the STATE OF ALL THINGS: MARCH 31st, 2021 (Patreon)

{patrons only}

hallo my loves.

here we go.....

if you're not wanting to read this odyssey-length TOME (these monthly Althing recap posts can be, er, long) here is a little table of contents for what you'll find in this post, after i ramble about feelings and how i'm doing:

• HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED - a round-up of projects/events that have happened in the last month(s)
  
• WHAT'S ON THE STOVE AND/OR COMIN' DOWN THE PIKE - a list of projects that are currently in production.....and updates on where they're currently at.
  
• DISPATCHES FROM THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLES OF TEAM AFP - where team AFP folks around the globe to share what they're working on & how they're doing. don't forget: this patreon not only funds my art production and pays for life bills and collaborators and so on....it also affords me the ability to have a full-time staff - in COVID! - helping me (and all of you) to make this art community as wonderful as it is. sadly but realistically, i spend way more money (many tens of grands) per month on salaries, insurances for staff, and office costs than actual art-making. but ALL GOOD. my staff is a critical part of my ability to work the way i do. i love that we are a family of art weirdos that talk to you. read their lives.
  
• HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING - nitty-gritty numbers on the Things (or paid posts) released in the previous couple of months.
  
• A GENERAL UPDATE ON THE PATREON - a few updates on patreon itself and my patreon page
  
• OTHER ARTISTS TO SUPPORT - pretty self-explanatory.
  
• ART BEGETTING ART - a collection of some beautiful fan art 

....................

HI. here's something i saw yesterday:

greetings from, you guessed it, new zealand. i'm still here. it's now been a year and change...who'd have thunk it.

i'm a few days into a week-long road trip with ash (a "roadie" as they adorably call it here in ol' aotearoa). we came back to havelock north and the surrounding areas to see THE WIGGLES....

an australian children's band that managed to squeeze through the border lockdown to play for the children. we bought the tickets six months ago, and then, we moved. i used the show as an excuse to haul me back to our - dear god - old haunts. but it's beautiful and strange: we now have a history here. we not only live here, we have places we once lived. it was an extraordinary feeling, driving back to a place where i never meant to live in the first place; a place ash and i lived for ten months. to feel nostalgia for a place that was once a surreal accident and now, like it or not (and i like it), is part of our life story.

life is so strange. before i tell you more about life....which i will...i want to just welcome in the newcomers. 

HELLO.

if you're new to the patreon, hooray, and WELCOME! 

this thing you are reading is what we call the monthly althing, a sort of blog and state of the union and Team AFP that we assemble and charge for. when we don't have a ton of content coming out - like the weekly podcast (no more!), this helps keep the lights on, and keeps the community enlightened about what we're up to in case you don't want to read constant posts from me, where information tends to get buried.

if you've been here awhile and are wondering where these monthly althing posts have been, back in october of 2020 i did a poll (To THING or NOT TO THING the ALTHING?).

since the podcast started coming out regularly, i - along with the rest of the team - had been über-slammed....and since we knew we had a Thing to release each week of the month, we took a break from thing-ing the althing. didn't need to, and also, the team didn't have the bandwidth.

they're BACK, for now....and we'll be shape-shifting them as we go along, as you can see this one includes a video embedded at the top (if you're viewing this in your email, click through to view on web to watch the video). i like that - videos are a little more direct and human than tip-tapping away, though i could tip-tap all day long sometimes. i just want you to see my tired face. and say thank you in person. which is always polite. patreon and patronage has no fucking rulebook. we're making all of this up.

.....................

take a deep breath.

first, some housekeeping to get everyone up to speed:

the last althing/round-up-style update i posted was in december, recapping the year 2020. if you wanna catch up on everything that's happened, oh, oct-dec of last year, go there.

prior to that, the last proper Althing i posted, which was not Thing'ed (you were not charged for it) was in october, recapping the month of september, which is when The Art of Asking Everything podcast officially began to roll out. if this post floats your boat and you just cannot bear not knowing all the details, those posts'll keep you busy for an entire weekend. and hell, if you're new, you've paid for 'em. so go read 'em.

.......

and now, some feelings.

i have been spending a lot of time thinking about impermanence, non-attachment and grief. and wanting to write about it. and not able to, because i'm traumatized, exhausted, and trying to be a mother who spends time with her five-year-old kid. i think it took five years, but the pandemic really knocked it into me and i've finally accepted it. i have to make a choice between being a good mother and being a productive artist for a while. not forever. but for a while. i just will not be able to work like i used to, into the night, as i wish, when i want, when inspiration calls. it's a grief in itself.

even as i write this, i'm in a bind. ash usually sleeps later than i do, and i'd planned on this morning to write the althing. he woke up early. my writing time vanished. there's nobody to take care of him and i have to get this post out by the end of the day....so he's on his ipad for the first time in months, so i can work. i don't feel like a failure, but i do feel a little like a failure and a hypocrite sometimes. 

it helped a lot to write this epic list of things i will probably never have time to write about on the one-year anniversary of my landing in NZ.

i wake up every day and want to make art. i have ideas bleeding out of my eyeballs. i want to write long 5,000-word blogs and essays every day.

about covid. about togetherness, and apartness. about intimacy. about cancel culture. about grief, and miscarriage, and reproductive rights, and about why relationships fail and break down. 

i want to write about the little boy who adopted me yesterday. his name was enoch, and he was three, and he was there in the kindergarten playground where ash used to play every day when we lived in havelock north - we went back for a nostalgic visit. he grabbed my hand and attached himself to me. he would not let go. i let him sit in my lap for a while as ash glowed and played with his old friends.  

i want to write about what it feels like to be two years away from home, and i want to write about new zealand. and i want to have time to work on all the songs i started over the past year.

i just counted:

i have started over 50 songs, and i have finished none of them.

none.

it's fine. 

they're there.

they're ripe for the finishing.

