Just a quick update to keep things transparent for folks!
If you've taken a gander at this Patreon page's "about" section, you may have noticed a segment where I list out stretch goals for monthly income. Basically, whenever we hit a threshold for a certain goal, it would be fulfilled via (usually) more comic updates per week. Which is why OBT is able to post on a M/W/F schedule in the first place! That said, eagle-eyed patrons may have noticed one goal in particular,
$1000 - OBT will update on a Sun/Tues/Thurs/Sat schedule, increasing from three pages a week to four! Extra updates will begin the following month.
When I first put this page together, that goal was somewhere in the realm of $750. The general idea of it was that if it could pay my cost of living for a month, I'd be happy to dedicate my time to working on my comic and could quit other jobs. At the time I was in college, and that would cover my cost of living.
Of course, the passage of time meant I eventually moved on in life. I felt comfortable pushing the goal in response to my new living situation to $1000 per month because at the time, gross income was at $300 a month. That was about 5 years ago now- and things have quite drastically changed since then!
Pretty much everyone in the US is intimately familiar with cost of living skyrocketing, along with general inflation. I am so, so very fortunate to be in a position where I don't have to feel these waves nearly as hard as many others- but a few ripples still have impacted my day-to-day finances. Add on top of that new chronic conditions I didn't have 5 years ago that severely limit my desk time, and suddenly I have to more closely budget my time and health. For this reason, that stretch goal has been modified to $2500 per month in order to reach the 4x a week updates.
I absolutely loathe the feeling of moving goalposts after the stretch goal has long been reached, but I feel it'd be worse to just change it without any explanation or clarity whatsoever. I hope in the future that I can maybe host a little mini event as a nod to reaching that $1000 stretch goal for the first time, because it truly was an amazing feeling finding out that so many people were willing to support me. Maybe a month of 4x weekly public updates? Either way, it'll have to wait until Part 3 of Chapter 10 starts releasing publicly, mostly just so I don't blow through my buffer right away, haha.
That was a lot of words for a single reward change, but I appreciate you all for taking the time to support me and read this. I hope to catch up on other rewards soon!