Mountain Barber
patreon
State of the Patreon
🕑 Added 2024-02-14 13:47:07 +0000 UTCPromised y'all a status update on Patreon stuff, here we go!
So, as is, I'm pretty happy with this Patreon. I love writing short stories, this Patreon keeps me writing them, thumbs up all around! Got the first Mage Errant anthology coming out here in a couple weeks, which I may have mentioned a time or three.
I'm also well into the next anthology, which is going to be full of stories from across the Aetheriad. (Organized by world.) Currently at about 60k words, planning the anthology for 90-100k, probably. I'm planning for this to be an anthology series, too- with lots more volumes to come. (Right now, I'm leaning towards having one main anthology per series, with further stories in the anthology series- with a couple planned exceptions.)
One of those planned exceptions? A short anthology following the future of the Young Warlocks from Mage Errant! That's right, you heard it here first, folks! Y'all are going to be getting Young Warlock stories here sooner or later!
That said, I am considering some big changes for the Patreon in the future. No matter what, there's always going to be a $1 short story level- that's the basic promise of the Patreon, after all. One change I've considered is releasing a second something every month at some new level. One possibility is serializing early drafts of my eventual nonfiction worldbuilding guide, but that's still a ways off.
I've also been looking heavily at doing a webserial for my next project after More Gods Than Stars. It's an interesting business model, and I love any idea that makes me less reliant on Amazon. If I end up going this route- Patreon>Royal Road>Amazon, I'm not sure whether I'd serialize the story on this Patreon or start another specifically for that one- I'm leaning towards the latter, but not by much. (Two Patreons sounds a bit annoying to juggle, but to do it properly here would require a LOT of reshuffling of the current tiers- I prefer the "special thanks" tier to be the highest tier on this Patreon, and I don't want to jerk that rug out from under current $5 patrons. I'm also not planning to stay with the webserial model forever if I do it, so I'd likely shut that other Patreon down once the other webserial was done.
Most of this is all pretty tentative- I haven't settled on my plans for anything aside from the Young Warlocks stories and the multiversal anthology series, and I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts on the future of the Patreon!
But yeah, always going to keep the $1 short stories, don't worry about that!
Comments
John Bierce
All reasonable thoughts!
Yaboku
I would argue that two patrons could lead to people potentially missing your other works. If they only read the webnovel it could happen that they miss the rest. Also it is always a bit annoying for new members to a community if the works are all over different platform (though in this case it would only be two patrons instead of one). Sooverall if integrating it in the current one would be too complicated, just do two.
Aaron Hathaway
I can understand that. I just think sometimes authors move away from an established story fan base and struggle to keep that fan base with the new story or to find a new fan base.
John Bierce
Hah, no worries! And best of luck with the med school offer!
John Bierce
Awesome, happy to hear it!
John Bierce
Eventually, though there's a bunch of other stuff I want to write first!
Kendelle Trotter
The 1$ for the short stories was always a steal tbh. If there's other content coming up I don't see an issue with prices increasing. You pay more you get more, it's that simple.
Noah August
I'm so excited for this! I can't wait to read the anthology even if the short stories are available for the patreon. The cover looks amazing. I personally think the two paterons makes sense. Though it does seem like a hassle. Either way I'm looking forward to what comes next!
Aaron Hathaway
Are you planning to write more books about Hugh, Mackerel and the others?
Bryek Ward
Sounds awesome. As a reader of some serial series, I've started to realize that I am not as invested in serial stories as I am in traditionally released works. I find them harder to follow since important information isn't something I read yesterday or within the last week. I also find cliffhangers to not hit very hard. You see them coming and after a while, I just become less invested. My latest example of this is in Mana Mirror. There was a fight scene with an "I might be injured here" cliffhanger and I just didn't care (I need to stop trying to create paragraphs...). I'm also too student poor to afford expensive patreons for just getting an early chapter. not sure what I am saying with all this but I'm never as invested in serialized stories as published ones. But I will read it either way. Might not pay for advanced chapters though... I can't convince myself of the worth of that (nor could I afford Mana Mirrors expensive contributor levels. A almost thought of doing it until I saw the monthly buy in price 😮). I want to support amazing authors but I also want to eat haha (and while I am finishing my PhD right now, I did just get a med school interview offer! So it might be a while before I make adult money again lol).