......

i'm starting to give myself credit for becoming a better and better photographer.

because i'm just a bitch with an iphone, mostly i don't include "photographer" as my list of skills. but i did study photography in college, and i care about my work, and i'm starting to admit that part of what i spend my art-time doing - always have - is trying to make beautiful visual images. i often take 20-30 images of one subject before choosing the right one to post, and i spend time in photoshop cropping and fixing and fiddling with contrasts. and i never really talk about the fact that i do that. but i do. i post these photographs because i want to share what i see with the world. it's art. it's art. it's time and it's art, and it means something. i need to rip a page out of my own book sometimes. 

the world is so weird. 

how we name what we do is so odd.

here's a picture of ash on new year's eve.

i love this.

here's another one of my favorite shots from the past few months: it's of neil and ash in downtown waiheke overlooking the water....their hair intermingling and merging like two mating sea creatures

i love the love in this photo.

i am still learning to capture.

and speaking of awe....

i have decided it's the best word to describe this year, this time, this life here in new zealand, today, everything.

i am just....in constant awe.

i can't get my jaw off the floor. it's just glued there.

i love the word "awe" because it's got no good/bad hangin' off it.

it's just awe. you can feel awe at the size of the monster about to eat you, or awe at the glory of a sunrise. you can feel awe at the simultaneous destruction and birth of the world. awe is just about feeling an indescribable, wordless, un-namable (you get the drift?) THING in your soul at the impossible and yet obvious there-it-is-ness of it all.

i feel daily awe that i landed in new zealand the week that i did. that i met the people i did. that i moved into the house that i did. awe that neil left exactly, exactly, exactly when he did. awe that i managed to be fine. awe that flowers look and smell so magnificent. awe that i carried a dead baby around in my womb for a while and didn't know. awe that people KNIT. awe that ash can read words like "civilization" and "sabotage" and he's only five. awe that the universe kept throwing stones at me when i was at my lowest ebb. awe that i still managed to stay positive. awe that people figured out how to cook food and make fire. awe that birds used to rule new zealand. awe that i survived the abuse that's come my way, and that still comes my way. awe at the rock formations on the cliffs of the beaches in waiheke. awe that i met people like anthony, my dead best friend, who taught me how to move through anger and into compassion. awe that i didn't get killed by that car that hit me in ireland thirteen years ago. 

i could go on and on all day, and in my head, i do.

.......

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

....a few more snapshots from the past few months.

more on the awe front: i just took ash to a festival in new zealand called SPLORE. i was a surprise, barely-announced guest. i traded three tickets for a performances in little tents. there were 8,000 people there.

i spent the entire 36 hours i was there in awe.

right after playing at the children's tent, with ash....

playing a surprise song with princess chelsea, who's a fantastic NZ musician i know from long ago. she opened up for the dresden dolls many moons ago, and now we're getting to become friends. we played "like a prayer" by madonna. ($5+ tier people, i think i can probably dig up some footage to send you, we were TERRIBLE!! it was perfect).

if you want to listen to her music, this is one of my favorite songs by her, and her partner jonathan bree, who's also a local: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TV_128Fz2g

people.

being normal.

i want to write more about what this feels like. 

seeing this stuff, doing this stuff. 

HAVING this stuff.

even when i see a guy in american flag stretch pants.

even then.

it feels.....extraordinary.

i talk to my friends in europe and the states every day.

i read all of the comments that you folks leave here when i ask you how you are doing.

i may not always answer or heart the comment (sometimes there are 500 comments and it's just too hard to respond to everything).....but i read it all.

i know what this is.

i know what it means.

i know how fucking lucky i am to be in a tent and do yoga with 100 sweaty festival-goers.

i did.

again....

i just feel awe.

.....

i've been following the covid news daily, and trying to keep a gauge. it's impossible.

my friends in new york, my family in boston, my family in california, my friends in london, germany, poland, everybody is twisting apart.

the story is falling apart and hard to follow.

i'm only able to follow little threads of humanity: how jherek is doing, how jason is doing, how sxip and coco are doing, how my sister is doing, how gaba is doing, how max is doing, how gaby is doing, how jack is doing, how my tea is doing, how my friend who just had a baby in brisbane is doing....

i have stopped being able to feel or make sense of anything when i read the new york times app, and i am trying harder and harder to rely on the news of people, of human beings. that's why it means so much to me when you take the time to answer my questions when i ask HOW YOU ARE. i think only you can tell me. CNN cannot. the new york times cannot. only you can, you are bigger than the news.

.....

before i forget: i wrote the introduction for a book!....out this month via penguin publishers. (i'm going to send the whole intro to the $5+ patrons, so heads up).

it's a powerful offering by my pal robin marty, and it's called NEW HANDBOOK FOR A POST-ROE AMERICA:

i hate to say it, but abortion may slowly become more and more illegal in america.

this books hands out essential knowledge and i recommend buying multiple copies and giving it as a gift to anyone you know who may need the information.

not very sexy, i know. but fucking important.

here's where to order:

https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/new-handbook-for-a-post-roe-america-9781644210581

..............

my only gig coming up is the
AUCKLAND WRITERS FESTIVAL.....

I'll be doing two events at this year's Auckland Writers Festival, one with Neil on May 15th and then one solo show the day after on May 16th. 

Here's all the details:

Amanda Palmer (i am going to talk about pain, writing, HOW....and more, and bring a ukulele. i'm HOPING TO STREAM THIS FOR PATRONS...)
Waitākere Room, Aotea Centre
Sunday, May 16th
3:45pm

Info & Tickets Here.

AND

Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman (we are gonna talk about writing & life stuff....I AM HOPING TO STREAM AND THING AND ARCHIVE THIS ONE TOO)

Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre Saturday, May 15th at 8:30pm. Info & Tickets Here

.......

here are some amusing tweets of mine from the past few months, if you missed them....

i tweeted this in february.

it resonated. 

this was from march ....

i'm deeply feeling that, daily.

and this was sweet....

......

next up.....

WHAT'S COMING DOWN THE PIKE?

well, it's april, so it's my birthday month. my birthday is on april 30th.

last year's birthday was very terrible. i had never had a more terrible birthday. it was really, really, really terrible. you could not give me one million dollars to re-live that day.

i thought hard about what i wanted to give myself for surviving this god-awful fucking traumatic-as-fuck year, and mostly i decided that i desperately want to go away from everything, and feel held, touched, loved, and just plain ol' taken care of for the first time in a long time. my friend julie ann, who's an MP for the green party in wellington, told me about a group yoga retreat that's happening over the week of my birthday. i didn't need any convincing. i'm going. neil agreed to take and watch ash. i'm grateful.

i haven't taken a long offline break since 2007, when i went offline for 10 days for a yoga retreat right before making "who killed amanda palmer". i'm way overdue, and i'm pretty broken inside after this year. i need healing time.

this will be me.

i am going to the woods and taking a totally offline break - no social media, no texting, no email, no fucking nothing but gathering my soul-parts - for the week in late april/early may.....over my birthday. i'll write a long message to you all before i go...and i'm going to do a big all-patreon webcast before i go. more on that below, but here's the link to RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/afpbday2021. 

i'll need you. i'll love you. 

and thank you. 

because your patronage is paying for this retreat. 

thank you in advance for my birthday present.

.....................

MEANWHILE, IN PROJECT-LAND.....

many of these projects have been in production for well over a year, and some, two years, and for miscellaneous reasons they've been delayed for all different reasons....my personal life falling apart, the old tour getting in the way, and, obviously, the pandemic. collaborators have gotten sick, had babies, fallen apart, come back together....the world has been strange. i have loved that the patreon has made it possible to not rush anything through.

there's just a giant stove with lots of simmering art pots on it. 

we have, if you wanna look at it in a certain way, a TREASURE TROVE of shit to put out.....as i finally start to have time. it'll be slow.

