demicoeur
patreon
Patreon Changes for March 2019
🕑 Added 2020-01-23 15:00:02 +0000 UTCHi everyone!
This is a long post, so if you're stuck for time, please scroll down to the bolded 'Tier Revamps' to see a quick overview of changes I'm planning on.
Back in September I talked about making changes to the Patreon in order to bring you some new, fun things but also make my work here more sustainable. If you didn't see that post it's here.
So far, the month of request streams was very helpful, allowing me to script and thumbnail six months' worth of pages. After I run out, I'll do another request stream while I build up the script/thumbnails again :) This also helped in that the streaming was lots of fun, and many of you showed interest in streams becoming a more regular thing!
Another addition I'm not including here but is definitely a possibility: adding writing/drawing tips to the Fetching Fox tier. I've received a lot of really positive feedback on my book/writing in the past couple of years as well as my art. I've learned a lot that could be useful to share. It's just time consuming to write up a post/make diagrams/tutorials so I don't know that it's a good idea unless a decent proportion of people are interested. I may put a poll up for this, but please feel free to give feedback in the comments!
I'd also like to make some changes to tier level perks and pricing. This is a bigger change that I want to be super clear on before implementing, so everyone can adjust their pledges the way they see fit and no one feels blindsided. All this said, here are the adjusted payment tiers and changes I'm planning for March 2020. None of this is set in stone, so please feel free to give feedback.
Tier Revamps:
Darling Deer - $2 ($1 increase)
- Perks include: Polls, Pinup & Livestreams twice monthly
Winsome Wolf - $3 ($1 increase)
- Perks include: Cinderfrost Pages & Sketchbook (10 sketches)
Pretty Pony - $5 (same)
- Perks include: The Sword of Souls comic pages
Fetching Fox - $10 (same)
- Perks include: All of the above plus comic sketches & hi-rez PSDs
Unique Unicorn - $100 (same)
- All of the above plus commissions. I've reduced the number of available slots in this tier though because I struggled to keep up.
I'll explain below some of these changes and why I feel they're necessary.
Darling Deer Changes
I'd be adding Livestreams to this tier and placing the Cinderfrost comics in the Winsome Wolf tier instead. I want livestreams to be most accessible because no one likes a dead chat, so putting them in the lowest tier makes sense. At the moment, most $1 pledges get eaten in fees, and this tier is currently the most work.Most Patreon advice I've seen advises against having a $1 tier because it's statistically got the lowest retention with the highest proportionate cost in fees. The Cinderfrost pages are also some of the most time consuming perks, so having them in the lowest tier doesn't make a lot of sense.
Winsome Wolf tier from $2 to $3
I really enjoy time to sketch and the sheer variety of ideas you guys give me for this tier. While I was considering reducing the number of sketches to help with my workload, I'm not quite ready to let go of sketching, since it can be very liberating compared to final/fully painted work. Instead I'm bumping this tier to $3 and including the Cinderfrost pages in it.
More specific reasons for price increases
In the interest of complete transparency, I want to let you know why I need to start making these changes. Over the course of the past year, the Patreon has steadily decreased in income at an alarming rate. My monthly takings decreased by over a third. This means I'm paying a disproportionate amount of tax because my previous year's earnings aren't even close to reflective of the coming one (if this is confusing, as a self-employed person in the UK I'm required to pay for the 2019-2020 tax year before it's even happened, and they base the amounts on my previous yearly income). Unless I can get the Patreon's earnings back up, this is going to quickly lead to even more financial instability.
I attribute the reduction in income to a few things. A small portion was intentional. I needed to cut down on perks that I was finding impossible to keep up with. Part of it is my own fault for falling behind with posting updates to FurAffinity, where the vast majority of people find my Patreon. However, I've also seen such a drastic decrease in activity on Furaffinity, even when I am posting. In the beginning, a new post on Furaffinity usually resulted in 3-4 new pledges. Now it's closer to 1. The final reason is most outside my control: it's just a case of diminishing returns. I've been working on the same comic for 7 years, and it's only natural that some people lose interest, or their interests change, etc.
