pulsarbird
patreon
Major Change to my Patreon
🕑 Added 2024-08-28 22:00:30 +0000 UTC*EDIT: made this a public post so when I remove the $2 tier you can still see it.
This is a challenging announcement to make but it’s something I’ve been worrying about for a few months now. Long story short, the comic is not working out at all how I’d hoped and I need to make a change.
Starting next month, I’ll be eliminating the $2/mo comic tier.
The comic will still be posted as usual for the $6 and $12 tiers. I’m also planning a completely new longer-term project that I’m really excited about which those tiers will be supporting, but I’ll announce in another week or two.
I know this seems like an abrupt announcement (especially towards the end of the month), but it’s something that I’ve been struggling with for at least 4 or 5 months now.
Originally when I started doing comics regularly, my plan was to have an entry level tier that could help support them. It seemed like the right move at the time. Unfortunately over the past year it’s become more and more apparent that it hasn’t worked out longer term the way that I’d hoped. Perspective Shift in particular is a more complex comic, and working for the base comic tier has become significant burden that just doesn’t make any sense for me as a working artist.
There are three major issues with things right now:
- Perspective Shift takes far more time than I had anticipated, much more than previous comics. Each page takes 2 - 3 days, and that doesn’t even count additional time writing, doing layouts or building the 3D backgrounds. I can easily spend an entire week working on it and still not get the two pages needed done for that month. Then I end up spending evenings and weekends trying to catch up just to cover the bare minimum that I promised. It’s gone from being a fun project that I want to do to being something I dread working on because I know I have to spend so much time on it and I’m not really getting much at all for the effort.
- Sadly, the amount of money that the comic tier makes doesn’t come close covering the amount of time I’m spending on the comic. (In fact the tier has never been particularly successful, even with other older comics. But they were a lot simpler so it was less of an issue.) I almost hate talking about it in those terms because I’m afraid it makes me sound greedy or ungrateful, but that’s not the case at all. It just doesn’t really make sense when I consider that, instead of the comic, I could do even just 2 or 3 commissions per month, make significantly more money for them, and have close to an extra week more of free time per month. When I look at it in those terms, I can’t justify continuing what I’ve been doing.
- The number of people subbed to that tier is just not that many. So I’m doing an enormous amount of effort for a pretty small group of people. The tier also has other challenges. It’s very common for someone to sub to read ahead, then immediately cancel—which is pretty much the opposite of what I’d hoped would happen. But that’s how Patreon works and I can’t really do anything about it. It does really take the wind out of my sails though. (And that’s not even considering how many people are grabbing it for free from pirate sites.)
I really appreciate all the support the regular $2 subscribers have given me after all this time! I know some people only just signed up for the $2 tier too, only to be told now it’s going away and you have to pay more. And I know there are people who can’t afford to upgrade. I’m really sorry about that. But the comic will still continue to be posted publicly so ultimately you won’t miss anything.
I want to make it clear that I really like how the comic is going and I’m very excited about the story! I genuinely think it’s some of my best work ever. I want to keep working on it. In fact, I want to do more than the 2 pages a month that I have been doing so I can tell more of the fun parts of the story faster.
By bumping this up to the normal art tier, it means that I can make the comic just part of the regular art those patrons get, rather than needing to the comic and then also doing additional art for that tier. (That’s been burning me out like crazy.) If I just make the comic part of the regular art tier, I can justify spending more time on it every month which would also mean more pages.
Thanks for your understanding
-Pulsar
Comments
Pulsar
Thanks hon, yeah it's a constant balancing effort trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. This should help though; it's been weighing on me for a while.
Pulsar
Haha yeah, I've been working behind the scenes on more 3D work, so when I do post it tends to be the comic. Plus I had to play catch up this month from last month, so I ended up posting a lot of pages just in the past few weeks. The next several pages are a lot more complex though, so they might be coming a bit slower.
Rykela Zair
If this means you can be in a better place overall, then it's the right decision to make! It might be hard for the few folks who were on the tier but it's for everyone's benefit - especially your own - if you're able to support yourself with your art. After all, if you're stressed or hate the work you have to put into the comic then that'll be reflected in the final product. Stay well!
Purplecat
Honestly, noticed that most of your patreon posts these days were comic-related so this makes sense!
