odd way to give a compliment, but I think you are undercharging by a lot. As a fan, I am happy that you post new content multiple times a month. But other less active artists are charging more than just $1, at least. I can't say I know much about figuring out prices for one's artwork. But I can say your stuff is definitely worth more than the artists that I've stopped supporting. So I do hope you consider raising to $3 or $5 (preferably). On another note, I've always wondered why you release so much onto Twitter. And honestly, I assumed you weren't concerned about money and just did this as a pastime. But if you were worried about retention or people pirating your artwork on free sites, then maybe you could try periodically releasing older sets to the public after a delay. It might make the pirating less relevant and maybe they will slow down on posting so much on other sites, if the public can already get their stuff from you eventually. And getting the whole set might attract more people as well.

Mecha Kaiju X

I just upped my pledge now so i hope it helps! Although if you wanted to have voting based on outfits and other pic alts you could put those up any time you feel! ^^

Snao
>>91050691

The speed of piracy is very much immediate. I monitor it regularly and the longest delay I've observed from the time of a post, to it being reposted on the two sites I will check up on is around 2 weeks at most. Don't worry about that, it won't ever be stopped, but that's ok. That's just kind of life I guess! I release a lot of stuff on Twitter because, it is often work that is relevant to a time period, or another event that is interesting to people. I suppose I can censor teaser images far more in public at this point. Thank you so much for helping!

Snao
>>91051264

Thank you so much, it helps a lot! And yeah, voting on outfits might be a good idea for sure.

Nae
>>91025662

No worries, I was completely unaware it was against the terms of service since I had thought most artists seemed to do them. I love your works regardless, keep being awesome and I hope you'll get out of this slump, all the best!

Snao
>>91025662

Yup! No worries! A lot of people still do them until Patron mods give them a slap on the wrist