Blog Changes and a Patreon!

Welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming! Today we have to take some time to talk about the changes that are coming to the blog.

First, I set up a Patreon! If you haven’t heard of it before, Patreon is a platform for creators of content – artists, musicians, writers, people who make educational videos – to get support from their community. And by support, I mean money. It’s a way to send money to people whose content you enjoy. The idea behind Patreon is that despite how easy it is on the internet to share and find content, it is much harder to make a living by providing that content. This is supposed to make it easier. You do get stuff out of it, I promise.

Before we get any further, I want to make it clear that you are under NO obligation to support me on Patreon. 100% no obligation. Full stop, that’s it, no obligation. It will not change your ability to read this blog – this isn’t like a newspaper putting up a paywall. Everything that goes up on Patreon will be extra, complimentary content to what happens here on also honey.

If you want and are able to, then you choose between four tiers: $1, $5, $20, $50 per month.

• For $1 a month, you will get to see posts a week before they go up. You will be able to participate in polls to help decide some of the content, for example:
  • I’m making a Pavlova recipe! Should I make: French Silk Pavlova? Lemon and Blueberry Pavlova? Rose and Honey Pavlova? (Trick question, I made them all!)
• For $5 a month, you’ll get a weekly behind-the-scenes into each post, which will include pictures and descriptions of recipes gone wrong, explanations of my research process and other things like that. You’ll get the previous rewards as well.
• For $20 a month, you’ll get a personalised handwritten thank you note (once a year) and access to a monthly Q&A with me, although I reserve the right not to answer certain questions, especially personal ones. You’ll get all the previous rewards as well.
• For $50 a month, you’ll get to sponsor or suggest a post on a topic of your choice, within reason, five times a year, and you’ll get another reward related to the second change coming to the blog that I don’t want to spoil yet. You’ll also get the previous rewards.

There are a few posts up already, but today (June 14th, 2017) I’m officially beginning this Patreon adventure. From now on, posts will go up as they should, provided I can figure out how to get them up. Also today, to give you a better idea of the kind of thing you’ll get for using Patreon, I’m going to put the Behind the Scenes: Pavlova Week post on also honey (I’ll try to rig it so you don’t get 100 AH notifications today). This post comes under the $5 a month tier, and anything above.

Basically, the reason I made this Patreon is because ingredients and books are expensive and I put a lot of effort into the posts I write here. With this, I can make some of that back, and eventually I’ll be able to do more interesting things, like videos (which would require different camera equipment) or even down the line, bound collections of stuff I’m not talking about yet. It also gives me a way to show my appreciation for your support, and I would like to say that I am extremely thankful to everyone that reads this blog, regardless of whether or not you get involved with Patreon.

But now I get to talk about it! Coming soon to also honey is The Adventures of PD and Bee: Fun Times Had by a Merperson and a Lizard. Tadaaaa!

About a month ago, or maybe longer, my boyfriend really wanted to try Dungeon Master-ing, which is what they call people who run games of Dungeons and Dragons. If you don’t know, D&D is a role playing game, meaning that the players create characters and then pretend to be them while the Dungeon Master creates the world and story.

So we put together a group of friends for a campaign, but we haven’t really been playing and I’ve decided that I love the character I’ve made too much too just let her wander off into the vague and unfriendly worlds of D&D, so I’m going to write stories about her instead, using my own world and world-rules.

PD is what I call a swamp merperson. I did a lot of research in order to create a species (I can call it that now that it’s not tied to D&D) loosely based on traditional merfolk, but with enough evolutionary distance that they have the ability to walk on land. She’s basically dolphin/otter/human – I’ll be putting up a more in depth description of the species and a bit about their environment and culture.

The whole point of this is that I’ll be writing a series of short stories about PD and her nonbinary lizard friend Bee, and their adventures. And other friends they meet along the way. It’s just for fun, and writing practice, and I really hope you enjoy it! Don’t worry, I’ll leave the purple prose for the recipes. The stories will come out about once a month, and I’ll try not to spam you with too much blog content plus stories. If anyone feels like they would rather not get PD&Bee emails or notifications, because that’s not what they followed also honey for, I do understand – there is a wide gulf between interest in the history of honey and interest in merfolk and their relationship with lizards. Eventually I might be able to set something up that will separate the two, but that’s not my area of expertise. I’ve had a hard enough time getting the Patreon image link, which should be right over there ⇒ to show up.

The first PD&Bee story will be out next Wednesday, the 21st of June. Or, if you’re really excited and you can’t wait, you might find that it’s already up on my Patreon under the $1 a month tier. Ta-ta, friends, see you next week!

The featured image is from a recent trip to Longwood Gardens.