scruffythedeer
patreon
Reworking my Patreon
🕑 Added 2019-08-03 21:45:33 +0000 UTCHello friends! Today I am sick, so I am doing work that pertains to my artwork but isn't necessarily drawing. Like touching up my Patreon! This is something that I would like my patrons to have the final say in, but I'll touch more on that further down the post.
For the record, any rewards you have already paid for, from first joining to when I implement these changes, are going to be fulfilled!
However, in it's current state, I don't believe my current model is sustainable in the long run. I'm not a fan of admitting it, but I work slowly. All three of June's monster design rewards took significantly longer to complete than I had anticipated. Also, because I am not currently in a comfortable financial zone between my commissions and my Patreon (i.e. I still cannot pay my rent on my own without the help of loans), more often than not I am finding ways to make money outside of my freelance work (like producing short videos for local businesses) and my punctuality is suffering because of this. I wanted nothing more than to drop everything and go full-time on my freelance work but it just doesn't seem to be that easy.
My goal is to strike a balance between the benefits that I am receiving from this and the benefits that my patrons are getting, which seemed like an easier task than it is when I was on the outside looking in. At this point in time, I have been told by a number of friends that I am selling myself short. I don't like to think that way, because I fear disappointing people quite a bit, but if I'd like to continue doing this I need to tip the scale a little more in my favor.
I don't want to take away the benefits that I offer right now (if anything, I'd like to add more), but I need to put forth more concrete regulation on the ones I have currently. Right now, $50/mo gets you a fully designed and shaded full-body image of a new character and a Telegram sticker/logo. If these were commissions, that would total to around $120 if I pretend that I'm not coloring the stickers. If I could, I would be sticking with that, because anyone willing to support me is more than deserving of such a discount in my mind. But in order to maintain an incentive to continue doing this, I'm going to have to break up my tiers and offer slightly less for the same prices.
This is where ya'll come in. My goal is to give you guys less for more, and I'm sorry that is the case, but that's exactly why I'd like you to have a hand in making these decisions. "Pick your poison" as it were. All I need to know from each of you is:
1) What about my current Patreon model do you enjoy and want to preserve?
2) What about my current Patreon model do you think could be improved in a way that is fair to both you and I?
I have some ideas kicking around right now, and I plan on expounding upon them in the very next post, but I'd like to hear what people think before moving forward.
Thanks for reading!! Please have a frog + deer as a reward for your patience.
Comments
I presume that the custom design is a one-time thing and not a monthly occurrence. If that's true, perhaps do that after someone has been in the $50 tier for a little bit so you could both plan it out a little and derive a proper value for it. $50 for a character design is very cheap, especially when you shade and color it and then add on a monthly sticker not to mention color that, too. I don't know how quickly you work, but it would seem like your hourly wage for your art would be quite low. 1) Let me preface this that I am indifferent to what your tiers look like. You aren't an artist I patronize for some kind of reward. Though to be at least modestly helpful, I find that when I do patronize an artist in order to acquire something that something is most often access to some form of content. Larger files, exclusive works, or whatever have you. The personalized rewards like commission discounts, free artwork, and such are unimportant to me. If I want something like that, I prefer to directly pay for it. I don't know how feasible it would be for you to offer some kind of exclusivity in the tiers. Frankly, it doesn't matter to me either way. As I said before, I don't patronize you in order to gain anything. 2) I'd certainly pull back a bit on what you're giving out for $50 a month. I don't know if I'd recommend creating higher tiers in which to move those rewards. Perhaps changing it to a fair discount on commissions (within reason) so you're still getting a fair rate for what you do and the patron can feel like they're getting a deal. That said, I don't think people going for the higher tiers are looking for deals.
Lachlan MacKinnon
The biggest thing I like about your Patreon is simply being able to support you, honestly. I'm fully content with you reducing the rewards I receive for my tier to get to a degree of sustainability on your end. For example, I support another friend's Patreon at $40 - it gets me a sticker every month & a small discount on any commissions I order. The creature design, as you said, feels more like a $100 to $150 tier. I can't afford to upgrade to that tier just yet, but as I said at the start - I'm more concerned about supporting you, not the rewards for supporting you. <3
