September Update: What Are Months, Even? (Patreon)

Hidilly ho, team.

Big ol' Releaso

Holy butts we did it. It took four months and eight videos, but we finally released Bringing Back What's Stolen. As suspected, it meant not releasing a second video in September so we are - once again - one video behind schedule, but y'all should be used to this from me by now, right?! I ask only that you cut me some slack, I put out 57 minutes of content and I'm only counting it for two months.

I will say, releasing a video in 8 parts all at once is a great way to game YouTube views. It appears something like 28,000 people have watched all eight parts, which means those 28,000 people got counted 8 times each, which makes a pretty big spike in traffic, let me tell you! Doesn't actually equate with more patronage so it's just a bigger number with no material effects, but, whatever, big numbers are neat.

Anyway, sorry for the lateness of this update. In comparison to the lateness of September's video, it's probably not that important, and the reasons for it are identical, but, still, I hate being late with stuff. My goal is to get everything back on schedule by Christmas. We'll see how things shake out!

The Middle Distance

Some of you may have seen my Twitter thread on the realities of Patreon for me right now. I won't rehash it here, but, in short, the Patreon is stable but not growing in any meaningful way. Which means I can sustain what I'm doing now, and keep living the life I'm living, and both those things make me happy. But it is probably not sustainable in the long run.

There are a lot of things I'd like to do with my career, and it doesn't appear I can bankroll them, or even meaningfully save up for them, through the channel as it is right now. So I'm thinking a lot about what it would take to expand into other projects, how I'd fund them, and whether I'd have to scale back my focus on the channel to do so. That's all pretty far down-the-line stuff, but it's nevertheless on my mind.

The more immediate question is this: Are there additional revenue streams I could be bringing in now?

I've owed y'all a podcast for some time now, but I've left it on the back burner because a) I felt videos were more important, b) I can only sometimes maintain a monthly video schedule as it is, and c) I wanted to save up for a better mic. But a podcast going out with a Patreon plug at the beginning and end would probably increase patronage. Not by a ton - podcasts don't go viral - but even a little bit adds up.

I've also considered launching a second channel for little projects and mixtapes and goofs and such. Again, probably not a ton of extra revenue there, but when you're just trying to get your growth from $10 a month to $20, it doesn't take much.

But the other important thing to tackle is making good on the obligations I already have. New patrons may be confused as to why this page is multiple years old and yet there are none of the promised annotated videos for the $5-and-up patrons! Well, recently the site where they were hosted shut down without warning and I have the unenviable task of re-annotating them, which I said I would start last month but then went overtime on the Fury Road video. But, rest assured, before that site went down, well over 40% of the videos had been annotated!

Similarly, the Behind-the-Scenes blog hasn't been updated in two years.

These are, again, things that have been neglected for reasons a and b above - not so much c - and while I don't think it costs me a lot of patrons people do lower their pledges because of it. So all these things need to become priorities again.

So let's call this a goal for 2019: Launching a podcast, a second channel, getting the backlog re-annotated, and resuming regular updates of the BTS blog. I will do these things as possible during the rest of 2018, but my top priority will be getting back on schedule by Christmas. We will delve into all the rest in earnest come the new year. Thankfully, I have some ideas on how to double them up.

The Big Picture

But the larger, looming question is: If Innuendo Studios were to change, when would that happen? If I wanted to take on a large project, say, one that required me to stop releasing video essays on the regular.

Well, my thinking is that I want to keep the channel as my main focus at least until The Alt-Right Playbook is finished, which is at least another two years. I have, at last count, about 14 topics still to discuss, and at one a month with a month or two off here and there to tackle other subjects, that'll take us into 2020. Which seems appropriate, since that's when - if there is any sanity left in this world - the last vestiges of the Trump administration will be removed from the White House (if, miserably, not from the Supreme Court).

After that, I think it will be time to take on some new stuff.

I don't intend to stop making video essays until I run out of things to say with them, and the Patreon will probably still be one of - if not the primary - source of income for my projects. So don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. But there are stories and games and experiments and other weird things I want to make with y'all, and I'm starting to think about the whens and wherefores of them.

So! Just keeping y'all in the loop. If we're thinking of video essays as the main project for the next two years, the question becomes: What videos do I want to be absolutely sure I release in that time? Kinda shifts one's priorities to the more ambitious ideas, you know?

Anyway, that's it for me! You'll hear from me again soon.

Cheers, fam!

-I