Patreon changes

Hi,

I decided to make some changes in how my Patreon works. Here is a summary:

• The first tier will now offer exactly 6 chapters ahead of the public story, instead of however many I wrote. This has already been more or less the case since September (before then it was ~five), but now I'd like to make it a proper commitment instead of just how it happened to be. It'll also be 5$ instead of 3$.

• The second tier will be however many chapters I wrote ahead of the public, which for FSE right now is 8, though 9th is almost finished. I reduced it's price from 15$ to 12$ since it now actually offers something.

• Third "nobody will ever purchase this" 100$ tier will now offer a possibility to commission fanfic of various characters doing whatever you'd like.

Q: I am subscribed at the first tier. What does this mean for me?
A: According to Patreon, if your subscription renews within the next 31 days, you'd pay the old price (3$). So, if you are not okay with the price increase, you have around 31 days to unsubscribe. Until then, you'd still receive new posts as normal.

Q: Why are you increasing the price of the first tier?
A: When I initially set up the Patreon, I did it without really thinking, mostly just to have something up. I also wasn't sure of my own writing abilities, so the tier promised one published "thing" per month, because that was the most I was comfortable promising and delivering on.

However, I've now been publishing Feng Shui Engineering for a year and a half, at a stable 1 chapter a week pace. I am therefore fairly comfortable in committing to doing this in the future as a more professional thing.

As for the price, I believe that initially I had something like three chapters ahead, whereas now I am committing to do six.

Q: Okay, but why 5$?
A: It's about the average price writers seem to offer. It's obviously very difficult to compare different fictional works as a "product", but the standard on Royalroad seems to be ~5$ for ~10 chapters ahead, at ~2k words per chapter, for ~20k words. My chapters average ~5k, for ~30k words over 6 chapters. Basically, I think it's a fair price, in as far as a fair price exists for gating access to creative works.

Q: I thought 3$ was fair, but 5$ is not. I am going to unsubscribe.
A: Yeah that's fair. Hope to see you on the free chapters, at least.

Q: What about worldbuilding posts?
A: Will stay at the first tier and become available as soon as written for the time being.

Q: Why is the second tier 12$? That doesn't seem to be worth it for 8 chapters.
A: I want to eventually get it to ~12 chapters ahead, and then it'd be 1 dollar per chapter, which I thought was a nice symmetric number. But, honestly, yeah it's probably not worth it. Right now it's just 2 more chapters, and who knows how long it'd take for me to have another decent writing spree.

Unfortunately, Patreon locks price changes for 31 days, so I can't change it a second time for now, because I (like an idiot) already changed it to 12$. I guess write in comments what you think about this pricing, and wherever it'd feel better to drop it to a lower price and then increase it, or keep it as is and make it aspirational.

Q: You said second tier is 8 chapters instead of 6. But yesterday only 6 chapters were out?
A: Yeah I published two new ones today. Writing spree.