[Update] Survey Results & Rebalancing

Hey guys! I meant to do this sooner, but I want to post the results for the recent survey I did (thank you to everyone who filled it out!) for the $5 patrons (future polls will be for everyone. for this one I wanted to focus on the benefits of the main tier), and also give a quick update on where things stand and what to expect for the near future, etc. This is a long post, but there is a tl;dr at the end.

So without further ado...

There were almost no surprises with these ones - I'm happy to see that most people feel like $5 is the right amount, but at the same time I suppose if it wasn't you probably wouldn't be here.

With the Discord server, it seems like most people who are taking part there were more inclined to take part in the survey. Again, makes sense.

The last of this group really surprised me though. I expected 3-4 to be the average, possibly with some people hoping for more. I was not at all expecting there to be a virtual split between 2-3. This is something that I'll really be using to help give myself some balance, which I'll go over at the end of all this.

Again, no real surprises here - Mainly I wanted to know if people preferred fanart or OC art, and whether commissions factored into that. People seemed mostly OK with how things are, so no major changes coming there.

The 2nd one is again not a surprise, Vi's been around longer, moving on.

Another surprise here - I really expected the timed release to be a bigger deal for people. 50% said it didn't matter at all, and the other 50% did but they would be fine with only a 2 week advance. Up until now I've been trying to build a bigger and bigger buffer to make that a bigger 'perk', but with this bit of information, again it'll really help with overall balance.

As for the last question, that was mainly just to see how effective my various 'advertising' methods are. Most people came from another Discord server, twitter or Hentai-Foundry, which is good since those are areas of focus. What i was surprised and pleased with was that someone manually typed in the watermark on a picture to get here. That's awesome lol. Tumblr's brought in a couple of people, but with that platform being kind of stagnant, it makes me wonder how long I'll continue to use it. We'll see.

Now. Regarding "Balance".

I've talked at length (especially on Discord) about some of the struggles I've dealt with in terms of balancing my life between my often hyper-stressful full-time day job, trying to draw 4-5 pictures per month (which amounts to also being a full time job), and my home life and personal time. It's been alot, and I've been doing it for 2 years now, just about, trying to get a following going and getting people's attention, etc.

It's been good, rewarding hard work. Rarely easy, but in a 'worth it' sort of way. The progress I've made has let me take steps towards transitioning into art as a proper full-time endeavor - this past summer I switched to part time for my day job.

Unfortunately, my day job has been so poorly mismanaged that there is a severe staff shortage, which means they're giving me full time hours regardless, and not only that, my shifts vary to an extent where some nights I only get 2-3 hours before i need to go to bed, because my shift starts much earlier the following day (ie working 12pm-8:30pm, then having to work at 9am the next morning). This has really cut into my art and personal time.

So, with that sob story aside, the survey kinda brought me some relief because it made me realize that my expectations for myself were much much higher than the expectations you guys had for me, in terms of output. So, going forward, I've decided to make a more conscious effort to balance myself better - especially while my day job is playing havoc with everything. 

My new goal for pictures per month will be 3, and absolutely no less than 2 (if it comes to two, expect an update explaining why, whether it be art block, burnout, no time, whatever). If I can do 4, I will but expect 3.

Regarding the 'buffer' between public art and patreon art, that will come down over time now. I'm going to bring it down to 3 weeks and see how things go from there, after all, it should still be a 'perk'. Depending on how things go, it may go up or down, we'll see.

TL;DR

Most of the results weren't unexpected. Some key ones were, in a good way, and because my life's kinda crammed with shit at the moment, it's going to help me balance things out in the following ways;

- I will aim to release 3 pictures per month on Patreon, Probably no more than 4 until day job gives me part time hours again, no less than 2 if things get crazy.

- The buffer time for releases will naturally drop down but I will maintain it at 3 weeks between Patreon and public/$1.

Edit: I forgot to mention this, but it stands to reason that for the time being commissions will continue to be unavailable. I am thinking about how I'll bring them back and at what point. I honestly don't know if it's anytime soon - it will entirely depend on my day job freeing up more time.

If you have any questions, please let me know!! Thanks guys!