Hello lovely Patrons!
I've done a revamp on the Patreon, principally to simplify things.
Simpler TiersInstead of like ten tiers, now there are just FIVE. $2; $5; $20; $50; $125
Changing Rewards That Didn't Feel Valuable
Early access for everyone! It used to only be for $15+ Patrons; now it's available to ALL paid patrons. Basically, because the subtitling and final edits can take such a varied amount of time I didn't feel like it was worth making that its own reward? Sometimes I can't give "early access" until like, a couple of days before the general release, so it felt unfair to charge $15 for it. So now everybody gets it, as and when I'm able to :) Also this way the $2 patrons, which is most of you, still get something as a thanks for signing up!
I'm not on Twitter or Facebook anymore, so the social media shout-outs will now be on Bluesky and Instagram.
The number of people who signed up to get a thank you card just on its own without a signed book was pretty low, and a lot of people in that tier declined mailed rewards anyway, so I just combined those two tiers :)
The 'you get to ask me a question that I'll answer on livestream' tier didn't seem valuable anymore because I'm pretty good about engaging with chat anyway on my streams? So you can just ask me questions there for free instead :) If you do ever have questions for me, tumblr is actually the place I'm most active in answering them!
The top reward used to be a guide to creating a YouTube channel, but the YouTube landscape has changed so much now that I honestly don't feel like that advice really adds much value to anyone genuinely wanting to start their own show? So I replaced it with a longform handwritten letter: new patrons who sign up at the top tier get a special thank you letter from me talking about what I'm up to with the show and just generally expressing my thanks in a more expanded way than a thank you card or an autograph.
Minimising Impact to Existing Patrons
I tried to structure the changes such that people who are already signed up wouldn't lose anything; I think the only thing you might notice is that if you were previously at the 'shout outs on socials' tier, the cutoff for that has now moved up slightly as a result of eliminating some of the less popular tiers. I calculate that a couple of hundred people will fall off the list because of that change. On the flipside, you do now get early access to episodes! But if you're really gutted about not being on the physical thank you lists then leave me a comment or shoot me a message and we'll see if we can figure something out.
Conclusion
That's it really! My contract with Nebula means I can't sell Patreon-exclusive merch so, that's about as much as I can do. We'll see how we get on and if necessary I'll make more adjustments as we go.
All the best,
Abi XXx