So, things have been going quite well over the past three weeks as I've been slowly building on my Patreon page, finding new ways to reward patrons, and I've even begun giving out rewards early to those I know have been supporting me. However, it's the end of the month, I've had a productive February, and through the past three weeks I've found a few new ways to reward patrons so I want to share them with you as I go ahead and elaborate.
So, as it stands right now I have 4 tiers. Citizen, VIP, Historical Figure, and Demigod. These are just tier names, they do not correlate to your position (IE: You don't actually become a demigod or historical figure in Dalon if you chose that tier). The first two are pretty simple and straightforward. $1 gets you access to the telegram and discord chats where I discuss future plans, ask for input, and generally chat about stories. It also gets you the rough stuff and any alternate version of the art that comes with my work. $5 gets you all that plus higher resolution versions of the art, edited/refined works in their original format, as well as PDF/E-reader files. The basic stuff.
However, the $10 and $25 tiers have to add a few features and bonuses.
What you see there remains the same. You still get to be a recurring background character or an influential role in each of my various time periods and self contained eras, but there's also a lot more to be had, ESPECIALLY if you pledge to both Foxrafluff and myself.
So basically, what I'm doing as another nice bonus is that if you pledge at the higher two tiers, I'm also taking your character(s) and putting them in other stories of mine, effectively giving you 'free' mini-commissions within other commissions, where your character plays a significant role in the story for 1000-2000 words or so.
In this first story, you'll notice that Nantangitan has a bit of a quickie with Neera in the early stages of the story, which functioned as a bit of foreshadowing and character building. The commissioner gets 1000 extra words or so, and my patron got a mini-commission sharing screen time with the commissioner! Everyone wins!
In this second story, the main character Jay watches a lewd, well described scene on his phone featuring Ithilwen as a porn star fooling around with the horses at the barn he's heading towards. Again, it's thematically linked to the story, adds word count to the commission, and gives Ithilwen a 'free' mini commission!
In this third story, Rokanoss uses two of his dragons - Vel and Tritus - to help him with a ritual in the first half of the story that is directly linked to the character interaction that is the focal part of act 2! Both Vel and Tritus get their own extended scene with Rokanoss, who also go a bump in word count! Again, everyone wins here!
My next story - the one I'm working on today and should be posted tomorrow - has a main scene with the commissioner and I in a forest by the river in a tribal setting, but will also feature a gryphoness from my list of patrons to serve as a build-up to the main story! Again, a mini commission inside an existing commission.
I'm sure you can all see the pattern, and this is something I want to continue doing with my $25 patrons and - if I run out of patrons at that level, $10 patrons as well. But keep in mind that $25 isn't JUST for the mini-scenes and cameos. At $25 you get a lot of cool stuff, especially if you pledge to both myself and Foxra's Patreon.
For $25 on my page alone, you get:
1 - All of the $1 pledge rewards (See the page for details) 2 - All of the $5 pledge rewards (See the page for details) 3 - All of the $10 pledge rewards (See the page for details - WiP) 4 - Entry into at least one short story per month with permission from the commissioner 5 - Consideration to be in a custom art/story combo (1-3 per month based on funds) 6 - Discounts on Quickie Combos* and Traditional commissions** 7 - A significant recurring role in the themed commissions/settings
* - Only if you also pledge to Foxra ** - I don't take these often, so keep that in mind.
Now, $25 sounds like a lot, but between getting Ebooks, bumps on all stories, your character included in multiple stories per month (with a minimum of one), your character considered for the months-end custom art piece, and potential discounts, I think it's totally worth it, while not putting TOO much of a strain on me as the writer. I get to organically incorporate my patrons into existing stories with permission from the commissioner, I get to give subtle bumps to word count, I get to play around a bit with stuff I wanna do, and eventually even use you all in my novel!
Furthermore, it's in your best interest to pledge to Foxra as well, because the bonuses you get for pledging to both of us are pretty awesome. If you pledge just to her, you get 1 hour bonuses on each quickie combo. If you pledge just tome, you get 1000 extra words. but if you pledge to both, you get both of those PLUS a permanent discount! PRices just went up to 125 for the higher level, and if you pledge to us, it's 20% off (so $100) permanently! That, ON TOP of all the WIP stuff, refined stuff, and everything in between.
I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts and feedback! Am I giving too much? Not enough? Is there anything else you'd recommend as an alternate option?
I intend to start the month of march off with a bang, as I've been editing "The Needs of the Princess" to be more refined, have a few extra scenes, and be in E-book format so people can read it on the go with ease. This is sort of my practice run, but immediately after posting it, I plan on doing however many stories I can as well as one big story (20k words or more) that I'll edit and publish via E-book per month.
So starting March 1st, I'll be posting all my stuff on Patreon as well as all my art sites, with the rewards of the $1 tier immediately and $5 soon thereafter (Editiing and making Ebooks takes time). Throughout any given month, I'll be on Telegram and Discord, asking for your input on those cameo appearances, votes on upcoming projects, and general discussion on stories!
I think I've got a good thing going here. Help me make it even better by giving feedback (And your precious dollahs, because a gryph's got to eat!)
