Updates Coming to the Patreon! Important Notice for Cursed and Spellbound tiers!

Hey everyone~ Hope we've all been good! I wanted to give some insight about what I've been up to, and also make an announcement regarding my two commission tiers. This shouldn't take much of your time, so thank you for reading~

First off: what has Cursey been up to? Well, lately, I've been putting in lots of hours into the next part of Discovery! It's coming along great, by the way~ The outline came together nicely and I'm about ~40% of the way writing up a first draft. Shouldn't be much longer, hopefully! I know it's a story a lot of you have been waiting for, so trust me when I say that it's one of my biggest priorities! As it currently stands, I'm going to be avoiding writing any non-Discovery, non-commission pieces for awhile until I get that done.

Which brings me to another point I want to go over: uploads and upload consistency! So, as most of you are maybe aware, since starting the Patreon I've been trying to stay consistent with weekly uploads -- one story, or a part of a story, or something once a week. Unfortunately, I've come across problems with that sort of upload schedule that I'd like to elaborate on, because I've come to the decision that posting weekly is simply not going to happen -- and to be fair, it hasn't really been happening to begin with, haha.

First off, the length of my writing. As I'm sure we're all aware... I tend to get wordy! My writing is very detailed, and I'd like to think it's pretty high quality, too! I'm not just filling out words for the sake of words, I'm genuinely trying to craft some solid, enjoyable stories. Much of what I upload in a given week is something along the lines of 8000 words long, and that's a lower estimate~ Sometimes, I'm posting 15k word stories or more! That's a ton of material to be writing, and that's not including what you don't see as just readers: I have to make the outlines, I have to communicate back and forth with commissioners, there's all the writing that doesn't make it in the end, all the edits and reviews... Any one story you see uploaded usually has 5+ hours of work attached to it.

Second, pacing. When I've tried sticking to a weekly schedule, I'm often caught in positions where I have nothing to upload for a week or even longer. This is sometimes due to my own fault; I got lazy, procrastinated on writing something, and got behind. But other times, this can just be because a commissioner has been slow to give me approval, or a commission has taken a little longer to wrap up than just the time I allotted for it. It's also up in the air just what story you guys get per week; sometimes you get a 10k addition to a huge ongoing story, and other times you get a 2k quickie that I wrote just to fill in the schedule.

And that last point, about quickies... Yeah, so. Most of those "quickies" have been my least favorite stories. I generally read those stories back days later and realize what a mess they were, these stories that I try to come up with real fast just so I can have something to post for the week. Bodycleaners and What They Don't Know, while definitely being stories I had envisioned for some time, were both notably unpopular and for good reasons -- they were made way too fast, and without any real interest behind them. This sucks on multiple levels: for one, it sucks that I push out a story for you guys that doesn't end up being up to my usual quality; for two, it sucks that I take an idea I was looking forward to writing, only to butcher it up into fast food just for the sake of filling a schedule; and for three, it sucks that I end up spending several days worth of work writing these stories, just for them to flop -- it's a waste of everyone's time.

So I'm going to be making some arrangements to try and make my schedule more efficient, producing better and higher quality stories for us to enjoy~ The big thing to take away is this: I will only be uploading three stories a month, rather than one story every week. Giving me this "off week" to put into any given month should alleviate some of the pressure on me to have to fill in every week with a worthwhile upload, and I can devote more time to writing the stories folks would want me to write, anyway. I hope you all can understand where I'm coming from here~ I'll also mention now that there might be months with only two uploads, but in those cases, I'll at least try to make sure that one or both of those uploads are significant in material/length, that way we're still enjoying about the same number of words every month.

Okay! Thanks for reading all that. Now, the next part is pretty straightforward, but it's only going to affect my commission-tier buddies. So if you're Cursed or Spellbound, please definitely read on!! (I'll also be DMing each of you later regarding this post so you all make sure to see it.)

There's no easy way to put this: starting from July 2021, I am going to be raising the Cursed and Spellbound tier prices to $15/$25, respectively. I'm hoping this is enough of a time window to let these patrons respond appropriately and make any decisions with regards to their patronage/commissions.

Why am I raising prices? Well, I suppose the general answer is that I value my labor and craft better than when I first started the Patreon~ I've been running this Patreon for two years now with the exact same prices, so I think it's time for an upgrade and to shake things up a little. Ah, there's no less-awkward way to say this... but plainly speaking, I'm no longer a newbie writer on patreon with just one hit-story in their portfolio; I have 70+ uploads of stories, a list of clients I've worked with, and have proven (for the most part~) that I'm a consistent, active, and genuine worker. And hey, my writing is pretty good! And I think it's worth the extra $5, personally speaking.

In a way, this extra amount is basically to help cover work hours that I didn't expect to be worth so much to me. I originally planned out 2k words per $10 based solely on a per-word basis on the end product; I didn't account at all for outlining and communication. Even if that isn't considered, $5 for 1000 words is a rate of $0.005 per word -- half of a penny per word... For even budding writers, that's a pretty low amount to charge! A lot of freelancer writers charge two or three cents per word, but I don't think that model totally works out for me. In any case, I think this new rate will be of more accurate value for the product that gets made~

This also will put the cost of Cursed tier in line with my latest off-patreon commission rates, which have been going for $15 per 2k words for a couple months now. So, that equalizes things!

Of course, this can be a pretty radical change for Patrons that had been budgeting their commissions based on the rates they've had. Hence why I wanted to give everyone some time to read this notice and be aware of the changes happening in July! You have the rest of May and all of June to decide if pledging to me is still in your best interest~ If we have to part ways, please communicate with me! I'd only want to make sure any ongoing projects we have can be resolved properly and with these new rates accounted for. Don't hesitate to message me here on Patreon or through Discord, I'll be happy to talk with my commission patrons about the future!

ALSO IMPORTANT: If you do intend on staying at a commission tier, then be prepared to upgrade your pledge amount! When I update the tiers to reflect these new rates, those tier slots will technically be vacant until folks upgrade their pledges! I'll make sure to give a notice ahead of time when I'll be opening these *new* tiers up, that way the right folks can claim slots for themselves as needed. And if any slots are still open, then of course, anyone else if welcome to fill them and start earning words towards their own story~ The show goes on and all that.

Thank you all for reading this information. I am all too aware of just how uncomfortable this topic is, and I've been fretting making this post for half a year now. This post basically says, "Expect less content from me and at a higher price." But I love all my patrons and I'm sure you guys understand where I'm coming from. It's been a blast running the Patreon with all of you, and I really look forward to continuing this thing on for as long as I can! Updates like this are bound to happen, but I'm glad I have a positive community supporting my work. Thanks again for your understanding -- absolutely DM me if you have any questions or concerns!

Ohh, and make sure to join the Curse Crazy Discord if you haven't yet~ If you want to stay up to date with what I'm doing, there's no better place to check than the Cursey Pipeline! I update that as regularly as I can with information on all my active projects. See what's coming up next or how far along your favorite story is! And while you're there, chit-chat a bit and I'll probably respond~ I'm always checking the Discord, so please drop by just to say hi or whatever! Thanks for all the support, everyone, and take it easy~