..............

the LOOK MUMMY NO HANDS MUSIC VIDEO....

is still in production.

given covid, it's taken on a whole new meaning. there's also a documentary that'll go along with it.

james holland, the editor, has been dealing with family stuff in upstate new york....it's gonna take a second, but it's gonna happen.

.......

THE TASMANIA CONFESSION BOOTH DOCUMENTARY

this one is exciting.....if all goes well we will be able to put this one out in june, as we've had an offer to PREMIERE it at a new zealand documentary film festival.

cross your fingers that we can get this one together in time.

it'll be hard, but we're going to try to do it.

..................

THE MICHAEL DUNAWAY DOCUMENTARY

when i was working on "there will be no intermission", i worked on the side on a little documentary (working title: THE RIDE) with a filmmaker named michael dunaway. we're working on it slowly in the background. it's another....WHO KNOWS but it's gonna happen project.

................

JANESSA JOFFE'S TORONTO BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW SERIES....

this is another film project we've had on the burner for AGES and we just lost the plot and didn't put it out because the team was too stretched. the footage is incredible.....there are 5-6 interviews with people who wanted to share dark stories, and we set them on on a couch to talk, while we filmed. it's just wonderful stuff. we have a lot of FILM! we can't put it all out at once, and so we'll just....figure it out.

........

as you may have noticed, patreon is MAGIC, we can start all the projects we want. but we don't have an overall let's-get-it-finished producer on our team. it's just me, and people on my team trying to help...and nobody on my team has experience in online film or marketing or anything like that. that means it's really easy for things to die on the vine, and this is where i sorta miss having a label, even though i mostly don't miss having a label. 

everything can so easily get backed up. last year, we were hoping to hire a sort of a full-scale, full-time producer - a "unicorn", we call the position - to keep all these projects actually burning and not dying, and we need someone who speaks internet and knows how to help get these projects out into the world with fire and grace, but we can't quite afford another full-time staff member at the moment. 

so we are gonna do what we can, as we always do. and we love that you all understand what a flailing, skeleton-crew-in-a-pandemic we are. we may be able to hire a person like this, and if we hire, we'll be coming to the patreon first for applications. i'd so much rather hire from within the community.

........

MORE PODCAST RECORDING

we are working on a "BEST OF THE FIRST SEASON" podcast!! this one is gonna be good, we've recorded almost all of it, and we are MAKING A VIDEO for it. we're hoping to have this one out in the next month if all goes well.

meanwhile, i've put the podcast on pause while i get my shit together. i don't want to just put the podcast out because we need content and money, and the podcast has started feeling a little repetitive and Not-Art-enough. i'm a songwriter. every time i have hour-long meetings and spend entire days getting to a studio to record an interview i find myself thinking: why are you not writing songs? making art? finishing your fucking video projects?

i'm happy to do podcasts and amazing conversations to supplement the art i make, but i don't want to turn into a full-time podcasting person....so we are going to put the podcast out once a month, if that, to keep things feeling not weird.

.............

FUTURE DRESDEN DOLLS THANGS....

photo by jonathan beckley

oh my band.

i miss my band.

the dolls are trying to figure out a way to play together LIVE over the internet - me here, brian in LA - so that we can connect with each other, and with the community. we really miss each other. technology is strange, but we think we may have figured something out.

stay tuned for that.

.....

DISCORD.....

i am trying to peel away from social media....and i want to be able to GO TO MY PATRONS with thoughts and moments and images instead of heading immediately to twitter or instagram. it'll be a game changer. it's just taken forever, and we need moderation.

we have been trying to do this FOREVER and i'm hoping this month is the month we kick it off. no promises but we're gonna try.

for a while i have been considering using discord, which is basically a chat app that lets you gather people to chat in text AND voice. i've been loving experimenting with clubhouse recently, but the culture over there and the type of rooms available are limited to industry type chatter....and it made me really want a place for you all to connect with each other and for me to connect with you over voice chats - random and scheduled and other fast paced discussions happening in real time. patreon has an integration with discord that lets you offer access to your server (a server is like your dedicated space on discord), to your patrons as part of their reward tiers. some patreon creators offer it to high level reward tiers, some offer it to one tier, some to many tiers, etc.

furthermore....

i am constantly thinking about THE PATREON ITSELF and all the offerings and reward tiers. it's been an evergreen (and never-fading, only-growing) item on my to-do list to sit down with hayley and discuss all the tiers and see what we can add to them or tweak them to make them work better. i intended to do this after the tour, but then the pandemic happened and mixed my life into a snowglobe (or cocktail shaker... i like that visual better). 

one glaring hole here is the $5 Random Surprises tier, it's one of the most popular tiers on the patreon, but as of late, there ain't been a lot of random surprises or behind-the-scenes bonus things to send to these folks....and i've been too tired to be creative, because y'know, being creative is my job and my specialty.

so, while i know most of you are here and HAPPY to be here just to support the art and be part of the community, i want to provide value and gratitude, i want YOU to feel valued and connected. 

given that, when the team kicks off the discord, we're planning to make it available to patrons starting at the $5 reward tier, so it'll be available to everyone pledging in the tiers $5+ and up.

we are still tweaking the server and getting it ready, and then we'll start by opening it up to a few patron tiers to beta test it so we can make adjustments before opening it up to 1,000s of you - this is what we did when we launched The Shadowbox and it worked really well. 

whenever we create new community spaces, especially one that moves so fast pace, we also need to be mindful of how we shape it - what it will look like, how it will work, how we can make it a kinder space on the internet and encourage productive and fun discourse.....and limit any possibility of it tailspinning out of control. (that does happen).

so the team is being cautious and we'll be thinking about moderators and how that will work so that it's set up to thrive. if you have experience moderating a discord server, and this sounds like something you'd love to help us with, feel free to shoot us an email at patronhelp@amandapalmer.net to let us know and we'll keep you in mind as we work to get this off the ground.

i cannot wait. 

.....

Speaking of the higher level reward tiers...

$10+ WEBCHAT PATRONS!

it's high time for another webchat. i'll try to call you this week one morning before ash wakes up...but let's also schedule a 2-hr webchat in a few weeks and i'll remind you in a $10+ post.

here's the details:

the next scheduled webchat will be on WEDNESDAY APRIL 14th at 6pm ET New York time (that's at 10am NZST on thursday the 15th for me and everyone else in new zealand...)

you can start RSVP'ing here:

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/36qhue0y

xrowdcast will also display a countdown so you can see what time it'll be in your timezone, or you can look it up here on timeanddate.com's handy tool.

if you're not yet in the $10+ reward tiers, you can change reward tiers to be eligible to view the webchat live and chat with us. sometimes i'll make the archive available to all patrons to view, but only those in the $10 and higher tiers can tune in live, chat in real time and maybe even be brought up on screen with me. it's part of their reward tier....

.....

while i love doing the webchats with the $10+ patrons, i also love connecting WITH ALL PATRONS and so with that...

and reminder, as mentioned above....

