I have less than 10 supporters. If it didn't improve, I'll stop drawing.
I have thousands of followers. How is it possible for me to be drawing day and night and have no support? There's no way I can continue like this. Do you like something? Invest in it. Everything good has a price. This lack of support is frustrating and disappointing.
ひげ
just some advice, from one creative to another.
@winterfairy2022 pursuing creative hobbies is not monetarily successful for the vast majority of people who do it. we don't do it because we make money from it, we do it because we enjoy it. any money you can get from doing what you enjoy is great. if you don't enjoy doing it enough to keep doing it without people paying for it, maybe it's something you'd be better off not doing as bad as that sounds. sometimes people may even need a bit of a break that can help remind them why they love their hobby so much in the first place.
personally, i'm already supporting baraag itself and some artists with cheaper subscription tiers. i'm not made of money and things are only getting more expensive. from the consumer's point of view, at 3000 yen, it is a little hard for someone to justify spending that much to support a single artist while getting something tangible in return when they could divvy that money between several artists with lower subscriptions instead. i know you do give some things out for cheaper tiers sometimes, but most of it is at that 3000 tier. so perhaps a reworking of that would be beneficial so that you can bring in some more supporters. it could be good to look at other artists' fanbox accounts and see what their pricing and rewards are like.
i like your art a lot, but you may just need to change your approach to creating, selling, and promoting it. even still, always make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. i don't play music or make video games to make money, i do it because i enjoy doing it and others enjoy it too. it's nice when i make money but i never expect it. sometimes things are hard and you know, maybe you have to dedicate more time to something else if you do actually need the money and what you want to make money from just isn't cutting it. i've been there a lot. but i'll always find the time to dedicate to my hobbies in some way or another.
just some advice, from one creative to another.
@winterfairy2022 that's $20 USD. that is the price of a decent meal at a sit down restaurant, not a snack. Most other artists I see are at least half that price to subscribe to get access to all the posts except for maybe like, raw PSDs or something. It's quite a lot to ask for as a perceived recurring payment given the nature of it being a non-necessity. I think some artists might have some tiers like that or higher but they offer things like character requests or have included commissions as part of the tier.
If you've already tried lowering it before, maybe you just need to advertise it a little bit more. And not in this way of like "I'm going to quit unless you support me!" because that rubs people the wrong way. Look at some other fanboxes for inspiration, rearrange the tiers, and then make a post about it saying they have been rearranged with a picture showing some examples of what you'll get and then make that your first pin so people see it when they click on your profile. If you post like a censored piece, make sure people know that it they pay for this tier for this amount they can see it uncensored.
The vast majority of people who tip me only tip $1. $5 is uncommon. Anything higher than that is a blessing. The only regular $20 tip I get is from a business nearby when I play music.
You can even look into like, YouTuber patreons or twitch subs. Or subscriptions for any service. You gotta be competitive. The amount of people paying $20/month even for something with extremely high amounts of value is pretty low.
Also in terms of follower count, you need to realize that the majority of your followers anywhere you go will not only never pay for anything, but never interact with your content at all... If they are even active on their accounts in the first place. You'll want to look at the ratio between subscribers and interactions. It looks like you have like 30ish likes per post? So if you have 10 supporters, that's 1/3 of people who interact in even the smallest way who are supporting. That's pretty good. There has to be a certain level of measuring expectations. If you want to see higher numbers of subscribers, you have to first get a higher number of interactions. That's a process that could require any number of different things, but you need to start there instead of using your current interacting audience to try and increase sales. Does that make sense?
And if you truly, really do not like to make 18+ art... You shouldn't. Seriously, it's not for everyone and that's okay. If you don't like doing something in your creative field, then if you force it you'll start to dislike your creative field. There is a balance, especially if you're trying to get money, but for instance there are some songs I will never learn and never play because I really don't want to play them despite how popular they are. If I had to play nothing but the top 100 at any given moment I would kill myself.
just some advice, from one creative to another.
@beardalaxy actually if I had 30 fans in the 500 yens plan would be bettter than have 10 in the 5000 one. But my 500y plan is aways empty. It's hard draw "hidden" pictures for only a dozen of people. I am not taking support or I'll leave but
just some advice, from one creative to another.
❤️
just some advice, from one creative to another.
@beardalaxy I'm not saying, support me or I'll stop drawing, but rather it's not worth for me to draw with so few support. And it really isn't. That way I'll ending up going back to drawing only Rfree.
just some advice, from one creative to another.
Mr. beard, makes a good point. I was looking at your FANBOX plans & I thought they were a bit pricey for what was being offered. Plus a few of the plans did not have clear descriptions. Don't want your supporters having to treat your plans like a gacha game. That being said, I thought of some suggestions that make the barrier of entry easier for current & potential supporters.
just some advice, from one creative to another.
@beardalaxy I'm not frustrated by the amount of money, but by the lack of supporters, regardless of the plan.
just some advice, from one creative to another.
@beardalaxy Do you think 3k is much? '0' That's practically the price of a snack! 😣 Well, when I started drawing 18+, I didn't knew anything, so I drew for all plans. I even tried to eliminate the 3k plan by posting the same art on the intermediate but no one signed up or left the expensive plan to migrate to this. Besides, I've said some times I'm not a fan of drawing 18+ but I post a lot of art for free.