A gigantic THANK YOU from us both!!

When we revamped the BCB Patreon page less than a month ago, we hoped we’d gather a few dozen more patrons. Maybe, just maybe, if all went well, by the end of the Special Offer campaign, we’d be able to bump up against our 200 patron goal and use it to drum up attention in the waning days.

That is NOT what happened. What you collectively did was astonishing and exciting and WAY more than we had even hoped! As of today, we’ve hit 350 patrons, and over $2,300 a month. It’s a massive gulf between where we started at 99 and $1,100! This seems pretty unheard of when it comes to Patreon updates and special offers.

For most of the convention trip we just took, it became a bit of an endorphin rush to load up the Patreon app and see the list of names refresh. On comic update days, it’d literally be like five new pledges every time we checked! And now we’re here. So first up:

THANK YOU!

This will mean a LOT to our finances. It’s actually conceivable that we could burrow up in a hole for a while and not sell any books or anything and this amount every first of the month… it would cover our expenses. You know, like a real paycheck.

It’s a comfort we’ve never had before in all our years of full-time work on BCB. All from your pledges! $5 and $10 pools up! It makes for something really substantial!

Second up: many of you are contributing to us for the first time, and for those of you who made that leap, we want to reach out and say that what you’ve done was HUGE! To us. Something like 97% of our readers read for free, but it’s the small percentage that pays for everybody. You’re a part of that noble group! Be proud!

While it’s literally impossible for any individual comic artist or podcaster or Youtuber to put out the same content you could get with a Netflix subscription or whatever, $3 or $5 or $10 a month makes a small creator’s heart soar in a way Spotify’s won’t. It’s kinda like more bang for your buck, in terms of what it does for creators, and in how effective it’ll be at keeping the thing you love going.

Finally, while we need to do a bit of planning to get all the school IDs and stickers prepared, we wanted to offer one last thing as a part of this grand new Patreon launch:

For patrons only: the seven-book Complete Bundle, with your choice of character sketch in every book, for a flat $149, free US shipping!

There’s a bunch of pre-prepared book bundles sitting by the door leftover from the Volume Six release… and while it’s a logistical nightmare to do individual character sketches for normal store sales, it’s no big deal when we’re already getting ready to draw those custom school ID character sketches.

If you’re interested in getting half the cast drawn in your books and saving $20 on shipping, leave your cart empty and tip us $149 on the BCB Store checkout page, then send us a message on Patreon with your seven (yeah! seven!) character choices. And we’ll be sure to send the books along with your school ID and sticker after that survey goes out next month!

That’s all for now! Remember to contribute to the mini-comic suggestion thread if you haven’t, and look forward to the first minicomic poll in three weeks’ time! And, of course, those tantalisingly cliffhangery updates every Monday.

From the bottom of our hearts, once more and with feeling,

Thank you!!!!
Veronica and Oliver