🦊 Foxwright Apothecary is officially a resounding success! I genuinely cannot believe how well this project has gone-- it means the world to me that this collection, which is very much a passion project of personal significance, resonated with so many people. I was optimistically hoping to do around 6k for this one, and y'all knocked that out of the park.
Out of curiosity, I went back and subtracted the shipping costs from the campaign total of my most successful project, the Tastefully Spooky Collection, since that one was on Kickstarter and the shipping costs were included in the total raised. It came out to around 14.2k, planting the Apothecary in second place by a margin of only about ~$500 at the 13.7k we've got here! TSC was the project that made me realize that I could actually do this whole thing for a living, and given the current landscape of the internet for artists on top of the economy I know I've definitely been feeling the pressure and more-than-a-little-bit discouraged lately, but the success of Pintopia has firmly reinforced my confidence in both my work and ability to run a business. Thank you so, so much to everyone who has backed, shared, or interacted in any way! You all are amazing! 💜
⫷What happens next? ⫸
☁️ Now that the day-to-day chaos of managing a live campaign has ended, I'm able to sit down with my designs that were created for new goal a bit more and see where I need to make some adjustments, particularly the Dreamweaver Draught. I feel like it's on the right track, but just isn't quite there yet. 🌩️ Lightning in a Bottle is another one that is getting a substantial overhaul; though it is one of the original designs, it was the one that gave me the hardest time by a long shot. Now that I've been looking at it for over a month, I'm not satisfied with it and want to go back to the drawing board. I think it needs to be a bit more visually engaging and, most of all, want to make the subject much clearer. Other than that, it's just a matter of tweaking some spots to make sure everything looks its best and is suitable for pin production, to avoid any revision headaches.
⫷ Surveys ⫸
I've gotten started on setting up and preparing the surveys for everyone; I am aiming to (hopefully) get those out within a week's time. This is where shipping information and costs will be collected, along with providing the option to grab some more add-ons that you may have missed during the campaign and other fun exclusive offerings or deals!
The surveys are vitally important for getting item counts so I know how to adjust my quantities accordingly and can get the order placed with my manufacturer as soon as possible, especially since this is going to be a large order between all the designs, I'm anticipating a bit more of a wait between payment and getting them in hand.
Once everything is sorted out on the back-end, the survey smoke test will be sent out-- which is just a fancy way to say the survey will be sent to 5% of the backers at every pledge tier to make sure nothing has been accidentally overlooked and give me a chance to resolve errors/inconsistencies/areas that need clarification before all 481 of you have the surveys and I need to fix things for 481 individual surveys.
⋘Also, pardon my delay in getting this update out to you wonderful collection of people! I didn't have my ADHD medication for five days (the pharmacy hours in this town are not conducive to being somewhat nocturnal), and it's remarkable that I've accomplished anything at all. Thank you so much for your patience, and the support for this project! ⋙
