The official pre-launch…
On Wednesday March 17th 7:30 a.m. CET we had the honour of pre-launching our Patreon page to our local business community. Since the Covid restrictions were still in effect and we were not allowed to organize a physical meeting, we decided to turn this into something positive. We proposed our chapter leaders conducted the meeting in English. Finally, they agreed. But this was outside their comfort zone since all previous meetings had been in Flemish.
To give meaning to their brave decision we invited some international guests. This was quite the challenge since we had to deal with different time zones. The meeting started at 7:00 a.m. CET with our presentation at 7:30. Still, that didn’t stop some great friends, (former) collaborators and fans to join us.
International guests
Jack Ward joined us from Canada, where it was past midnight. We also welcomed Karim Kromfli (the voice of Count Edelheart) from the United Kingdom, where it was about 6 a.m. And Tim Yates, a charming British director we had worked with in the past, joined us online as well from his Belgian residence.
We want to thank all of the international guests who were there that day to give us moral support, including our English friends who couldn’t make it since the got ill from their Covid shot.
30+ entrepreneurs listened to the story of our history, fragments of our audio projects and our plans for the future.
Public launch
Our public launch was four days later on Sunday the 21st. It was probably not the best idea to launch on a Sunday, but we just wanted to launch soon after the pre-launch on Wednesday and still have some time to review our tiers and goals.
As soon as we made our Patreon reward system known to our YouTube community 8 people joined us as patrons on that very same day. [edit: 7 of them are still with us 2 years later]
Step 1…
Our Patreon page is the first step in finding proper financial support to help us create more content. I work fulltime as a freelance copywriter and voice-over and Domien works part-time as an assistant librarian in a law firm. He’s also a part-time sound editor and voice-over. Moreover we’re both parents to two amazing little boys who need and deserve a lot of our attention.
Being a small entrepreneur in Belgium is a big struggle. It’s expensive and the paperwork is boring and time consuming. Belgium is a very tax heavy country. Needless to say that starting your own business won’t grant you a lot of extra time or resources. But it beats everything else in terms of freedom!
So we use our Patreon earnings to buy us some time, first and foremost. Call us dreamers but we hope we’ll be able to do this full-time one day. We have at least 10 solid story ideas waiting in line to be written and dramatized. Some of them already have detailed plot outlines. Being able to dedicate our lives to creating audio epics would make us better friends, spouses, parents and people. Patreon is step one in achieving that goal.
Accessible to all!
We have thought this over long and hard… And we always wanted to make supporting us accessible. If all of our listeners on YouTube who loved our stories and let us know would support us for a mere $ 1, that would make a big change. So we made it interesting just to be part of the Patreon Community for that amount with exclusive news, polls, fun facts and other content.
Since we know we can’t deliver new story content each month, we made sure we had exclusive merchandise on Patreon. The cut from our profit by the Patreon platform is well worth it as we would feel bad if that kind of loyal support from our listeners didn’t get properly rewarded.
Higher quality
A second reason why we started a Patreon page is because we want to aim for higher quality audio projects with each new release! We can invest the money in new legal sound effects, music and plugins for Adobe Audition.
[edit: We actually did that and if you compare our most recent pre-Patreon project, The Beast of the Western Wilds, with our most recent post- Patreon project The Treasure of Boneyard Bay, you WILL notice the difference!]
We would also like to invest in uniform professional book covers by an illustrator [edit: not A.I. generated!], maybe even illustrated editions, and create more physical media like mp3 discs or usb drives.
If that sounds great to you, please consider supporting us in any way you prefer. It doesn’t even have to cost you a penny if you have nothing to spare.
patrons have decided to support us on the first day!
Our patrons inspire us every day to create more content and help us expand our fantasy universe. Moreover, whenever we’re in doubt or we get stuck, we ask for their input, feedback or opinion. On our Patreon page there are polls, exclusive updates on our progress, fun facts and other exclusive content. And there is merchandize that you can’t get anywhere else!
Become a Patron
Join our Patreon community and receive great benefits, both at the moment you join and with the release of each new project. Become a Guardsman ($ 1), Captain of the Guard ($ 3), Witch Hunter ($ 5), Witch Hunter Master ($ 10), Grand General ($ 15), Saint ($ 25) or Creator ($ 50) , Check out which reward you would love the most!
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