State of the Patreon: July

June was an up and down month for the blog.  For the blog itself, viewership fell off sharply, and even on Patreon, I didn't see any up-tick for access when Orphan of the Stars came out.  The conclusion I must draw is that, despite much praise for the ideas, there wasn't a lot of interest in Orphan of the Stars.  I suspect this is likely because I haven't built up an audience.  There are certainly people who have been coming to this blog for Psi-Wars for months now who took a vacation from the blog while I took a vacation from Psi-Wars.

But that vacation worked.  I have more material!  Next month, I'll unveil planetary governments and (unless things go horribly wrong), four noble houses of the Alliance.  I haven't decided if I want to break corporations out into their own thing yet or if I want to wait until I start looking at the galaxy as a whole.  Stay tuned!

Despite the general lack of interest in Orphan of the Stars, my Patreon has picked up, especially here at the end of the month!  I've hit my second goal, which means I have the funding for art!  It does turn out that art is more expensive than I'd hoped, but the monthly $50 I've set aside for it should get us a nice piece at least once a month.  I would like to announce that I'm going to change the remaining stretch goals.  I have two sketch artists working on general designs (Patreons who participated with the Trader polls will remember some sketch work by Michelle) and concepts for me and they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but they actually do charge money when other people ask, and I think it fair that we pay up if we can, so the next couple of stretch goals will be about making sure our sketch artists get paid.

Next month will be a little touch and go like this month has been, but it looks like you might get a second look at cybernetics, and then I'd like to dive into starships, including: more detailed thrusters, a deeper look at hyperspace travel and how to detect it, and then corvettes, corvettes, corvettes.  If I'm lucky, I'll have a new template for you, but I'm still trying to build up ground on the aristocracy, so we'll have to see!  Speaking of the aristocracy, $3+ will see the aristocrat documents as soon as they're ready, and for $5+, I have perhaps the oldest poll I had arranged, the poll that kicked off the idea of polls, which is the poll for a new aristocratic house.

I want to thank everyone for supporting my patreon, and for supporting this blog.  I do this for you, so it's wonderful to see it so appreciated. I also thank you for your patience.  Transitioning into fatherhood has been a wonderful adventure.