But what if too many people leave because of the price increase?
Then I'll have to continue revamping the Patreon perks and tier levels until I hit some kind of happy medium, but I'm hoping the increases are so small that people won't begrudge the need for them. If this isn't possible, and I continue making less each month than the previous, I'll have to look at alternate revenue streams and significantly reduce the Patreon perks to make time. I'd rather finish these comics first though, so if it's possible to boost the Patreon, that's what I'll do. Most resources say 'change up your tier levels and get rid of the $1 tier because it's not cost effective' (in a nutshell) so that's what I'm aiming for.
I hope all that's understandable, and sorry for the wall of text! As I said, I'm open to feedback and suggestions on how to better balance this. I'm optimistic! As always, I appreciate you all so much and all your support means the world. I'd love to get these comics completed within the next three years so here's to that!
Much love <3
Demi
EDIT: For clarity, the amount you pay will not change automatically. For security reasons, Patreon will never charge you more than you originally agreed to. So when these changes are implemented, you will have to manually adjust your tier level to whatever you choose. Hope that makes sense!
Comments
Jing
I know what you mean. There's this guy named Levo whose art I like but he barely updates. I might drop him. Sad to say but my money can be used on other artists.
Tokeru Dash
I have done a few Patreons with other artists and barely get one word from them once every month or two let alone any actual work. I see updates here all the time and constant work being done. I’m more than happy to actually support a working artist! Especially one so amazing! I am actually upgrading to a higher tier now in support.
Demicoeur
I think your tier is probably the most bang for buck since you get most of the content in that one ;) I'm glad you like it!
Demicoeur
Thanks so much <3 I'm glad it's not a massive dealbreaker! I think I just underestimated the amount of work comics can be in the long-term but I'm glad these changes aren't horrible lol
Jing
I'm glad the tier I'm in isn't changing. I like what I get.
Chamomile Sheep
Totally support your decision here! $1 for hi-res comic pages was always a great price, and going up a couple dollars doesn't keep me from still supporting.
Demicoeur
I think this is one of the painful parts about the internet; while there's an opportunity to display and share your art, there's also a lot of uncredited reposting or outright theft that can make succeeding pretty difficult. I don’t really bother fighting piracy or reposting. I just hope that people credit so someone has the option of finding/supporting me if they want. In my experience, the furry fandom is pretty great at supporting artists, but outside of it is a lot harder. There's just a lot of entitlement to free content with not a whole lot of understanding of how much time goes into it.
Demicoeur
It's so nice to hear people say they enjoyed Grayscale T_T I'd love to go back to it one day, but for now I want to focus on getting the furry comics finished. Skie is finished her PhD so it's actually a possibility if I can get the time. I told her about your comment and she was pretty thrilled to hear people still remember Grayscale! I did have a Sherlock short based off a fanfic a friend wrote! But it was mostly experimental/a very early stab at comics. Thanks so much for your support, it means a lot to me <3
Isolfr Ironfang
I did want to say I feel like theres a lot less furry art being made because Artists want to be paid for their art which is more then reasonable. But people keep posting it online so that no one has to pay or even sign up for a website like furaffinity. I know the artist pannekoeke doesn't want his art spread around on sites like E621 or U18chan but people shit on him because they can't respect his decisions
Isolfr Ironfang
I support your choices here. If I might say I would love to see an eventual return of some of your none furry comics. Greyscale was and still is one of my favorite web comics. Didn't you have a web comic based off sherlock holmes as well? or was that another artist? Either way I will 100% still continue to send my support.
Demicoeur
That's fair and I understand completely. If it weren’t for the troubles/declining income I’d leave comics in a more accessible tier. Can I ask what about Patreon (as a platform) is losing your interest, or what things would make it a more interesting place for you? I'd love to forward any feedback on this to Patreon because I agree that, as a platform, it doesn't offer a lot in the way to keep people engaged and interested. It's part of why I'm going to do more streams; actually gives me the chance to talk to people.
