As work continues to be done on Chapter 38, I am excited for the returns of the Fan Reel chapters! For those of you who may be new (or maybe have just forgotten because… it’s been a while… sorry) Fan Reels are where I create a GoogleDoc that is just an old chapter but now my patrons at a certain dollar level up get the honor of throwing their commentary on top of it! I sort of compare it to the MGP version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I have found it quite fun and I hope you do as well. So here are the links to download both Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 and the Fan Reels. Invites to comment on Chapter 11 should be sent out shortly.
So, Patreon announcements. For those in the know, I’ve had the following benefits for donating to my Patreon and various goals. The benefits and goals looked like this:
| Old Stretch goals | Old Monthly Benefits |
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So, I’m now well over a year into the Patreon thing and I’ve decided I need to take a step back and review both my goals and my rewards.Let’s go over my stretch goals first. I think, for the most part, they are fine. The only ones I have concerns about are the pinup one (been so close) and the Monthly TG super hero story. The pin-up one I sort of have been close enough I just want to do it. THe monthly story… I struggle enough with my vignettes. $500 seems too close for me to be realistic about it. I made these goals when I was unemployed for the most part and now that I have a job, I realize I wouldn’t be able to deliver on a monthly chapter for a new story AND MGP. So something will have to change there.
Now let’s look at the Monthly Benefits for patrons. First of all, my 1 cent goal of getting the chapter a day early… I have cheated my patrons due to my disorganization. More often than not (and especially during 3 in April) I haven’t had the chapter ready a day early. For that reason, I’m removing that as a promise so I stop cheating you. For those of you who have been patrons BECAUSE of that promise and I failed to deliver, I’m sorry.
I like the goal of the Vignettes at $2, but I’ve always felt I need some kind of reward for the people at $1. I’ve been discussing it and I think I have an idea for that which I’ll get to in a moment. Another issue though is the Fan Reel. At $5 it seems I haven’t really found a price point where I get a lot of engagement on it. If you’re at the $5 mark I don’t want you to take that as criticism. I understand the Fan Reel isn’t for everyone. But I would like more engagement in what should be a somewhat “loud” environment. I personally have found the comments we receive hilarious and would love more.
The goal I’ve been happy with is the $10 level and that won’t change. I’m a little… what I mean is… I don’t like too many people having their eyes on my work as it’s going. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy having the input from some of the most hardcore fans, but I get a bit of stage fright when I see someone is in my googledoc as I’m writing. Call it performer’s anxiety or something. So I kind of like putting this goal a bit further up there as it makes sure it doesn’t get TOO crowded in the file. I’m insecure. We all are. This is mine.
So, with all that said, I’m amending everything. This is what the new goals and benefits will look like starting in September…
| New Stretch goals | New Monthly Benefits |
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So let’s first talk about the $1 and up access to the Taralynn Q&A. My idea is pretty simple. I have more than a few people who donate $1 a month and I just want to be able to give them something. However, I just don’t have the time to produce more original content than I already do. This was pitched as a simple idea people might like. Every month I’m just going to put out an article on Patreon that is just my monthly Q&A where patrons submit questions and I pick a few I think I can give interesting answers to. I will answer a total of 5 questions a month and hopefully that will be a fun bit of interaction I can give everyone. The only limit on the questions will be NO politcal or religious questions. You guys want to have those discussions… well, the internet has a lot of places you can go for that.
Now, some of you may be worried that this means I’d curtail my interaction in the comments and the forums. Fret not. I’m not going to change how I interact here on the site, but the Q&A is a bit more formal and a place where people can ask me things I might not cover here.
My $2 patrons will not see any real changes to their access. They’ll still get their monthly Vignette and NOW also get access to the Q&A. You $2 patrons have been the backbone of that progress bar filling up over the past year and you really helped out during my time in unemployment. It never is forgotten.
The biggest change will be the fact that I’m moving access to the Fan Reel down to $3. This is mostly to give more people a chance to comment on the Fan Reel. I’ll be posting the Chapter 11 Fan Reel soon so I hope to see your hilarious (or insightful) comments soon!
So, if you were a $5 patron before, what are you getting now? Well, so far you’re getting access to everything you did before. But now $5 patron’s will also get to be the ones who VOTE on what the monthly pin-up art will be AND have priority on getting their questions answered in the Q&A. I’ll detail the pin-up voting in the next paragraph but the way the priority will work is simple. Of the 5 questions that I answer, 3 will come from $5 and up patrons and the other two will come from my $1 and up patrons. Some may not think that’s fair but, hey, $5 is about what my lunch costs each day at work. I just think it’s good policy to reward people who buy you lunch 😛
So, yes, going forward, there will be monthly pinup art IN ADDITION to the monthly commission art. But I didn’t want the pin-up art to just be whatever interested me. I wanted there to be some interaction on that and I wanted the honor of who should be pin-upped each month to go to some of my most generous supporters. So if you’re a $5 supporter, every month I’ll be asking for your help determining what the pin-up will be. My thought right now is to maybe have a theme for the voting but I don’t want it to HAVE to be married to the concept of what is happening that month. However, just so you guys can get a feel for how I’d do this, I’m thinking the September vote I’d put up the characters Angela, Kara, Mallory, Robynne, & Vivian and since September is back to school, you’d be voting for either a Catholic School Girl outfit or Japanese School Girl outfit. That kind of thing. But you $5 and up patrons will be seeing more about this later. Each month I’d then rotate in maybe a new character into the voting so we don’t just pile up a bunch of art for only one character.
So yeah, that’s my Patreon going forward. Sorry to have hit you with such a wall but since patrons give me money I wanted to be as up front as I could about things. And to those of you who aren’t my Patrons, I still really appreciate the fact that you read my story and give me comments and motivation to keep one writing. This all just started as me wanting to tell a story and now it’s been able to grow into something that (as of last month) helped me pay off the rest of my credit card debt. Not to get too sappy on you but when I payed off that last payment I cried. And it was you guys who made it possible. Thanks so much. You mean the world to me.
Getting back to work on Chapter 38,
Taralynn
this looks really great cant wait to read the first Q&A
I have a question about how some of the stretch goals work. If I happen to find one of the goals appealing, and would like to see it become a reality, would I only be able to contribute to it by making the smaller monthly payments? Or, if it’s a one-off goal, like the $300 goal sounds, could I make a larger one-off donation to make up the difference?
Because I’d really like to see the $300 goal become a reality. It would be awesome to see that, and if I can make one bigger donation rather than hoping a group makes enough small donation, I’d love to go down that route. If this is an option, can you let me know how much is still needed? I know the banner is a few months out of date.
If you don’t want to post here, can you use the email we have to provide when commenting? I’d like to chip in, but I know discussing finances in open comments isn’t always the best solution.