Hello everyone, I’m Brandon Thomas, the writer of the story. How did you guys like chapter zero? If you haven’t read it yet, go on over and check it out I’ll wait for a bit
All caught up? Great, let’s get on with this thing then in this post I’m going to go over what to expect going forward on this Substack and also go over some of the pricing and reasoning behind the decision to go with a paid option. If you came over from my other page, The Desk of Chaos that has always been free to check out and will continue to be so. With this project, however, it is going to be a little different. So with that out of the way let’s go over what is coming up.
Release schedule
The plan as of right now is to do a new chapter every week, my goal is to have them set up and ready to go by midnight Sunday EST. Main chapters will be posted interludes I am still working on, depending on the workload of Ili it could be a weekly or through-the-week between-chapters thing. But until otherwise new content to the story should be expected on Sunday nights. The first three chapters, chapter zero and one interlude will be released in this time frame. All those will be free for all as it serves as an introduction to the story and our world. With this in mind, following the first interlude and chapter four we will be going to a delayed release schedule, the delay will be for a few reasons. We’ll get to the artist’s side in a moment, but the thing also is, that we want to offer an option for people to donate to the future development of the story. So when we get to chapter four. If you are a paying subscriber you will be getting that story on the same pace we are working, if you are going to remain on the free tier. You will be waiting two weeks for the release of chapter four.
What art will be shown in the chapters?
Every chapter per the artist (Ili) will be getting a cover, as well as a story image. These are worked on by the artist and trust me it’s worth the wait I’ve seen some advances and she has knocked it out of the park on these images. Interludes are more of a case-by-case situation. Like chapter zero, it could be simply text as they are designed to cover some of the world-building or to progress the plot but not much beyond that. So interludes will be done at the discretion of the artist.
Pricing
So yeah this is probably what you wanted to know, the pricing is as follows:
Monthly: Five Dollars USD
Yearly: Fifty Dollars USD
It should be noted a yearly sub is 10 dollars off the standard monthly price.
Founders: at least fifty, but you decide if you wish to pay more
Founders pricing is for people who want to do so at the start and perhaps want to pay a little more than the yearly, it is not going to get you any extras but is considered a tip by us, per the artist (Ili) the suggested price is 150 USD
What is the reason for paying?
TL:DR Time spent and also to secure our stuff
This is a kind of loaded explanation, so please bear with me as I explain it. The real honest answer is there are a lot of man-hours in developing this, we have been working on concepts and ideas for the better part of five years in our spare time between our real life, streaming, and other things we do.
For the art:
A cover will take anywhere from five to ten hours this is from the artist I asked this and when you see the quality of her covers it will make more sense.
Interior pictures can take about six hours from the artist, again you will be able to see for yourself in the first three chapters and decide
So if we take all that into account, that is about sixteen hours of work time the artist is working for free. The average income of a person working a 9-5 job is about 15 an hour so for 16 hours of work we are asking you for simply 5 an hour for that artwork.
The person writing the story has to make time in the day to edit chapters and make sure continuity among other things is held to. So for two people’s creative time, we are asking you simply for five dollars a month.
But don’t take my word for it, here are some exclusive images from the design side of the covers and one of the interior art. The art was taken with permission from Ili’s Cara account.
Sketches done during the production of the covers Also, for context, on the editing side I have planned six acts of story to edit, I am currently on act two. It’s more of a process than you’d think but that is also adding to the writing workload
Another reason we are asking for payment is to hold onto what we’ve worked on, a few months ago we posted a concept picture with Thomas and another character on X, a company took the image and began to sell it online at their store which we were unaware of and also would not see any profit from. We were able to stop them. But it would make these situations much easier if we had it behind a paywall as it is more evident it was stolen without our knowledge or consent.
These are the reasons we are asking for donations on the project, we understand your money is hard-earned, and we take the fact we are asking seriously. We want you to be able to view a quality product and also feel like you got your money’s worth in the process. I would also like to stress, that if you subscribe and we get a lot of subscriptions the quality of the final product will also go up, more money would mean Ili would be able to create more art for the chapters, and perhaps if we got enough even be able to do interludes and other items with guaranteed art included. On the writing side, I have also got ideas for side stories of characters in this universe but having to focus on the main story, if enough subscribers could pay I could then justify begin expanding those stories and also eventually publish them. However, we are not done with what we have to offer.
What your subscription will get you
Your money as I said is important and the fact you have donated will help us grow this project into something more. Also, you may have questions about things that are not talked about much in the story. Maybe a question on what is happening in the world or how this thing happened we don’t see. Perhaps you want to know about the workings of The Chain and The Colony of New York? When you subscribe to the paid tier you will get access to the stories a week early as well as articles that explain events of the world and other flavor texts to better enjoy the world and characters of the story. Those will be included in your subscription.
So, that is what we have planned for the page right now, but I want to stress that RIGHT NOW, we are going to be reader-supported in this project and you the reader will be setting the pace of what you are getting. If you have any questions about what the plans offer or want to ask about other things please leave a comment or message me or Ili here on Substack. You will have about three weeks to decide if the project is worth supporting and I hope I have written something you can feel comfortable donating your money and leisure time reading. I hope to grow this and have conversations about the characters and story go more behind the scenes and expand the project. It will depend on what happens as we publish. With that said, thank you for reading and please come back next Sunday for Chapter One of “The Dominant Ones”
Until then,
-Brandon