EVERYONE! ALL PATRONS! EARMARK APRIL 22nd from 7pm to 10pm ET (NY time) for an ALL PATRON AMANDA GOING OFFLINE BIRTHDAY WEBCAST!!!!

i'll remind you. BUT....same as above, you can start RSVP'ing on crowdcast right now, HERE:
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/afpbday2021

if you RSVP, Crowdcast will send you an email reminder 10 minutes before we go live to remind you to tune in. 

....

WHAT AM I READING right now?

More Than a Woman by Caitlin Moran

just finished it. don't agree with her about botox, but agree with pretty much everything fucking else, and laughed out loud at least 6 times while reading. it's HILARIOUS. pick it up.

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/more-than-a-woman-caitlin-moran?variant=32123086864418

...

On Connection by Kae Tempest

i'm just in the middle of this one, and i've loved kae's (formerly known as kate) work for many years. this was one of those books that so many people recommended to me, i knew i had to get it. it's like a manifesto that i could have written, and their poetry sings off the page. it's SHORT, too. you could read it in a sitting or two.

https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571354023-on-connection.html

....

Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reny Eddo-Lodge

i'm halfway through this one....there have been so many books about race and racism flying off the shelves this year, for good reason, and i've picked a few of them up. this one is excellent, and written in such bold, unapologetic, direct prose, that the book itself is a work of art beyond the politics and the learnings. 

https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race-9781408870587/

.....

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

this book is unique: it's based on real journalism and smooshed into something that feels closer to fiction. and fuck: it is so incredibly honest. it's inspired my own writing. you can always get more honest. every time i think you can't, you can. i can. you can. fuck.

http://www.simonandschusterpublishing.com/three-women-consumer/
.....

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald

if you missed H is for Hawk, drop everything and read that. but this essay collection is also balm for the soul. i'm reading it slowly, an essay at a time, like a rich chocolate. nature, time, life and the human condition, and you just want helen to be your sister friend forever.

https://groveatlantic.com/book/vesper-flights/

.......

DISPATCHES FROM TEAM AFP.

here's words from the team. we have a team zoom call every week - we have since the pandemic started - but it is so, so hard to run this ship while we are all variously locked down and separated and in different time zones. it's exhausted all of us, and we're learning and trying to slow down to make the mood fit the moment. i have had a lot of teams in my career and i can say this, now that we are a year into the pandemic: i have never, ever had a better team.

this team is GOLDEN. and i feel like i constantly fail to express how grateful i am to the weirdos who work for me. it's such a strange job to try to help a multi-media artist "do" things. but they're all killing it in their various departments. i'm endlessly lucky. and so lucky to have a  patronage system that pays their salaries. so....love all around. and...we are gonna hear from two people we've never heard from before, even though they've been working with us for a while: fannie (who produces the podcast!) and kelly welles in the UK, who's been helping me with podcast, website text and social media stuff....

from HAYLEY:

Hello everyone!

In a section further down below in this post you'll find some words from me about Patreon, updates they've made and a report about the health of Amanda's page in particular, so I'll use this team dispatch to be much more personable and try to cover a round up of some of the work happening behind the scenes since my last team dispatch update.

It feels quite odd to sit down and reflect on the larger part of the last year. So much time has passed, a lot has happened, and yet some how it all feels blurred together like it was no time at all. Here are few updates on some of the biggest things that come to mind:

We've hit the one year mark since we re-launched The Shadowbox, we officially launched it on Amanda's birthday last April, but we started building it and testing it the March before. This project has been like my baby, I was an active user of the older versions of the forum, and have been the point person setting everything up for this one. We have a healthy range of activity over there, it's been growing steadily and conversations are active and so it is now time to appoint community moderators, in addition to myself and other folks on Team AFP. Head on over to meet Len and Eli if you don't already know them, and check out the threads and great conversations happening over there.

The forum uses a Patreon integration that lets us synch member lists so that patrons who sign up to The Shadowbox (using the same email address as you use for your Patreon account) can get access to Patron-only sections of the forum. We're one of the, if not THE BIGGEST Patreon community using this integration, we have thousands and thousands of patrons to synch and we've notice periodically the member list synchronization can break, or delay to update. When that happens, I go to the fine folks at Discourse, the platform The Shadowbox is on, and ask for help and they quickly jump in and fix the code and things operate perfectly, until the wind blows weirdly and it needs another fix. It actually works quite smoothly, but I share this to give some insight so you see - that just because something is up and running, it isn't a set it and forget it mechanism, it needs constant oversight and attention. And that oversight and attention comes from yours truly!

Speaking of oversight and attention, much of my work and attention over the last 6 months has been heavily focused on the podcast, making sure that each element we needed for the Patreon posts - text from Amanda, show descriptions, transcripts, photos etc. are all ready. The live Crowdcast conversations, which entailed scheduling, setting up the events on Crowdcast, doing tech checks with guests, and watching the broadcasts in real time to help troubleshoot any issues. Keeping Amanda's website up to date with the podcast info, and then helping to delegate that task out. Proof reading the credits and making sure high level patrons that are individually thanked are up to date and accounted for. And all the other little details that go into a big team effort like this weekly, serial release. It's an understatement to say that each podcast episode is a lot of work, it's truly a tremendous team effort and it takes a lot of attention and care to put out. It blows my mind how much we also accomplish alongside it because it's a full time project in and of itself. And we are all working in so many worldwide time zones - the extended team is in New York, Los Angeles, London, Sydney and of course, New Zealand.

This past Halloween we also released a live concert film, The Dresden Dolls: Return to Paradise in honor of the band's 20th anniversary, which was no small feat. It almost feels like a fever dream to reflect upon what work we did for this one because it was full steam ahead and quite frankly, overwhelming to have so many tight deadlines stacked on top of each other while also being in flux with a team transition that left some large gaps of help and during that time I felt extremely spread thin, spread thinner than I've ever been before in the decade I've worked with Amanda and that says A LOT because we've always been a small team spinning many plates and juggling many projects.

There's a lot of work that happened/happens behind the scenes that is mostly administrative, but may be worth noting as they take up a bulk of time and energy for the team and specifically, for me. We completed one of the most complicated Art In The Mail rounds we've ever had, complicated for many reasons, including, multiple staff changes throughout different phases of the project, multiple layers of international shipping during worldwide pandemic shipping delays (both the art and Amanda signing the art were being made in New Zealand and ultimately we had to finish fulfilling all non-australia/aotearoa parcels with Alex in the UK). We've been working steadily on the next round of Art In The Mail, which I'm sure you'll hear more about soon.

