This is just a tiny update to say that I’m leaving Twitter for good. There are a lot of reasons why, but I think it’s finally time. I’ve long since arrived at the point where it’s more effort for me to make a post than what I get in return, where on sites like Bluesky I’ve got a constantly growing and active audience.
I can no longer support Twitter in good conscience, given the direction the algorithm has taken (seemingly toward promoting conflict) and combined with the inability to reach even my own existing audience, I can definitely spend my time in more valuable places.
Anyway, it’s a shame to purge more than a decade of stuff and an account that helped me find a lot of my audience in the first place, but times have changed, I guess, and it’s time for me to change with them. Thanks for joining me for all these years! On to bigger and better things.
So, once again, Patreon has Done Something, or Patreon and Apple have Done Something, but either way, it’s the kind of thing that affects basically every creator using the Patreon platform, and yet again, here I am, having to say something as a result.
Before I proceed much further: if you are a current subscriber to our Patreon, or a prospective one, make sure you are subscribing through a browser on your computer or using the Safari browser if you use an iPhone/iPad. Because it’s not using the official Patreon app, you won’t get hit with the extra 30% fee.
The short version is, because Patreon decided they needed an app in the iOS store, Apple is subjecting them to the same rules they use for every other app, which means that they require a fee of 30% of whatever purchases are made through the app. I think this is stupid on their part, because the app doesn’t offer much extra in terms of features or functions that the website doesn’t already do, but their choice, I guess. Their explanation is quoted from their post on the subject below:
“As we first announced last year, Apple is requiring that Patreon use their in-app purchasing system and remove all other billing systems from the Patreon iOS app by November 2024.
This has two major consequences for creators:
Apple will be applying their 30% App Store fee to all new memberships purchased in the Patreon iOS app, in addition to anything bought in your Patreon shop.
Any creator currently on first-of-the-month or per-creation billing plans will have to switch over to subscription billing to continue earning in the iOS app, because that’s the only billing type Apple’s in-app purchase system supports.
Before we go any further, we want to be crystal clear about one thing: Apple’s fee will not impact your existing members. It will only affect new memberships purchased in the iOS app from November onward.”
What does this mean? If you subscribed through your computer or web browser, nothing. If you subscribed using the iOS app, maybe something. I am planning to take the option Patreon has given to increase iOS in-app subscription prices by 30%, because I can’t really afford to let a couple of multi million (and trillion) dollar companies eat into the little bit I’m able to make. Money from Patreon covers web hosting, domain name costs, software subscriptions, not to mention my increasing medical costs due to my disability, and other general survival. Ugh. I’m pretty annoyed by this turn of events, because all it does is smear Patreon even further and turn away potential new subscribers because it sounds like unnecessary complication and stuff that people just don’t want to deal with. Can you blame them?
In addition to all of this, I learned yet another ridiculous detail while checking Bluesky as I’m writing this right now, which is that purchases made through the iOS app don’t translate to immediate payments to the creator. It can take up to 75 days. Why? Who knows! That’s just Apple’s policy! (Thanks to @jendrawscomics.bsky.social for sharing this info.)
Regardless of all of this, I’m sort of stuck with Patreon because it has the most brand recognition of similar platforms and I currently have more supporters there than in other places. I could close it and suggest that everyone move to Ko-Fi, but I don’t realistically see that happening, because, again, who wants to deal with the complexity of changing entire platforms? This change is hostile to both creators and patrons.
I’ll be updating the Chio Club website with more information soon. I use that as the hub for anyone who wants to subscribe anywhere or support my comics in any fashion, so this little asterisk needs to go up there soon. But I’m also planning to clarify any other information about supporting Follower and our other comics in other ways, too.
In any case, I will keep you updated on any changes that I am making, and any silly thing that Patreon is doing and how it affects me. I am endlessly grateful for our Patreon supporters; in many instances you’ve literally helped keep me alive and functioning by funding my medication, and you keep my art alive online by paying for the tools to do that.
I think one of my next pieces is going to be about supporting artists online in general, both through financial and free means, so please look forward to it! As part of this, I’m also working on assembling a little Bluesky Starter Pack of comic artists, sci-fi/fantasy indie authors, and other creators, so if you’d like to be part of that please please jump on Bluesky and let me know! I’d love to showcase more creators who aren’t necessarily the same big names that get added to other packs, and hopefully draw in some more folks to Bluesky.
It’s the end of yet another year, so as usual, it’s a good time to look back on everything that happened in 2022! I want to sincerely thank all of our supporters – whether you’re a member of the Chio Club, or just a regular reader of our comics, it means a lot. Delade and I couldn’t do what we do without you all.
So… let’s get into it!
A challenger approaches (it’s 2022, that was the challenger)
2022 presented a lot of challenges and difficulties for us. I spent a lot of the year assisting a family member with an ongoing medical issue – running with them to appointments and so on – which sapped a lot of my time and energy. Still, I did my best to keep up with pages until I just couldn’t. In February I injured the thumb on my drawing hand, and it’s been a persistent issue ever since. This has taken quite some time to deal with properly, but recently I’ve been able to buy a splint that allows me to work carefully, without further injuring myself. I’ve got some specialist appointments lined up for the very end of the year, and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting some answers and squaring away this particular problem so I can get back to normal comic updates.
