Update: General Feedback from Patron Check-Up

Hey guys, I put up a Google Form, feel free to continue to fill that out if you haven't already. I'll probably close it/stop paying attention to it at the end of the month; comments section and DMs are open to feedback as well. 

I'll comment on some of the responses and levy those into plans going ahead.

One thing that was on my mind was curating original content more effectively. The people polled so far all love content (thanks guys!) but many are anticipating new updates to existing stories. I hear you and I do feel I've slipped on producing original stories; I take a lot of comms to support myself (appreciate everyone's support!!) and to better inform myself as to what the people actually want to see and will pay for. 

Melty Mercury in particular is something people people want to see more of, and I admit it's been a hot minute since we've seen Nikki or Brad; out of all the (NSFW) series people have been wanting to see more of, this is the only true original and is thus in my control to see through. Once I'm done with Feb's round of prompts and comms (and a project I've been working on for a long time I'm finally moving ahead on) I'll be getting to work on the next stretch of Melty Mercury stories, introducing a new mercury girl. These stories seem to be up there with being my most popular, so I'll probably end up uploading a couple more publicly to try and draw eyes to my work, as a tantalizing preview; the series as a whole will remain on Patreon, though I need to futz with some legacy permissions. 

Other series that people were asking for more of were Latex in Love, Popgum, and Shapeshifters. These are a little more iffy to proceed on as they are commissioned series of works that exist based on the generosity of a select few individuals who support what I do. I'm in semi-regular talks with these clients on more chapters, so we'll see how that goes, but I don't wanna put words in their mouths for this general update.

I had one person ask about the idea to add a premium Sponsor tier to my Patreon and direct which original content should see updates with the same priority given to paid comms and prompts, and asked what made it different from a commission. 

A sponsorship would be different from a comm as the price would remain static on a per entry basis, and would not reflect the price of a commission (which is dictated based on cents per word); a 50$ sponsorship (I haven't settled on the pricepoint) would result in a full-length chapter going at least 2500-3000 words of an original series, making an original series have the same priority as other paid works. I may introduce a premium tier as such in March, but right now my schedule is going to be pretty busy in February.  

People have been overall receptive with the monthly prompt contests, though some have echoed concerns about additional workload and would be content with fewer stories given more care and attention, even if it meant they wouldn't be every month. I'm shaking up the February entry this month by promising a longer voted-upon entry in exchange for dropping the Writer's Choice (though I may do something with Writer's Choice down the line). It would make sense to alternate these shindigs, but I don't have a great idea as to what could happen on alternating months to fill the void, so I'll give it some more thought. For now, I'll try a month with promising a 2000ish word prompt based on the poll and see how it goes for my mental health and giving more attention to a prompt; it should result in a meatier story people can sink their teeth into.

Regarding tiers, I don't have any plans to shake up content across tiers aside from cleaning up the permissions of some older works. The 5$ tiers and up should have access to everything, and it will stay that way in the future. The 1$ tier is a lot messier and a relic of when I started the Patreon; I'm considering cutting it out entirely due to the nature of Patreon fees cannibalizing that contribution, and I have made most of my content going ahead exclusive to 5$ and above or otherwise public. 

That's about all I had from the feedback so far; I may follow up with a future update if I have other big plans going ahead. Thanks for your feedback and support y'all!