As you all know by now, our personal income comes only out of donations. What it is likely that none of you know is that we last reached our donations goal in July of 2009, and we’ve been short every month since. Missing the goal one month here and there isn’t a huge deal, but it does add up, and because we haven’t made the goal since July, at this point we’re short by about $3,500, which means our savings has been used to make up the difference. Since we personally are also the ones who will have to pay the difference if we don’t get enough pre-orders for Volume Three, you can probably understand why right about now we’re extremely worried.
Right now, the thing we need most isn’t donations, it’s pre-orders for Volume Three. If that project can be made to pay for itself by meeting the pre-order goal, that takes most of the immediate pressure off because we won’t have to drain our emergency fund to cover the costs and make sure the books can still be delivered on time. However, please understand that paying for itself and actually making us any money are two different things, and that pre-order goal is pretty much just designed to pay for the project. It won’t fill in that $3500 that we didn’t make in the last seven months.
That’s where you guys, and donations, come in. We rely on donations because in effect you guys decided for us that they would be the primary means of supporting the comic. Wallpapers were and are offered in the store for sale, but many times more people donate for them than ever buy them, likewise original art and bookmarks. The only product that sells consistently for us is the books (and plushies, except those are much more expensive to make and less profitable in general), everything else we’ve ever offered does better as a gift for donors than it ever does as a product for sale. We don’t know why, but for this comic donations seem to be the rule. The thing is, we depend on that rule just as surely as other artists depend on their t-shirt sales, so when we don’t make the goal, it’s a problem. The only way we can solve that problem is with your help… if you love the comic, then please help support it, in whatever way seems most appropriate to you.