We've also been working very diligently on cleaning up Amanda and the Dresden Dolls' online merch stores (including changing the merch company we are using to fulfill, or mail out to you, the merch). The entire US webstores were updated and replaced - it may look similar to you when you view the pages now, but they were completely rebuilt from the backend and cleaned up. We've also done a lot of work examining the inventory and allocating items between the US and UK shops. We are putting together a big sale that's coming soon, and working to factor in special perks for patrons specifically, all of which you'll definitely hear more about soon, if not below in Alex's dispatch.

We're still doing lots of work, fixes and clean up on the recently re-launched AmandaPalmer.net - this is going to be a long term project, especially once we're at a place to add new parts to the website, but for now, even maintaining it and smoothing out the new server transition is proving to be an on-going project needing attention.

Something really neat happening within the community, neatly organized through The Shadowbox, is that patrons are helping to provide us with captions to add to Amanda's YouTube video collection, including older video uploads, to help smoothly and accurately provide captions on Amanda's videos to make them more accessible to our community and the public at large. Special shout out to Thomas and Ocean, who are constantly sending us new captions to add. I am so THRILLED that this project is happening and that it's being done by our fan community for our fan community, it's so beautiful to see.

This is just a sample of some of the work I've been doing, participating in, and overseeing, that I think is fun to share. So much work is happening in the background at any given time, and projects are in all sorts of phases of development.

Sunset in Woodstock, January 9, 2021

I took some time off work in the beginning of the new year and at the invitation of Amanda I spent a few days up at her and Neil's house in Woodstock to stretch my legs in the woods outside my tiny NYC apartment and have some time embraced by the change of scenery. It was really beautiful to see trees and snow and nature, and it was really lovely to eat meals by candle light, watch a beautiful sunset on the porch, and see from a far, people I haven't seen in so long -I got to experience Sxip and Coco and Gabby's energy even from many feet away and that felt so good. I walked in the woods and felt the snow covered grass crunch underneath my boots and it felt much kinder than the tough concrete of New York City. After being static in the same small space, the same small world for a year, it felt nice to have a change of scenery and be among the trees. It was a treat for me to show my partner a place that's so special to me, Amanda's home feels like a home away from home for me, I've spent so much time there working on so many projects, and to experience it for the first time as a guest, rather than as an employee with A Job To Do was such a warm experience and one that meant a lot to me as my well has been running quite dry for some time. It felt like a hug from Amanda all the way around the world, and for that I am so extremely grateful to her, and the house caretakers for making it a safe and beautiful time.

Recently, I've been dealing with some rough personal stuff, making things hard/harder than usual, doing my best to ride it out and be patient for the ebb to turn into a flow. But in positive news, I just completed my second COVID vaccination and in two weeks from now I'll be considered "fully vaccinated". I still plan to be cautious and mindful of the pandemic, of course, but the relief it provides me in removing some levels of fear and anxiety by providing protection from this serious illness is something I can't quite put into words, other than to say, I'm full of gratitude. I've helped my family and friends, all over the country, get appointments and while it isn't easy, I am more than willing to be generous to information share what I've learned navigating the systems. Feel free to message me on The Shadowbox or Twitter if you wanna chat about it or if you need help finding vaccination sites in the US.  I'm also open to being transparent about the side effects I experienced to help let folks know what to expect when they get theirs.

My sister had an appointment at the same time as me, and since we're in the same bubble, we were able to go to the same booth and stay together on the lines. I didn't realize she was going to take a picture, but as soon as the jab went in my arm she said "Dolly Parton!" which made me laugh and honestly, helped relieve some of my tension (I got the Moderna vaccine, which Dolly Parton famously donated money to help fund its research and development, and got jabbed with herself publicly to raise awareness in this wonderful clip). On the day of my second jab, I was the 47th dose the nurse administered, in a day where they expected to administer 1,100 vaccinations in total.

I will part with these words: thank you to all of you for joining us for this ride, this year has been hard and it's no small thing to have you all here by our sides, supporting Amanda's art, supporting the team, and being the loving, wonderful, hilarious and thoughtful community that you all are. I hope that as time goes on, things get easier for you and your loved ones, and I truly hope we can convene soon in the same space and time, screaming our hearts out together and bawling at the overwhelming awe that is experiencing events together.

Until then, be well and take care of yourself and each other.

Hayley

....

from MICHAEL:

Hello Patrons!

I still can’t get over that a year ago I was still doing my “Daily Coronavirus Updates” on Instagram and now I’m writing to you just days after my second vaccine shot.  Wherever you are in the world, this past year has definitely impacted all of us and I wanted to start off my update by saying that we are all in this together and I will continue to hope that this global experience in some small way helps to bring us closer together. . . even if it’s just to a small degree.

Since our last update in December and our last Monthly Althing last September so much has changed and yet so little at the same time.  Like many of you, I’m still in my apartment, seeing the same people in my pod that I’ve been seeing for the past year.  I still rarely go out and when I do it’s always outside and distanced.  I still get tested regularly just in case, and for someone who a year ago had a severe aversion to anything involving something going into my nose (nasal spray, neti pot, swab) I can honestly say that I still have not gotten used to it at all and I still loathe the feeling, so some things stay the same!

Behind the scenes here on Team AFP, things feel oddly similar.  Most days feel simultaneously very different - Amanda is on the other side of the world. and very much the same - our team calls still happen at the same time every week.  Very different - we only see each other through our computer screens, and very much the same - there’s always some new thought/idea/project on the horizon.

While the team was working non-stop to put out high quality and in depth podcasts every week, my main task since coming back to work in January has been to downsize and move our NYC Office.  Almost the entire time I’ve worked for Amanda, our office has been in an amazing and huge loft space in Greenpoint.  Over the years it has been a regular office space for Hayley and me, a recording studio for some podcasts, a shipping center for Art in the Mail, a storage space for an ever increasing amount of merch, gifts, gear, pianos, letters, remnants of tour, and a wonderful event space (those of you who came to the 2017 NYE Party saw it at perhaps its finest and sadly, I have no pictures of it).  Leading up to the album launch in 2018, through the tour, and over the crazy last year we’ve had, the office accumulated more and more and at the end of last year we decided that it was just too much for what Hayley and I really need and that no one wants to work in a storage space.  So it fell upon me to move the office.

The plan was always to organize everything and do a deep clean after tour, but staying home as much as possible during lockdown prevented that from happening.  So when I started things were a bit cluttered with:

Now obviously this wouldn’t all fit into the new office space we found as we were moving from a 1,200 ft² (110 m²) office into a 250 ft² (23 m²), so everything had to be catalogued, counted, boxed, and then we had to decide where it was going to go.

After a week I was in full swing counting, sorting, and boxing:

(all of these wires and more were tangled when I found them)

I uncovered a lot of merch and lots of it was very rare and/or out of date, so we decided to box most of it all up and ship it to the warehouse . . . you’ll be hearing more about that in the near future. . .  Fun fact, I learned that  the word “palletize” exists!

Once that was sorted it was time to decide what was going into Storage and what was going to the New Office!  To figure that out, I of course had to tape out the dimensions of the new space and arrange all the furniture to make sure it would all fit. . .

