Patreon Status Update: Holy crap

The original opening of this post was as follows: As I’m writing this, our Patreon fund is currently sitting at 1,571 patrons contributing a total of $8,828 per month. We hit our first milestone of $8,000 exactly six hours after our site went live. Update: We’ve now passed over $10,000 per month.

In the middle of the draft, I had to stop and start over. Because our Patreon passed that $8,000 milestone and hit $9,000. That’s the milestone at which we can begin bringing class columnists back into the fold. I couldn’t simply ignore that so I started the post over again. I speak for the Blizzard Watch staff as a whole when I say we are absolutely astounded. The outpouring of support has been above and beyond anything we expected. Saying thank you feels insufficient, but those are the only words I have right now. Thank you. Thank you all so very much. I speak with the utmost sincerity when I say members of our staff have shed tears over your commitment to us and what we do. We are all absolutely dedicated to making Blizzard Watch the best site it can possibly be and we wouldn’t have even had the opportunity were it not for all of you.

I’d like to take this opportunity to answer a question we’ve received about the Patreon platform. Notably, when the payments actually occur. Patreon makes all of its charges on the 1st of each month, meaning no one who has pledged so far will actually see a charge of any sort until March 1, though the payment could take up to 72 hours to process from that point. The exception to that is contributions of $100 or more. In that case, it works a little differently and we refer you to the Patreon FAQ. If you have any additional questions about the Patreon platform, their FAQ is a wonderful resource.

Because we’ve hit that $9,000 milestone, we’ll begin bringing class columnists on as soon as we can. We’re going to be reaching out to those we’ve worked with previously before we open the positions to general applications. If we do open the positions to general applicants, we’ll make an announcement here on the site. Please bear with us as we go through not only that process, but the process of getting Blizzard Watch as a whole up and running. We never expected we would hit our milestones as quickly as we did. Not only do we need to get into the groove of things on our new setup, but we also need to have at least a modicum of caution regarding our funding until that first round of pledges processes on March 1. Again, we are taking every precaution to ensure Blizzard Watch is a safe and secure investment for all of you who have contributed or will contribute. We need to be careful not to put the cart before the horse. That doesn’t mean you’ll need to wait a month to see content from us. It only means we aren’t going to turn our wallets upside down.

I want to thank @applecidermage for the artwork at the top of this post. She shared it yesterday afternoon just before we hit our first milestone to begin full operations of Blizzard Watch. I can’t think of anything more appropriate right now than that blue phoenix. It’s all of you that brought us back from the ashes.