It's been pretty quiet around here recently, and I'm sure that's been well noticed. It's been an up and down month and a half or so. After losing my job of three years due to store closure around mid-December, I was jobless until about the beginning of May. Not for lack of trying though. No matter where I applied, even minimum wage retail/food jobs, simply no one was biting. Then I managed to get a job as a baker's assistant at this cake shop I really like. It paid better than my old job, and things were fine for a few weeks. Then I got a call about a week ago. The owner had overestimated how much business the shop would be getting. For whatever reason, the amount of traffic and orders they were getting wasn't comparing to previous years. The owners barely had enough money for the shop, let alone me and the few other people they hired, so I'm currently on a weird sort of hiatus. I might be called back if things pick up, but no one knows if such a thing will occur. I've been told, of course, that I am more than free to look for other work, but I'm running into the same silence I ran into all those first months of the year. It doesn't help that I've already expended most of my reasonable choices. The cake shop was already quite a drive away.
My main point with this update is to let you all know what's been going on and why it's been harder to post. My other goal was to gauge interest in an idea. Someone once asked me why I didn't try out a Patreon. I said at the time that I wasn't sure if it was worthwhile, but now I'm debating on whether it might be worth it to at least try. The plan would be to focus both around my Sim writing and my normal writing to hopefully pull in some sort of following. Everything would still be free here and on my Tumblr, naturally, but there would be those extra Patreon perks. I've even been considering learning how to make poses. It's something I've always wanted to do, and I know there's always demand for that. In any case, what are your impressions? Even if subscribing to a Patreon isn't something you'd like to do, how do you feel about helping to advertise the blog/my Tumblr/my normal writing? Just, how do you feel in general about the whole thing, is what I'm after. Predictably, I'd be overjoyed if I managed to find some sort of constant monetary support from it. It would definitely mean Color My World would return almost right away.
I'll get back to posting on a more constant basis as soon as I can. I'm unsure if I'll continue transferring the Vampire Coven posts over though. The formatting gets ridiculously messed up copying from Tumblr to Blogger, and it's rather irritating fixing it.
In order not to leave you with nothing, here's a little something I did one night when I had free time. A Tumblr I follow, TaiNoodles, made adorable mermaid dolls with the Sims from her main rainbowcy, so I made some for the Vivid family. You couldn't get even a fourth as intricate with the children and younger mermaids as you could with the adults, but I still think Prism, Desire, Coal, Cerise, and Glade came out cute.
That's fine. I love reading your work and yeah, i noticed the slowdown in updates recently (i may or may not religiously follow your blog... XD). I mean, honestly, go for what you want to do. I love your all your writing (or at least what I've seen so far). I already recommend your blog to people so, not that much of a difference to me. And hunting for jobs sucks, I wish you the best of luck though.
ReplyDeleteSorry I posted only half of the comment accidently so I had to delete it XD
ReplyDeleteOh I'm so sorry to hear that... Job searching can be though, I hope you'll find your dream job soon. Or alternatively that you won't need a job at all because everyone will buy your many successful books :D
You should definitely start a Patreon if you want to, a lot of simmers do that.And your work is worth paying for. I have to be honest with you I might not be able to pay to subscribe, but I'll definitely tell people about your blog, I already did to some of my friends.
How is your original book going?
And OMG the mermaid Vivids are adorable!!!
Unfortunately I would be unable to continue reading if its all on a Patreon. :( But I fully understand if that's something that you need to do. I've already told some of my friends about your blog and will gladly continue to do so, as your writing is very impressive, and I have lots of friends who enjoy reading and writing. I would suggest that you put ads on this website. It can be a reliable source of money for bloggers, and I can't speak for all of your viewers, but I know I wouldn't care having ads.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what program was used to make the (amazing) mermaid picture at the bottom?
Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm still deciding on what exactly I'll be doing, but your responses have been helpful.
ReplyDeleteTo שיר- Tales of Lerathian is going pretty well. I've actually been writing a lot more with it since I stopped working, about a page a day, which is pushing me forward consistently.
To Anon #2- Don't worry. The stories wouldn't become Patreon exclusive. The normal stuff would still get posted in full for free. It would simply be that there would be incentives for subscribing- getting access to chapter a day or two early, getting a personalized short story, creating a character to be put into a story, or other things similar to that.
I did try adds for a while, but even with the decent amount of traffic the blog gets when it's active there wasn't much coming in. I was only getting about 10 cents a month.
Mermaid Maker: http://www.azaleasdolls.com/dressupgames/mermaid-scene.php
Wow that's great! (to the part about Tales of Lerathian)
ReplyDelete