And then organize and label all the remaining boxes:

And once all the Merch had been shipped, a grand piano and a small upright piano had been moved, and everything else had been moved into storage (by several amazing moving companies), there was just the final move into the new office.  

I was definitely sad to be leaving a space that already had amassed so many wonderful memories and on the last full day in that office I was not disappointed when I happened to walk out at just the right moment to catch one more amazing sunset over Manhattan:

The next morning the final moving company came to collect what remained and I turned off the lights for the last time:

The following couple of weeks were spent unpacking and making the new office feel like home.  It’s very small and therefore almost impossible to take a picture of the entire space, but I have managed to get some art up on the walls, get the lamps set up, and now it feels like a nice cozy living room, which, after a year of working from home is, once again, simultaneously very much the same, and very different and new.

I am excited to continue to work in this never boring job with this amazing team in our new office which I’m certain will very quickly accrue wonderful new memories.

(those are the guts of a piano that I found on the street years ago hanging above the window)

Thank you again for your continued support of Amanda and of this entire team.  The only way that we have an office, a podcast, and all the art that has been produced over the past 5 years is because of you, the Patrons.  I am forever grateful and I love you all.

Onwards,
Michael


....

from ALEX:

Well. Hello there folks.

I'm not gonna lie - the last few months have been something of a struggle. Things feel relentless. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way, so I'm not going to drag everyone down by talking about the state of things. But... if it's taken me a couple days longer than usual to answer an email, or send your package, consider this an apology. I'm still here, still plodding along. But some days things are easier than others. I did make some bread last week, though. Keeping up with cultural trends an entire year late.

In terms of what's going on.... we've been planning a BIG. FAT. CLEARANCE. SALE. We have so many older merch items that are taking up space, both here, and in the US warehouse (and in the New York office), so we've been at the grind prepping it all. Alongside just generally reducing prices, we've also got some older stock that's not been available for a long time, some stuff that's previously only been available in limited numbers. Lots of fun things happening. And lots of spreadsheets, emails, and Zoom calls to work out where exactly all these old items fall within the canon of AFP merch history!

Alongside that, I've also been putting the wheels in motion for the next round of Art In The Mail, and it is something I am VERY VERY excited about. We talked about making this thing last year, but it proved too logistically complicated, so it was set aside. But now, its time has COME AT LAST Without giving too much away, it's something I've been finding a lot of enjoyment in over the past year... and if you aren't an Art In The Mail patron, fear not!! Since this is such an exciting thing, for the first time we're going to be making it available for *all patrons* to purchase, so keep yer eyes peeled.

In the meantime, for anyone else who's struggling to get through things, may I recommend that you check out Nailed It! on Netflix. They take three amateur bakers, and get them to recreate intricate, professionally decorated cakes, in a very tight time limit. Cue the hilarity. It's hosted by Nicole Byer who is just on a whole other level, it's wonderfully self-deprecating, it requires absolutely no seriousness or brain power, and it's only 30 minute episodes, so very easy to sit down and lose yourself.

Keep on taking care of yourselves, my friends <3

Love from me and my bread baby.

-Alex

xo

.....

from FANNIE in PODCAST LAND:

Hi Everybody.

The Art of asking Everything is a globe-spanning, station-to-station collaborative extravaganza! 

We’ve captured interviews in 7 countries, with a production team scattered all around the world. When we started the podcast, we were finding ways to record as Amanda embarked on a world tour. We arranged interviews in hotel rooms, at yoga retreats, the public library, historic recording studios, community radio stations, or with local engineers at Amanda’s Airbnb. Little did we know that all of that logistical maneuvering would come in handy in this last year. We’ve transitioned into quarantine recording seamlessly, and even have guests recording themselves! It’s been a great collaboration, and I wanted to make sure all the people who have helped us record had a shout out:

Erin Tadena at Laughing Tiger Studios in Marin CA 
Robert Raymond in Northern CA 
Juice Studios in Los Angeles CA 
Ryan Mauk at Digital One Studios in Portland OR
Sonia Parrish at KBOO in Portland OR
Ben Kersten at Clatter and Din Studios in Seattle WA
Jessica Gardener in Austin TX 
Jimmy Garver in Woodstock NY
Michael Birnbaum at Applehead Studios in Woodstock NY
Jon Cohrs in Woodstock NY
Declan Conlon in Dublin IRE
Liam Tate in Edinburgh SCO
Alistair George at Canon Gate Studios in Edinburgh SCO
Christo Squier in London ENG
Dasha Lisitsina in London ENG
Sean Carey at Church Street Studios in Sydney AUS
Nick Edin at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne AUS
Morten Gamst at Envy Studios Studios Auckland NZ 

The coolest part of making The Art of Asking Everything is getting to know you, the Patreon listeners. 

I can’t wait for you to hear an upcoming retrospective on the show so far, including your many voicemails and reflections. You’ve told us how the podcast has been a comfort thought this year, and we feel that too. I think podcasting is particularly good at curing loneliness. Thanks for having us in your lives and in your ears. Keep on asking, and listening. 

Fannie 

The guest recording kit in action!

....

from KELLY, in the UK:

My name is Kelly and I no longer know what the current time is on any continent. Least of all my own.

I’m the newest member of Team AFP. You might have seen me flitting about on the Shadowbox or referenced in other Patreon posts. Day to day I help Amanda with social media, editorial and increasingly, working with Fannie to make The Art of Asking Everything podcast the best it can possibly be.

I wasn’t expecting to get offered a job last November. Things were pretty bleak in the UK where I’m based. We were hunched, waiting for the second wave of COVID to hit, the last bright spots of summer and warmth a memory. I was working for the Guilty Feminist podcast and had met Amanda while helping to promote the UK leg of There Will Be No Intermission tour the previous December.

We chatted on and off through 2020. While Amanda was trying to figure out how to live alone in Aotearoa, I panic-published a novel. We bonded via the media of nervous collapses and a mutual love of old goth bands, and eventually, when she asked me to hop on board to help out, it felt like a natural step forward.

And it was, although I regret that I failed to clock the speed with which her train was traveling.

Looking back I’m pretty pleased I survived with only mild whiplash. In the spirit of the open minded honesty Amanda encourages in this community, I’ve experienced depression and anxiety for virtually all my life. I’m a writer because I was always too intimidated to express myself in the room. I’ll let you figure out how I felt in my first Team AFP Zoom meeting, trying to explain what I do on social media to ten impressive strangers across several continents.

You know a lot about Amanda Palmer but maybe you don’t know how alarmingly astute she is. I haven’t asked her, but I think she’s seen through my brilliant scheme to sneak in and be a relatively anonymous contributor to Team AFP, moving scenery behind the curtain and hissing ‘helpful’ instructions during off stage costume changes. I reckon she’s trying to tempt me out of the shadows. Who knows? She might be the first person in the world to actually do it.

