News: 50k Subs & Ramping Up

Hey team,

I wanted to do another update video, but then decided that any time spent editing the thing would be better spent editing a proper video essay, so here's me writing a text update like a normal person.

Short version: Innuendo Studios hit 50,000 subscribers today (wooo) and videos are going to start coming out a lot more regularly. Feel free to stick around for the long version.

50k subs is an especially important milestone for the channel. A little while back, Dan Olson of Folding Ideas  collected a bunch of data on YouTubers with Patreons. There is supposed to be a blog post coming the crunches the numbers, but he's been wrapped up in other projects, so for now there's just some details he shared on Twitter. And after graphing all the channels on a chart comparing Patreon income to subscriber count, he determined that 50,000 subs is the breakaway point. Your Patreon tends to grow slowly as you gain more subscribers, but, on average, 50k is the bend in the exponential curve. That's where it snowballs.

I've been hovering near 50k for a little while now, but growth has been slow while I've been slower to release videos. I haven't been able to capitalize on that number. But that's about to change.

See, it's fortuitous that I'm hitting that number at this exact moment in time, because my work situation has just changed. A couple weeks ago, I lost a client. (Or, more accurately, I didn't lose a client, but a client's situation changed to the point where what was a steady gig is now an at-will, "we'll give you work when we have work to give you" situation.) This happens when you're a freelancer - it's like the third time since starting the channel that a steady gig has either disappeared or dramatically changed how steadily they can get me work - and, in an ideal world, I'd have enough gigs that I could afford to lose one and still stay afloat until I find a replacement. But, being that I have been juggling gigs with this channel and school, just keeping food on the table and a roof over my head has filled all my available work hours.

But this time, instead of scrambling to find another client as quickly as possible, I've decided to take a break from freelancing. I'm going to be focusing on the channel for at least a little while, and, with luck, indefinitely. This has involved taking out a small loan, but, fortunately, it's a personal loan from some people in my life who are more economically stable than I am. It's still a loan I have to pay back, but I'm tired to trying to pay my bills with freelance work that can disappear at any time. As much as I think of Patreon as the thing that funds my passion project and freelancing as the "real work," Patreon is, at the end of the day, a much more stable source of income. Patreon goes up, Patreon goes down, but it doesn't just disappear without notice. I was going to need to borrow money either way, and I think this is my best shot at getting it paid back in a timely fashion.

So! How this works out well for me and all of you is that it is now in my best interest to make as many videos as I can. The money I have will see me through until after graduation. The hope is to have the Patreon to a level that can sustain me by the time that money runs out, and to have it to a level where I can start paying it back by the winter. If it doesn't grow as quickly as I'm hoping, I'll have to take on work again, but by that time I'll no longer be a part-time student. I may have to juggle the channel with school for the next couple months, and juggle it with work at some point in the future, but I'll never have to juggle all three again.

So I am a video essayist first and foremost. Feels good to say that again.

In commemoration, I took last week off school and worked on scripts. I've made some headway in a book I'm reading for research, I've finally got a draft of a traditional game analysis script which I've been pecking away at for months, and I have the next five installments of The Alt-Right Playbook outlined. I don't want to over-promise anything - I am still a student who has only 6 weeks to get all his shit in order for graduation - but things are going to be a lot more productive than they have been. This weekend I'll be putting the next Alt-Right Playbook video into production and revising that game script (because it is waaaaaay too long). And, you know, doing my homework.

Thanks for bearing with me during these quieter times. I look forward to a long and productive future with all of you folks.

Cheers,

-I