Cutting Back: Artwork
- Zen Fetcher
- Jul 3
- 2 min read
I’ve had time over the past month to reflect on different areas of my life and when it comes to how things have been going with my artwork, I desperately need to cut back so I can continue moving forward again. Ultimately, I’m proud of how much this hobby of mine grew into its own, self-sustaining business. I’m proud of the community that helped foster it as well as the community I’ve helped contribute to. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. That said, I miss when creating and expressing myself was simpler and didn’t have so much riding on its success. If I want to reduce the stress and pressure of creating, some things are going to have to change.
The original reason I opened my Patreon account and began accepting money for my art was to financially support my website, which it successfully did. As my Patreon gained traction and grew, so did my website as I began investing more of that money into it. Unlike then however, I have other payments that now depend on the money I receive from my art and less time to dedicate towards maintaining it. While away from home, I received a notification that my next website payment was coming up and when I saw the amount, I realized that my website was no longer affordable.
I’ve always paid a fair bit to own my website but, in most situations, I was able to take advantage of 50% discount offers when upgrading yearly plans to keep costs down. When problems arose with Patreon and SubscribeStar.Adult, I upgraded my plan to allow me to accept payments on my website. With the 50% discount, this was very affordable at the time, especially with the traction the Possessed comic was gaining. With that 50% discount no longer applicable for this next payment and the unfortunate lull in my art, I’ll need to downgrade my plan, but this introduces a new problem. I won’t be able to accept payments via my website…
Going forward, I’ll most likely return to Patreon and accept the risks that come with it. My ambitions for the platform would be the same as before, to upload my work to the platform and utilize its services for community outreach. Unlike before, I would like to remove any early access, discount, or exclusive benefits to encourage people to support me. These benefits demand a constant output of content to work and I’d rather people support me for the work I’ve done rather than the promises I’m struggling to keep.
I’m sorry about how I’ve handled (or failed to handle) things over the past few years. I was so afraid of losing all I had worked for that I didn’t want to work at all… and I didn’t. That wasn’t fair to you. I don’t know what I did to deserve the support you have given me, but I want to do what I can to rightfully earn it and pay it forward. Things won’t improve if I do nothing, so even if I have to take the risk and tear everything down to move forward, everything I’ve been given and want to give makes it worth trying.
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