A personal note/AniFem update (Patreon)

Amelia here, to give you a proper update after what has been far too long an absence.

Why the long absence? Well, to be completely honest... I lost my phone. The phone which had been the key to all our two-factor authentication. Regaining control of your authentication isn't that difficult, but, unfortunately, around the same time I went through a period of significant personal upheaval. 

If you look back at the summer season's premiere reviews you'll see that I did two or three then stopped completely. That was me dropping off the face of the internet earth for a little while to deal with some personal business. Since then, I've effectively taken the entire season off while dealing with drastic changes in my home and work situations. Regaining access to my personal Facebook and to Patreon became low priority and were collateral damage to my personal circumstances. 

Thinking that's unacceptable? I couldn't agree more. Let me tell you what we've put in place to ensure this never happens again. 

1. INTERNAL RESTRUCTURE

In August, I appointed Dee Hogan (Josei Next Door) to be Managing Editor of Anime Feminist. You may have noticed we now have a regular posting schedule - I outlined the schedule I wanted some time ago, but Dee is 100% the reason for its successful implementation. She's made sure that pitches get recorded, funnelled into a pipeline, matched to editors and scheduled in Wordpress. 

I've also delegated some other duties that sat with me. Peter Fobian, who has been editing our podcast, Chatty AF, since the start, is now responsible for uploading it, writing up the chapters and show notes, sourcing a suitable image and preparing a post for it in Wordpress. Vrai Kaiser took on responsibility for the AniFemTalk posts on Mondays and compiling the Links posts on Tuesdays. 

There are a few financial implications, all of which come out of our Patreon funds and both of which I am happy to pay. First, I bought us access to a project management tool called DaPulse, which Dee has been updating and monitoring so that everyone can always see what content is coming up and where contributors are in the pipeline. It's so much easier and more co-ordinated than when we tried to split our records between Excel, Word and Trello. 

Second, I pay Dee for five hours of admin per week at $15/hr, Peter for an average of two hours' editing for every podcast at $15/hr, and Vrai $15 for Monday's AniFemTalk posts and $50 for the Tuesday Links posts. I will no longer do premiere reviews, instead paying $20 per review for Vrai, Dee and anyone else on the team who is able to contribute. Finally, I made the executive decision to start paying editors at a rate of $30 per piece, assuming an average of two hours' work per post, even though we don't technically receive enough in pledges to do that just yet. 

Relying on the team in this way is the reason I could take this season off for personal reasons and come back now to find everything running better than ever. It leaves me free to focus on things I'm more suited to than consistent, day-to-day routine. It was the right decision for AniFem in the long term. Unfortunately, it leaves us in a bit of a deficit in the short term, and I will this week begin a fundraising campaign to try to bring our pledges up to the $1500 we need to ensure everyone gets paid without needing to dip into my own bank balance. 

2. TECHNICAL UPGRADES

We've recently been undergoing something of a spring clean for the website. We're almost a year old, and while the website served its purpose in proving that we provide a service people want, it's time to transition to a website that is fit for purpose. 

As a result, we've begun taking care of housekeeping, carrying out a full security audit of the site, starting to automate little processes and - the most relevant for this topic - generating and centralising more secure passwords for everything. I am no longer the only one on the AniFem team with access to our social media or this Patreon account. 

In addition, we're still in the process of automating as much as possible. Wordpress gives you an option to automatically update Twitter and Facebook, but when I trialled it after our launch last year it only updated with the link, no images - not ideal for cutting through the noise of Twitter or Facebook! As a result, I've been doing it manually ever since. 

However, I now have a much greater awareness of what tools are out there to make social media in general much smoother and more useful to all of you than I've been managing manually. Automating all updates will ensure you're never left out of the loop again, while the wider access should mean an increase in exclusive content on this feed, as providing such content no longer sits only with me. 

We're also working behind the scenes on a site redesign. Nothing drastic, but we want to make the site more user-friendly for you, so that if you vaguely recall seeing an interesting looking AniFem post or review in the subject of a Patreon update in your inbox, you can come to the site later on and search for it easily. We know that's quite a challenge right now, and we're working to improve it. 

3. CHANGING OUR REWARD STRUCTURE

We've toyed with different ideas for Patreon rewards, but in general we've promised things which we have not delivered, particularly to higher tiers. I take full responsibility for this, and can only apologise for being overly ambitious and unrealistic about my capacity. 

