End of Year Report and Holiday Hiatus

End of the Year Report

So I know that I was going to put all this into a new video but given the nature of things I’m going to be typing it up instead, the reason why will be revealed below. First things first though is how Smilodon Studios did overall, followed by the plans for 2020. It’s going to be a long one so bear with, got a lot of ground to cover.

The biggest thing in 2019 is commissions and writing, since that is sort of what I’m known for. 2019 had a marked decrease in commissions, but that was not only expected but planned. The reason was that in 2018 I had taken extra commissions to sustain the household while dealing with some unexpected bills, and in 2019 with our financial situation stabilized and patreon running at full steam I was able o work off on that backlog. At one point I had over 800k words in my queue, and now with the help of Hell Weeks that queue is down to around 250k. Even with some new commissions taken for Christmas and such it’s expected that by the end of first quarter in 2020 all of the backlog should be completely cleared.

2019 also saw a few other pieces of news on the commission front. I tried out some YCH’s with Ravensflock and found that the collaborative effort was very well received, something that I was very happy with. On the other side of things I had to let go of my editor due to a number of circumstances, which means that the posting to FA/SF has been rather slow. It also stagnated the number of books that I released, though despite that I’ve managed to get over a dozen now out on Amazon and on shelves. Finally we tried another year at conventions and have found the experience… so-so, though we’ve missed out on AC and MFF once again we’re attempting to figure out a new layout and other things to enhance table appeal for next year.

Next up for 2019 is patreon. Though we had a bit of a rocky finish there at the end we definitely had marked improvement, going from 78 patreons at around $750 to almost 120 patreons at $1150. This is most likely due to the massive strides taken in the game Rain and Shine, which makes me excited for the coming year when artwork will be procured. We also celebrated our first year at twitch and though our viewer average has grown a little bit we’ve gotten up to close to 400 followers and hopefully continuing to grow. While Twitch is probably still not viable enough to turn into a reliable source of income it definitely make me think about its potential and work has already been put into place to overhaul the system.  Finally YouTube and my website continue to be on the backburner for now, 2019 seeing only a few little changes here and there.

Alright, that’s it for the recap, now onto plans for 2020. As I mentioned in my YouTube video there are going to be some changes made to my work schedule and what I work on in the future. At the moment most of the work was focused on commission writing and then patreon with a small percentage invested in things like twitch and such. With the introduction of Hell Weeks the time that is going to be focused on commission writing is going to be concentrated down to one week every two months. The goal is to still get out a lot of words (if everything goes to plan over a million words written for commissions in 2020) while making more time in general for other projects. The Hell Weeks will occur once every two months and be open with platinum and gold tiers with a max of 200k words and turnaround times of a week to a month in some cases if overtime is needed.

The main name of the game for 2020 is time management. For the last year or so it’s been 10-14 hour days often 6 and sometimes 7 days a week. Though I know that my business still has a lot of room to grow I’m hoping that the money made in Hell Weeks will allow me to make a monetary investment into it and then I can put my time somewhere else. Weight management and overall health is going to be at the top of the list as well as the ability for me to do more creative endeavors with my time. If what I have comes to fruition then I can still grow Smilodon Studio while not subverting myself in the process. It’s going to be tough though, I’ve tried taking off before and I grow a bit anxious when I’m not working but with a cleared queue and all the plans I’m hoping that will not be the case.

2020 will also see hopefully the finish of Rain and Shine. With my patreon money no longer going towards equipment improvement and Hell Weeks/Patreon bringing in investible income it’s time to put the game to it’s final state. Once that is done then I already have a project or two that I’ll be starting, something to look forward to in the future. Though sizable investments are being made some of that money is also going towards debt repayment on the business and personal side, so hopefully marked growth in Patreon will happen as well.

Twitch, YouTube, and the website will also receive much more attention come 2020. I feel there is a lot of potential there that has yet to be tapped, and I’ve already laid a bit of foundation for what hopefully will be coming soon. I’m also hoping to get a mask and possibly a new fursuit so that I can do more IRL videos, but that will remain to be seen as at the moment art acquisition for book covers and the game comes first.

Alright, so finally the reason that this is coming out in text and why you’re not going to see me for a bit is that my mate and I have been invited by friends to go on a rather extended holiday. Though my mate will not be attending the entirety of it since we didn’t go to MFF she had some extra time off and we decided to take them up on the offer. As such I will be generally unavailable until the New Year, though I will have my phone with my I probably will not be taking much in the way of telegrams. One of the things I will not be bringing with me is my laptop or my computer, so there will be no streaming and no additional work done. I do have some things that I did previously that I will put on the schedule for patreon to post, including the update of Rain and Shine that I had worked on thus far.

I know this is a bit sudden but to be honest I didn’t even think that this was happening until yesterday evening. The Hell Week this is cutting into will probably be moved to the one that I was planning on doing in January and I will probably be doing a few streams on Friday in January to help make up for things.

Either way I'm definitely looking forward to a new year full of new possibilities!  ^. .^