SubscribeStar · 3:02am Jan 21st, 2023
Good day to all of you.
After a year of telling myself to do so, I've finally gone and done what I had hoped to do a year before that. I've come up with a way of monetizing my writing.
At first, I thought I was going to just cut my teeth on fanfiction, then move on to regular fiction. Certainly, I do have some stories that are filled with non-canon characters and non-canon locations that could easily just be straight fiction without having to delve into the world of an already-established pool of source material, but convincing a publisher to take your work and sell it is a real pain, and self-publishing is an expense I can't really afford, especially if I want to see a profit on it.
For the longest time, I was considering joining Patreon or a service similar to it, but I had convinced myself that they wouldn't take me.
Well, I finally looked into it. They won't.
SubscribeStar will, though.
And so, through several people urging me to do so, I went and applied. And I was approved.
Now, Due to the rules set forth by FiMFiction, I am not allowed to charge people for early access or put charge gates on certain chapters. Of course, I wouldn't do that, anyway, because my loyalty lies with storytelling. I would not want to bar people from reading my work.
But there are other things I can offer. First, outlines. I usually like to put together a condensed plan for a story before I begin. There are times when I just put the basic idea in there and see where it leads me. Fluttershy's Nature Show, for example, was a single sentence explaining the premise, and then a list of animals. I even skipped one because it was too similar to another. Nevertheless, that outline, along with many others are going to be available at the second tier, as well as new ones as their stories are finished. (We wouldn't want to spoil stories in progress or future stories, would we?)
At the next tier up, polls. The important ones, anyway. I've made it no secret that I go back and forth between writing a story for myself and then one for someone else. Lately, I've been adding interim stories to the mix for hiatuses, and we'll see where those go, but for now, let's focus on the main body of my work, which switches back and forth.
The stories I write for other people are first come, first serve. It's already a several month wait while you wait for me to finish the stories in front of it, you don't want me pushing it back any further. So don't ask to be bumped forward. I've seen "I should be ready in March" turn to "Probably early December, at this rate." You don't want that happening to you, don't make it happen to other people.
But the stories I come up with on my own are another story. Those can come out whenever, I just need something to let my mind go where it needs to be. That's what the polls are for. When I finish The Rie of Passion, I'm not going to just pop into the next request, because I wouldn't be able to return to my normal headspace. But you can decide which one. There's already a poll with seven options that I've put together plans for that I just have to sit down and write. This way, there's a clearer way to communicate what it is you want me to write about, without just making a request through the PM system here.
In short, I'm not going to leave this place. I'm simply making it so that you can give back to me, if you so choose. There is no obligation, though I would be very grateful.