Before I go, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone on Team AFP for being so welcoming. Hayley, who you know holds the keys to the patreon but also has a capacity for zinging incredible ideas across the Zoom calls and solving problems that have been confounding the rest of us for days. Hayley knows everything, trust me.

Fannie, who I’ve been working with closely over the last couple of months. Amanda’s tasked up with producing some future episodes of The Art of Asking Everything and I can tell you, there’s some amazing stuff in the pipeline. Extra credit to Fannie for being the only Team AFP member to offer appropriate reverence to my soccer jersey collection.

Alex; my fellow Brit. We share the same opinions on haircuts and Piers Morgan. Jordan and Michael. I don’t know what they do day to day, quite honestly, but I do know that literally nothing in the real world would happen without them.

Amanda. Thanks for bringing me on board. Moving forward I promise to stop making you say english swear words because it sounds funny.

And you, Amanda’s patrons. You’ve been lovely. Come find me on Twitter @kelly_welles (that’s where I live) or on the Shadowbox and we’ll chat.

READING/WATCHING.....

I’m currently binge-watching Wentworth. Last week I watched the Allen vs. Farrow documentary and apparently, a drama about an Australian women’s prison is the only antidote. If I could recommend one show to you (aside from the obvious stuff), it would be Big Little Lies. The opening credits alone make me want to move to Monterey and start an argument outside an elementary school.

Reading Doris Lessing ‘Memoirs of a Survivor’ because I was out the other day and it was the only thing downloaded onto my kindle that I hadn’t read. It's glorious but my to-read pile is glaring balefully at me even as I write this.

Kelly

{THANK YOU KELLY....and you're right. my job is to pull you into the starry light. really...i love you. thank you for joining the team, and for flying fast with us, and for learning on the job...and for not being afraid. we love you. - afp}

........

OTHER ARTISTS TO SUPPORT

Ben Hopkins

I mentioned ben before, one of the finest young songwriters i know, but haven't done an althing since they joined patreon. totally worth a pledge just for the enthusiasm & hilarity of their posts alone:

https://www.patreon.com/benhopkinsbenhopkins

....

Erika Moen

erika was one of my favorite podcast guests, and is on patreon as well....

https://www.patreon.com/erikamoen

.....

sxip shirey & coco karol's THE GAUNTLET

https://www.nyuad-artscenter.org/en_US/watch/the-gauntlet/

....

HOW THE PATREON ITSELF IS DOING...?

and now...NITTY GRITTY TIME.

as of this writing there are 13,449 patrons pledging about $44,480 for the first Thing each month.

i go over this stuff in every Althing, but if you're new to all this....patreon charges you monthly & retroactively, meaning that you get billed on the 1st of the month for all the Things released the month prior.

because people have their pledges capped (HOW MANY TIMES CAN I SAY THIS....if you are on a budget, you should cap your pledge please: here's the tutorial again), the first "Thing" raises the most money by far, and anything released thereafter raises less and less. I LIKE THIS! THIS IS GOOD! it means i never feel too guilty!!!!!. really. do it. cap cap cap your pledge if you are on a budget.

the numbers below are gross. they are not net. meaning: it's the money raised before fees were deducted by patreon and is not the total deposited to me. patreon takes a 5% fee (which they use to build and sustain the platform, which is GOOD) and then there's a payment processing fee, which varies on a ton of factors and is usually between 5-9% of the total collected.

also, none of this reflects the money i SPENT MAKING THE ART, running the business, paying the office rent, getting myself around, getting the team around and fed and slept,....all the collaborators and my actual staff payroll, etc.

i don't share that level of nitty-detail-stuff with you because i assume it would bore you to fucking tears. but you can trust me: paying for a full-time staff, office, manager, accountant, and massive team of art-collaborators ain't cheap. sometimes we barely break even, especially when we do a lot of charity projects.

back in January, i Thanged Four Things:

The Art of Asking Everything: Masarat Daud was the first Thing and it earned about $50,791 from 13,625 patrons

The Art of Asking Everything: Fred Leone was the second Thing and it earned about $20,843 from 7,682 patrons

The Art of Asking Everything: Wayne Muller was the third Thing and it earned about $11,820 from 4,714 patrons

The Art of Asking Everything: Rachel Jayson was the fourth Thing and it earned about $9,283 from 3,764 patrons

back in February, i Thanged Three Things:

The Art of Asking Everything: Madison Young was the first Thing and it earned about $49,859 from 13,395 patrons

The Art of Asking Everything: Clare Bowditch was the second Thing and it earned about $19,980 from 7,460 patrons

PATRON ONLY: The Art of Asking Everything: Erika Moen was the third Thing and it earned about $11,607 from 4,646 patrons

(we say "about" because patreon may be still trying to process some pledges that have yet to go through...we never know, you know.)

them's the numbers.

i believe in the ebb and flow. so the patreon has dropped a bit $$-wise, but the number of patrons has stayed pretty steady, which is really great. it means that people are adjusting but sticking around.

......

and A GENERAL PATREON UPDATE

A note from Hayley on Patreon, updates, and info on Patreon.....

ADDITIONAL CURRENCIES

As Team AFP's resident Patronator (a term Amanda lovingly made up while we were helping sign patrons up on tour), I have some updates to share with you about Patreon in general and Amanda's page. I work behind the scenes and liaise with Patreon on behalf of Amanda, the team, and all of you, our patrons. I stay up to date on new features and updates, I report bugs and offer suggestions, feedback and input based on what I am seeing from our creator end, and from all my interaction with you. I also help answer your questions and sort out any issues you may be having with your account, or explain how Amanda's Patreon works when you write into us at patronhelp@amandapalmer.net (this email address also goes to Alex, who also chimes in to help answer your questions).

Over the last year Patreon has been working to add more currencies to the platform. Previously, as a creator, we could only be paid out in US$ and could only charge patrons in US$ so if you were located outside of the United States, you'd experience currency conversions to be billed in your native currency. Now, Patreon is adding the ability for creators to change what currency they are paid in, and allowing patrons to choose which currency they are billed in. 

In May 2020's State of All The Things I told you about Patreon adding more currency options to allow you to pledge in € euros, £ pounds or US $ with the hope that they'd be expanding into even more currencies in the future.  At long last, more news is here, Patreon will now let you pledge in $AUS (Australian dollars) and $CAD (Canadian dollars), which is good news for all of you Aussie and Canadian patrons, and anyone who would prefer to use those currencies. Patreon should automatically detect your currency through the location of your computer, but if you need to switch it manually, read on for instructions:

Head to Patreon's support article to learn everything you ever wanted or needed to know about currencies on Patreon:

https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044469871

Here's how to update your currency on your profile:

For those of you who would like to switch your preferred currency you can follow these steps:

1. On Patreon.com, hover over your avatar in the top right of your screen.
2. Click Manage memberships.
3. Find this page, and click Edit.
4. Under Currency, choose your preferred currency.
5. Click Update to save your settings.

