This is one of the more difficult newsposts I've had to write over the seven or so years we've been doing Goats. Simply put, Goats is in trouble. Actually, Goats is doing quite well, but we're suffering from the high level of success the strip has seen the past year or so. That may sound strange, but let me explain.
Basically what Phillip and I have been doing for the last couple of years is "building the business". For those of you who play RPGs, it's kinda like leveling up your character. We've been reinvesting all the money we've made over the last seven years into the business, expanding our line of merchandise, dabbling with advertising and that sort of thing. We haven't paid ourselves one thin dime in all this time. And as Goats has grown, it's required more and more of our time. For the last year, it's distracted me to the extent that I've spent a lot of time out of work. My personal finances are a total mess, and the only income I have coming in right now is what I can scrape together from meager freelance HTML gigs. It's not good.
The shame of it is that I think we're only a year or so away from being able to do this full-time with a small but reasonable salary. It would be a dream come true, and we're so close I can smell it. There's two of us that need to be paid, so it's taking about twice as long as we'd like, but it is possible. Especially if I can spend less time trying to find freelance work and more of my time working on the strip to get us to that point. Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure I can get over this hump with my credit rating intact. At least, not without your help.
So here's the deal: we're going to be asking for reader donations over the next few weeks. Please dig deep and donate as much as you can. Phillip and I will use that money to pay rent and credit card debt and the like, and it will allow us to spend more time working on the strip.
What do you get out of this? A few things.
And, of course, no matter how much you donate, whether it be $1 or $1000, you'll get our undying appreciation and you'll be helping to make our dreams come true.
Here's how it works: Click the Donate button below (the one with the starving kitty on it). Put in the amount that you would like to donate. If you don't have a PayPal account, don't worry; they no longer require you to have one to make a credit card donation (same goes for our store purchases). Fill out the form; if you're donating $100 or more, in the Message area, list the dates of the strips that you would like the original art from. Please list at least a couple of alternate dates. I will send you the first choice from your list that is still available, first come, first served. The more alternates you list, the more likely you will get one of your choices. Be sure to include a shipping address if you're getting strip art or I won't know where to send it to.
I'll post a note with our progress in the next few days and let you know how close we're getting to our goal. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to post them in the attached forum. Thanks in advance for all of your help.
I have to say it felt a little weird to request your work for a donation; but I am pretty excited to own a peice of goats.[BoxJamsHead]Boing![/BoxJamsHead] You know, if you were to issue private stock in goats, I'd buy some. Who wouldn't want to own a piece of goats?
