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Necessary Changes
🕑 Added 2020-03-02 23:25:01 +0000 UTCHi guys! Starting today I made some changes to my tier rewards. In this post I want to talk to you about why and what's new.
Today I got rid of all physical rewards off of the higher tiers. I will no longer be offering customized necklaces and medicine bags starting today for the reasons listed below. This does not affect anyone who became a patron before today. If you signed up before March 2nd, 2020 you will still get your physical items so long as you message me back. I messaged all patrons, former and current. If I haven't gotten to you, feel free to message me. I might have missed a convo or two as the Patreon messaging system is so cluttered and outdated and my eyes are tired of scrolling.
For a while I've been thinking about making this change and this morning I woke up and I just knew this is what I have to do. The way I set up the rewards wasn't working for me. Long story short, I can't keep up and I can no longer afford it. There are several things contributing to that:
My rewards were set up as gifts of appreciation for recurring support. Many patrons only want to sign up for a month however - in which case I actually lose money. Before 2019 it was still a small net gain, but starting 2019 German Mail changed their policies by which I was no longer allowed to ship anything other than sheets of paper as a maxi letter for €8. Shipping any international package, no matter how small, now costs €16 without a tracking number and €38 with a tracking number. Even my highest tier of $66 (ca. $44 after tax) does not cover the cost of material purchase, shipping, cat food donations included in all the tiers - not to mention the days of nonstop work it takes to put together one package. Besides that, the shopping, crafting and casting consumes too much of my time and energy to sustain long term. In case it may be taken as such, I'm not blaming anybody - this was a design flaw on my part. I set it up hoping for the ideal scenario but it's totally understandable that not everyone can afford recurring payments and there's nothing that can be done about that. When patrons stay subscribed for several months that issue kinda resolves itself, but it's just not always possible and I don't like the thought of basically taking money from all recurring patrons to fund rewards for one-time patrons (if that makes sense). It was good while it lasted, but I kinda need a break. I need to be putting money away, not leaving it all at the post office XD
Because I don't like taking things away without offering something in return, I thought of some compromises and replaced the now gone physical rewards with some virtual rewards.
The medicine bag from the Hyper tier has been replaced with access to my Discord server. Since so many people have been pushing me to get Discord, I finally set one up. Now, I'm still figuring this thing out - but ideally you will be able to chat with me at least a couple times a month. Text only for now but this is something I can casually do while tending to other things so shouldn't get in the way of all my other shit too much.
The Ultra tier remains with the monthly live chats with varying themes from healing/relaxation to fun and games. They already take up at least one full day to put together so I wasn't able to find anything else to add on that tier.
The custom enchanted necklace from the Cosmic tier was replaced with a monthly remote spell work ritual. Since enchanting a necklace for each person individually is a bit much, I thought I could simplify the process but still kinda get the same result. For everyone on the Cosmic tier, I will cast a spell from home once a month. It will be a collective ritual for all Cosmic patrons together, likely varying between making a custom sigil for you and burning a candle which I carve all your sigils into, burning bay leaves with your wishes, making paper dolls for you and putting them in a spell jar or anything else I can think of that month. I will get in contact with you via a post to your tier and you can comment and tell me what you need this month and I will do my best to make it happen from the comfort of my home. If nothing else you will get positive energy sent your way by yours truly? You can think of it as that also if you don't believe in magic :)
I hope these replacements work for you. This is not a change I want to be making, but one that I have to make to move forward in life - including catching up with what I owe.
There are minor changes to the Extra tier which are really nothing but updates - I haven't done a giveaway in such a long time (and I think I'm not allowed because that's 'gambling'?) so I removed that. But occasionally there's easter eggs of atypical content from my usual fare so I thought that would be a good thing to advertise for my Patreon with.
That's all there was to that. I didn't mess with the $ amount for the tiers at all, just switched a few rewards around. I hope you're ok with that. I will get started on the new rewards in the next few days. I beg your patience seeing as how I've literally spent all day messaging patrons and making updates and I can't brain anymore. Have a wonderful rest of your day/night :)
Comments
Nkomaeda
Very excited about the discord! I don't see it popping up yet, but you'll definitely see me in there socializing when it's ready. Looking forward to it!