My proposal now is that we flatten our structure to $1 and $5 rewards only, with $1 patrons having access to this feed for updates like this and potentially some other perks (there are some new options I look forward to exploring but am unwilling to promise just yet) and $5 patrons also getting access to our AniFem Discord. Patreon has, helpfully, instituted 'Discord Rewards', meaning those who pledge $5 or more are automatically given an access code to our Discord - which means no more unfulfilled promises, plus a more stable income base for us as people are less likely to delete smaller pledges. I welcome your input on this suggestion, particularly if you strongly disagree. 

Feedback has consistently been that those in the higher tiers pay more money because they appreciate that we use it to pay our writers, editors and administrators. We've been told that this is your motivator for a higher pledge rather than the promise of rewards. We want to offer more, but being realistic, we're just not in a position to. (Although if you can think of something you want at a higher tier that you think would be simple for us to implement without adding to anyone's ongoing workload please do let me know!)

However, what we have proven is that, thanks to the team and the work detailed above, we can provide you with a consistent and high quality output for which everybody working on it is paid at a $15/hr minimum wage. That's something I continue to be proud of, though as a feminist organisation I do feel this is the bare minimum we should be offering. 

On that note... 

FUTURE PLANS

In August, I travelled to the US for a five-city multi-convention geek tour extravaganza, going from Otakon in Washington DC to Crunchyroll Expo in Santa Clara via AnimeFest in Dallas. On the way, I was able to meet every single person on the AniFem team in person, as well as a number of contributors, commenters, supporters and patrons. It was a pleasure and a privilege, and I still can't believe how fortunate I am to have lucked into working relationships with some of the most thoughtful, capable and driven people in all of anime fandom. 

(To be fully transparent, my flights and accommodation were paid for by Patreon funds accrued in the earliest months, before we earned the requisite $800 a month to be able to pay writers and for weeks when the only content we produced was written by me. I've never once invoiced AniFem for hours worked, so reimbursement for flights and accommodation to meet the team and hold our first strategy meeting and panel was in lieu of that. I also used some Patreon money to subsidise flights, hotels and badge costs for others on the team who would not otherwise have attended Otakon.)

At our first strategy meeting, I asked the team where they want to see AniFem as an organisation - and what role they'd want to play in it - in five years' time. The answers were wide-ranging, covering both a more sophisticated business-as-usual and exciting pie-in-the-sky projects. We're dreaming big, to be sure... but a lot of what we discussed is achievable, some of it imminently. Some examples as a sneak peek: manga reviews, educational resources for parents, a YouTube channel, even our own mini-convention - these are just some of the ideas that came up that day. 

As well as our vision for the future, we also agreed on our overriding mission: to extend the sense of safety and comfort which anime conventions generally offer to online spaces. We should acknowledge that conventions are not 'safe spaces' for everyone, but for many they are an opportunity to feel truly at ease with oneself, and to present one's private identity publicly, knowing you're among friends. I was so, so impressed with the diversity and inclusiveness I saw in the three conventions I attended this summer, and if we can provide that in our own online spaces at least, then I believe we're doing something good for anime fandom. 

I've mentioned before that the most important goal I had this year was to separate AniFem from me, so that it would run independently of my personal circumstances. A few small tasks aside, I believe we are finally - FINALLY - there. Now I don't have the day-to-day on my shoulders, I can focus on building up AniFem from a collaborative blog to a fully-fledged organisation, with the means to achieve some of the dreams we came up with in our strategy meeting. 

My main job right now is to focus on growth. I want to add to your number significantly, get us to a point where we are truly fully sustainable - then go beyond, so I can increase the number of posts we put up each week, the number of hours I pay for editing and admin, people's base wages. If my goal until now has been to make sure everyone gets paid, my next goal is to make sure everyone gets paid competitively - without ever branching out into income streams which could compromise us ethically. Every dollar you pay prevents us from needing to do that, and I cannot thank you enough. 

Once again, I can only apologise for letting you down personally over the past couple of months. I hope this message gives you the insight and reassurance you need to feel confident in where AniFem is going. I've not been this excited about it for some time, and once I let you in on more of the detail in our strategy meeting I'm sure you'll feel the same. 

As always, if you have any questions please do feel free to message me directly here, or to DM me on Twitter - now @ActuallyAmelia after a recent name change. Alternatively, you're very welcome to email me at editor@animefeminist.com. 

Thank you all for your continued patronage and support. 

Amelia

PS: This is very long and heart-on-my-sleeve, so let's just say I won't be surprised if you spot any typos!