The week that was...

This week found me intimidated by digital downloads and appreciated by my students. Let me explain.

Kickstarter downloads

I was amazed to see how well digital rewards performed on my latest Kickstarter campaign.

See that tall, green bar on the left? That's the number of people who pledged to get the Digital Value Pack—eight eBooks for $25. That graphic doesn't include digital add-ons, which were also way more popular than I had given them credit for.

As a result, I had a lot of digital download codes to deliver. In the past, I had used Backerkit for this. But when I tried to set it up for this campaign, I found that they'd changed how they applied shipping prices to existing and new orders. What had been a literal cut-and-paste process before now landed me with separate shipping tables for every last reward tier.

I spent entire days in my studio trying to figure it out. I contacted their support staff, who very kindly sent videos and instructions, but it was useless. I could not get my head around how they were applying these values. Therefore, I couldn't be 100% certain that I wasn't going to inadvertently cheat a Kickstarter backer—either by misapplying the money they had already paid for shipping or by mistake giving another backer a better deal.

So, I ditched Backerkit and decided to fulfill this entirely through Kickstarter. After all, the primary advantage of Backerkit was to encourage people to add merchandise to their reward as they provided final shipping details. Now that Kickstarter has introduced add-ons to the front end of the process, this is less important. Certainly, Kickstarter has added a feature that enabled the distribution of digital rewards since the last time I used them for fulfillment in 2016, right?

Wrong.

In Backerkit, I could upload the files for the digital downloads and fire them off to everyone in one easy process. Using Kickstarter, I had to send each download code individually. Some of my backers added dozens of digital downloads.

I'm definitely going to have to find a better process for my next Kickstarter.

I've sent out about 80% of the codes. I'm trying to space them out so that (1) I don't flood my backers with emails and (2) end up getting shunted to people's spam folders in the process.

Student evaluations

I teach two classes at Philadelphia's University of the Arts. Having finished the semester and submitted my final grades, I'm looking forward to a summer full of Mondays that I can use to catch up on a little work! I love teaching, but it's also nice to have that day to focus on my own career. This week, the student evaluations are released. Each student has an opportunity to rate their classes on various criteria and submit comments about their professors. This one had me smiling from ear to ear:

“Brad's classes are, if nothing else, absolutely enthralling. This man could give a six-hour class on the geopolitical impact of watching paint dry, and I'd be there.”

Special Offer

Speaking of digital rewards, here's one you don't want to miss. It's 105 pages of some of my favorite commissions.

This 105-page book is a gorgeous collection of some of my favorite NSFW commissions. The printed version is downright luxurious if you're ever interested in spicing up your bookshelf!

• Existing patrons? If you're at an NSFW tier, do nothing. You'll get your download the first week of June.

• Free members? Treat yourself to an NSFW level today! You're gonna love it! You'll get instant access to over 1,500 NSFW comics and illustrations. Then, at the beginning of June, you'll get a download code for the special eBook — as well as LEWDcrate, a 4½-gigabyte digital reward!