For those of you outside of these support currencies, you’ll continue to see your pledge priced in my currency, which is US dollars. Check out this help center article if you have questions about changing your currency.

Patreon is working to roll out support for additional currencies, so we should expect to see some more soon - we don't know exactly when, but will share information as we get it. If you're not already on The Shadowbox forum, be sure to check that out as I'll share up to date info there in the Patron community forum section.

I THOUGHT AMANDA WAS APPROACHING 15,000 PATRONS AND NOW SHE'S CLOSER TO 13,000 ....AGHHHH......WHAT'S HAPPENING?!

At the very beginning of the pandemic, in March, April and May 2020, I would log the number of patrons Amanda had each day, curious to see if we'd notice any steep drops in patronage due to the economic hardship happening all over the world.

You can see that we noted the first few days of each month the "first month slump" - since Patreon bills you on the 1st of each month, we ALWAYS see a drop in numbers during the first week of the month when people are billed, this usually happens when there are some routine payment errors people need to fix (like updating their credit card information or billing addresses). So these were noted in the document because they were anticipated drops and not indicators of anything concerning.

So here you see that Amanda's Patreon actually grew during this time by nearly 1,000 patrons. 

We started tracking on March 24, 2020 and had clocked 14,994 patrons and stopped this daily tracking on May 29, 2020 with 15,820 patrons. Write now, at the time of this writing, March 26, 2021 Amanda has 13,444 patrons pledging $44,491 for the first thing of the month, a decrease of nearly 2,500 patrons and a loss of nearly $8,000. You may ask, WHAT'S HAPPENING AND SHOULD WE BE WORRIED?!!

No, we should not be worried. Here's what's happening -

Throughout this last year we've looked at the data, the charts, the graphs, the spreadsheets. We've asked Patreon, "should we be concerned?" to which they said no. 

We asked, "Is this decrease in patrons consistent with other creators on Patreon site wide, should we be concerned?" to which they said from their stand point everything looked healthy and Amanda has a higher than average patron retention rate and no we should be concerned.

The pandemic has gone on for a long time, it's brought economic hardship on so many people. We expected to see a decrease in these numbers because of this. But the reason why we shouldn't be worried about this, is that this data is actually consistent with the churn (the leaving) of patrons Amanda typically experiences even outside of a pandemic. The retention of patrons, meaning the rate that patrons stick around, is high. BUT!!!! what is unusual here, is that while Amanda's Patreon is losing an average number of patrons and money pledged that's typical for her, she isn't GAINING new patrons to replace those that leave and then some.

We're not GROWING her Patreon at the same rate we've previously done while Amanda was on tour, traveling the world, in front of new audiences each night, going down signing lines etc. 

Amanda's not touring, not promoting sign ups out into the world, because of the pandemic AND because Amanda herself has bunkered down and slowed down her operation generally speaking. 

She's raising her child, focusing on her family and doing all the human things she needs to do to survive this wild and difficult time in the world. Her bandwidth is limited. You may have seen it here in her recent posts, or her updates written in this very post. Amanda knows this, she knows she hasn't focused her attention on gaining new patrons, and so, that explains what's happening. We're releasing the most paid-posts we've ever released each month with Season 1 of Amanda's podcast, so it's doing just fine in keeping everything operational. The patrons here, YOU, are support the creation of Amanda's art and keeping our lights on - literally. We don't NEED to add new patrons, but we always welcome them.

So, the summary here: the state of Amanda's Patreon is strong. We're losing an average amount of patrons each month for typical reasons (patrons that leave have the option to fill out an exit survey to share why, and while we don't see identifying information, we see anonymized surveys to indicate why people leave and time and time again the most popular reason is "my financial situation has changed"), and the patron retention rate in our community is higher than average. 

A REMINDER HOW PATREON'S BILLING WORKS WHEN YOU CHANGE YOUR REWARD TIERS!!!!

I want to take a moment to explain something that we're often asked about. Amanda uses Patreon a little differently than some other creators - she uses paid-posts and not monthly charging. This means you are billed when Amanda releases a Thing (or paid-post), which can happen more than once a month (usually 2-3 times a month). If you set up a monthly pledge maximum, you can choose to be billed for however many paid-posts you'd like, and you'd still get all the content, access to all the posts, and everything your perk entitles you to. So if you cap your pledge to be billed at max 1x a month, you'll still get access to posts released after that one Thing you are billed for.

It's important to also note that Patreon bills you retroactively, so if Amanda makes a paid-post, or releases a Thing, on March 22nd, you'll be billed for it on April 1st, when Patreon charges you for all the paid post of March that you were pledging for. This is important to remember because if you're pledging in the $10 tier, and change to a lower tier, say the $1 tier on March 25th, you'll still be billed for $10 for that March 22nd paid post on April 1st because you were in the $10 tier at the time that post went out. Any post Amanda makes after the date you change your reward tier will reflect the level of the new tier you're in.

As always, if you have any further questions, you can email me and Alex at patronhelp@amandapalmer.net. We can't access the backend of your account but we can help explain how things work and answer questions about Amanda's Patreon. If you have questions about billing, payment issues or technical questions relating to your account, you can always reach out to Patreon's support team directly at http://support.patreon.com

That's it from me - over and out. 

Passing the mic back to Amanda!

......

THANK YOU HAYLEY.  your work on this patreon, and on these posts, and in my entire web of wild artwork is more appreciated than i can ever express.

...

ART BEGETTING ART!!!!!!

some art, mostly pulled from instagram....

a tattoo by @mkemtattooer on @jackie_sue_tattoo 

(this tattoo is based on a photograph by m. sharkey taken for out magazine)

.......

the dresden dolls, my lil band, when we were still little ourselves - rendered in charcoal by cypherx (via deviant art). the original photo was taken in boston in  around 2003 in the set of a local production of the three len y opera by photographer @kdstudio. 

.....
i love this one....a tattoo on @beeblossoming inked by @johncheetham

it's just a ride, people.

it's just a ride.

....

one last one....this illustration by @diana_zela is so real. i can't stop looking at it. it's DRAWN!!!

that's all for art.

i feel so blessed to be on this earth with so many incredible artists. we inspire us. it's always a circle. back and forth forever. ))<>((

....

i love you, i feel an incredibly deep gratitude for your patronage and support, i don't know what i'd have done were it not for this patreon......and i hope i get a rest this month so i can keep making better art. 

i want to make you all proud of me.

til soon.

xxx

AFP

------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------

1. if you’re a patron, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol. that's always nice for me to see, so i know who's reading.

2. see All the Things (over 150 of them) i've made so far on patreon:
http://amandapalmer.net/things

3. JOIN THE SHADOWBOX COMMUNITY FORUM, find your people, and discuss everything: https://forum.theshadowbox.net/

4. new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/

5. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net