Redoing how I do Patreon

Hey all, so I definitely have been juggling too many plates for a long time, and with the new year I need very seriously to do some restructuring to how I run my YouTube channel/treat this community. Seeing as Sungazer is becoming a “real band,” with real tours and real commitments on its own, and I run that too, I have to be a lot more precise with what Patreon is, and my obligations to this community. My sincere apologies if you have felt misled, I have been neglectful here, so this is what I can do, and let me know if this clarifies things moving forward.

Short term commitments that I can do right now for Patreon/Patreon community.

1. All announcements about my schedule will be made first on Patreon, and consolidated in a way that anybody who follows me will know where I am, and when I am there. This I’ve just neglected, but this is easy for me to implement, so it will happen in a clear and forthcoming way. I’ll post later today a current/rough schedule of events I have planned IRL and live.
2. Generally speaking, I’ll be moving away from Instagram/Twitter for news. I post news on those sites just because I have a large audience there, but I also am aware that many people would prefer not to use that kind of social media, and I’ll be cross-posting a lot more here.

Medium term commitments that will be rolled out in the next month that I have been working on anyway, and want to let you guys know about.

1. There will be more specific community events in the discord. If you haven't joined the Patreon discord yet, please join! I'll be spending more time there.  I’ve talked to Anton, the discord mod, about this, and we’re going to be focusing on fostering the discord community more, so stay tuned for that! This is an AWESOME community of people, and it’s been absolutely wonderful to better know people there, so I want to make sure it is the best version of itself.
2. Redesigning/restructuring my Patreon to be more in line with what I can handle and what I think I can deliver. I’ve always intended my Patreon to be more of a “donation drive,” than a transactional relationship. It’s very likely that there will be only 1 tier - the $5 tier, where Patrons will be able to get access to the discord/whatever bonus content I can throw up on here/early access to some things/sheet music/etc. If people choose to donate more, that’s great, but I’ve been unable to provide much value beyond that, and I think this would be the fairest to the community. Please let me know if there are any thoughts here. 
3. Be a lot clearer on what goes on Patreon vs. Nebula. This I think will become more clear as the discord community evolves more, but I think the idea is that much more “behind-the-scenes” stuff will be on Patreon - half finished ideas, pictures, full live recordings of gigs that are messy but it’s among friends on Patreon so it doesn’t matter. Nebula’s bonus content will be more fully-formed videos. I have a commitment to Nebula to provide a certain amount of exclusive bonus material, so I want to make sure the style of content for each platform is more clear.

Longer term goals that will help me, and also deliver more to the community.

1. Hire a Patreon community manager. Anton been great so far at modding the discord, but I’d love to have somebody more permanent who can expand what the Patreon is without overwhelming myself while I’m (most likely) on tour. If anybody has any good suggestions for this role, or a similar PA role, let me know! I’d be happy to hear from y’all.
2. Hire an editor/video content team, specifically for YouTube. I’ve worked with an editor before, but I’d like to work to train somebody who really understands music and music notation, which is tricky sometimes. Like many people on YouTube, I can be very specific and very precious with how my videos are edited, but it’s definitely time to give up some control to somebody else in the interest of continuing to shoot YouTube videos, especially while traveling and touring in the next year. Again, if y’all know of somebody that you’d recommend, let me know!

General thoughts.

I’ve shifted from weekly videos to…not weekly videos for a couple reasons. The first and main one is mental health. I haven’t talked about it that much, but the weekly videos for years on end was really taking a toll, and still weighs very heavily on me. Editing videos often feels like a chore to me, and that’s something I know isn’t sustainable. I’ve begun to take weeks off instead of bust out videos that I’m not happy about. This feels much more sustainable to me, but it is at the expense of videos “getting done.” I’d like to be doing this for another 5-10 years, but I absolutely know that a Monday-Monday schedule wasn’t possible, so I stopped.

Videos also have become much more complex, and while I have tried to make some videos that are “simpler” and “lighter,” they always spiral into more and more complicated subjects. I’ve been working on what I thought was a simple tour vlog for a week now, and it’s not close to getting done. I think when it is done it’ll be awesome, and I will be proud of it and I think you guys will like it, but the projects are getting bigger and less like what I used to do.

On top of this, my priorities in the new year have shifted very heavily to music making and performing - things that bring me genuine joy every time I do. I want to be able to balance both - touring with Sungazer and YouTube, but it’s going to be a real challenge unless I tackle some of these things now, so I think this is as good a time as any to bring up these issues, commitments, and restructuring.

Thank you all for being Patrons!

Adam