First things first: I'm still sending out buttons like usual for January's Sonics, don't worry! Nor am I canceling buttons in general!So, I've hit a few kinks I feel I need to address in regards to the process of making and shipping all these buttons:
I've reached an amount of buttons that has become a little, well... somewhat overwhelming to make every month and ship in a timely fashion. I'm now making almost 40 buttons in about 5 days, by hand, AND shipping about 3/4 of them by hand in little envelopes. I never expected to reach such an amazingly high number, I always thought this would be a quaint "20-people-if-I'm-lucky" sort of deal! But I didn't consider this when I first set out doing the buttons, so it's getting tricky to get these out in a timely manner, and the cost of stamps and envelopes is a greater expense than I expected when I first started out!
This influx of button-clients has, unfortunately, lead me to make designs that are simpler and quicker to draw, with less details and colors. I kinda look at this as a decline in quality :( I wish I could make fancier button designs but there's too many to make that feasible!
And about those envelopes... quite a few have recently been returned to me as either being undeliverable due to insufficient postage or un-machinable (getting jammed in postage robots, ripping the envelopealmost to shreads ... :( The carnage! ) I need to spend more money in shipping and in higher-quality envelopes to ensure they're delivered safely!
This is sadly taking up a lot of time and effort and it's getting a tiny bit in the way of making LPs... especially when some of the envelopes are getting returned to me all busted like that!So, here's my proposal. The price will remain the same, but what I want to do instead is ship these buttons in batches of 3, for people in the US and Canada. So, every 3 months, you'll get your buttons. This'll cut down on costs, so I can also afford SAFER packaging and pay the correct shipping for sure!This "Every 3 months" plan is going to happen regardless from this point on (So the next batch will be sent in May), but I have an additional question that I want your input on:But regarding the "time-sink and subsequent drop in quality" angle of this problem: I've been experimenting with printing some new button designs, which are more complicated/colorful and they've turned out pretty sweet, gotta say. These are designs I wouldn't be able to make by-hand in any reasonable amount of time. Are you okay with me either switching entirely to printable buttons or maybe making a mix of these buttons in the batch? The price would remain the same because ink is so dang expensive.GIMME FEEDBACK (Only one response per person, all Patrons allowed!). I LOVE YOU AND YOUR FEEDBACK. I wanna do right by you guys, who have been so supportive and kind to me over the years, so please tell me what you're thinking about this stuff. Sorry this was long-winded, but I wanna keep you guys as informed as possible! Thanks <3