Life in general has been pretty challenging as well. We were illegally evicted from our apartment in 2021 (which is an entire terrifying story all on its own) and while we’re in a safe and relatively stable place now, it’s going to take time to get back to a true state of “normal.” That said, I want to express how much the Chio Club supporters really helped keep Follower and our other projects online this year, as well as helped keep us fed on a few occasions. I can’t truly convey how grateful we are for this. It’s been a rough year, and that’s something that has really helped.
On to more positive news!
Becoming a Brave Chio
This year, I wanted to try and do more to cultivate the reader community around Follower. I’ve been in an introverted shell for a while, and it seemed like a good time to try and break out of it a little bit. I put some work into improving the Radio Chio Discord, and have seen a little bit of success. This is obviously something that is going to be an ongoing process, but if you’re a reader of our comics and want a friendly place to hang out online, you should come join us! I’d like to try and come up with more community events for 2023, but I definitely appreciate any input from folks in the community. Anyone can join us on Discord, but there is an extra channel just for Chio Club members, too!
One of the other things I’ve been trying out this year is doing more streaming, both of comic and art work as well as games. It’s been an interesting experiment! I was able to make the requirements to be a Twitch Affiliate, which means I can actually get paid when folks drop in to watch streams, and is another means to help keep our comics going. I’ve had to slow down a little bit in the past couple of months due to my hand injury, but I’m trying to fit in what I can!
You can join me on Twitch to hang out while I draw or play a game, and if you follow me there, you can get notifications for when I go live. If you just hang out while I’m on, I do get paid via ads that are shown during the stream, so it’s also an easy way to help support my comics. You can also subscribe to my channel to get fancy badges and Chio emotes!
Along with streaming, I’ve been experimenting with creating more video content this year for various formats. I put some more effort into making short Follower-related videos for Tiktok, and was pleasantly surprised by the response! I somehow posted one of the most-viewed things I’ve ever made on the internet when Dia’s story went kind of micro-viral, so that was pretty exciting.
In addition, I’ve been adding more content to our YouTube page, including previous stream archives, comic art time lapses, and more. I have more ideas about making some more “how to” style videos and some story time type chatty videos, but those will likely be coming in the new year. These are things I can probably produce pretty quickly while I’m making other things, since that’s what they’re about, so I hope you’ll look forward to that! You can find us on YouTube here.
Social media has seemed pretty tumultuous in the past few months, so I’m doing a few things with our content to help smooth that out. First of all, most of our major content will originate here on Radiochio.com (or on its own comic site, like follower.messenger-comic.com) first, and will trickle down to other platforms afterward. So if you follow us on social sites for updates, you probably won’t notice a big difference, but it’ll be helpful if or when any particular social platform drops off the face of the planet. You know, apropos of nothing.
Additionally, I’m combining our monthly newsletter with the monthly update post I put out for Chio Club members on Patreon and Ko-Fi. It’ll be free to view here, there, or in your email. This is mostly because a lot of content got duplicated between these two, and it makes more sense to keep it together. Plus, this means that you can also follow us on Patreon or Ko-Fi for free to continue to get news and updates. Regular Chio Club content will remain a paid reward for subscribers, though.
Last thing on this topic: I made a handy links page that points to every place you can find us online. I’ve been experimenting more with alternative social platforms, and it’s been kind of refreshing. Check it out and see what you might have missed!
On to comic news!
Comic news (the good stuff)
The biggest comic news we have for 2022: Follower won DrunkDuck’s 2022 Best Anthropomorphic Comic! This was a total surprise, and we’re really honored to have been recognized! Thank you so much to folks who nominated or voted for us.
Follower became available on Globalcomix, a relatively new comics site that’s really great for both creators and readers. Currently, most of the comic is available to read for free there, just as it is on the main site, and 3 issues with bonus content are available for purchase. More content will be coming in 2023, and the existing issues will get updated art, since that’s an ongoing project.
Throughout the year, I’ve been working on retouching and resizing older Follower pages so I can do two things: publish Volume One of Follower, and release our newly redesigned website to the public. Chio Club members can currently check out an early version of the site, but it won’t be complete without the retouched pages. The edits for Volume One primarily depend on making art fixes to chapters one and two, and text updates to the rest of the comic for readability and consistency. This has been a slower progress than I hoped due to my hand injury, but I’m getting there!
Follower remains on a hiatus for now. I’m hoping to get a small buffer of about 5 pages (or more) ready to go before I start updating normally again. Chio Club members have been getting early looks at new pages as I’ve been working through them.
Messenger has been more neglected than I’ve hoped for this year. I have a stack of half-finished pages waiting to be finished. I am not sure where this will fit into the schedule, but I’m really, really hoping to get to them in 2023. I’m as frustrated as anyone by how long it’s taken to get these updates made, but life has been wild, as you’ve seen.
Thank you for reading
So that’s where things stand around here. Again, I want to express how thankful we are for all our readers and supporters. We really wouldn’t be able to keep up a lot of what we do without you all. You keep us going, sometimes literally, and it means the world to both of us.
Here’s to a better, brighter, and stronger 2023!
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