Demicoeur
Glad I'm not the only one who's noticed the lull in activity, though sad to hear that FA's losing a lot of its engagement after so long as a furry hub of sorts. Do you know or recommend using Twitter? I seem to see a fair few furries using it more actively, but I'm pretty allergic to Twitter as a platform in general just due to the lack of control I have of my Timeline. Thank you though for understanding and offering to up your pledge! I hope your own business ventures are super successful. It's a pretty grind or die world out there atm :P And ouch, given how high taxes are in Finland, that sounds like a doozie >_<
Ceris
The changes aren't earth-shatteringly huge but I am a bit conflicted about it. I don't expect to get much from Patreon and generally use it as a passive tip jar, but not going from 1 to 3 means that I wouldn't see any new comic content for months which feels worse than having never joined. I'll hold on for now even though the platform has been losing my interest.
Neotheta
I'm definitely seeing the trend of FA becoming less active and overall client activity decreasing everywhere - as I assume people have less money to spend and more to worry about outside of the internet. I certainly understand these changes. I'll be upping my pledge again and let's hope I also manage to make not-downfall in my business so I can keep it that way. And oh, that's how taxes work in Finland as well, a pain.
Demicoeur
I'll definitely alert everyone when the changes will go into affect and how people can alter their pledge to reflect those changes! :)
I understand your choice and, in my case, I will not go down my tier because it is always representative. Are we going to receive an amount change notification to validate it or do we need to see directly here ?
Demicoeur
Thanks for the feedback, I really really appreciate it! I only have 2 people in the Unique Unicorn tier, one of whom says they'll be dropping it after saving the last amount for their commission. The pricing is actually more expensive here than a regular commission, but has the benefit of saving up for it over time, and not having to wait on me to open slots. You're looking at an inked and flat colour price compared to a coloured sketch there; the latter is less time-consuming and less refined. In any case, I’ve found that commissions aren’t feasible for me right now beyond this, so I’m not going to take on anymore unless I’m truly desperate. I can’t balance commissions with the regular Patreon perks time-wise so adding them, even at a higher price point, wouldn’t work well.
Vallahd
Alright. Firstly, the UK self employed tax system is completely retarded. I'm going to state that now. Secondly, I think you're well within your right to ask for some more money and adjust rewards to where they make more sense. The work you do far outweighs the couple dollars we need to pay. Not just the comics, but your monthly pinups and even your sketches as well. One of the things I would recommend as a possibility is offering Patron specific commission slots. No discount, just a tighter pool of customers who are guaranteed to see this and guaranteed to be interested. That may help boost your income a decent bit. I would also consider how viable the $100 tier is. I've seen a number of artists on Patreon offering this, and the math has never quite added up for me. You're offering a decent potion of your time to a hand full of people every month, say 5-6 because I can't see statistics, for a colored sketch every month. I'm going to use the price point of the cheapest option of Flat Shade, Single Character plus Plain Background which stands at £85, or optional Two Character plus Plain Background at £135. You're doing a hand full of these whenever you can. Since Patreon is in Dollars, not Pounds, currently you're being paid about £76,3 for a product that costs £85 at minimum. You can already see that it's an £8.7 loss for the first option, and a £58.7 for the second option. That time could easily be put towards commissions that have a stronger monetary gain to them for the same amount of effort.
Demicoeur
Thank you, that's really encouraging to hear! I'm glad you feel the Cinderfrost pages are worth the increase :) I've considered running a special offer too at some point, but need more time to think about that one ^_^
Drizzle
Moving Cinderfrost to a more expensive tier is entirely fair. I've always thought it seemed a bit cheap for what we're getting. It's actually a really good incentive to move up a tier. I hope others agree with me on this. I really hope this works out and I genuinely appreciate the transparency.
