K.N. Banet is creating short stories on PATREON?!

You read that right!
I was planning on announcing this on February 1st, but I’m really excited about this. Really excited and I have the ability to launch now, so I’m ringing in 2022 with something I can’t wait for. (As Andi, my PA, said “It really is something different and super shiny” and right now, I need a little bit of different and shiny)
I mentioned in my 2021 blog that I was reworking the whole situation about short stories and novellas. Things weren’t working out with blog posts, or doing them for the newsletter. I just couldn’t put them on my schedule the way I wanted to. They kept… being the bottom of my to do list, A Visit Home was put on hiatus because it ended up longer than planned, and through the newsletter, they became the thing I couldn’t deal with and when problems happened, there was no concise way for everyone to get a hold of me or for me to talk to you.

What helped make the shorts a real disappointment for me was how much I want to do them and I couldn’t justify spending the time on them when I could work on the important stuff, things I could do something with.

Patreon solves… literally all those problems and it will help me fulfill other goals for the year, like the Tribunal Archives Website!

The rest of this blog will be copied from the main page of the Patreon (I cut the Who Am I portion for this blog because… you know who I am!)! There’s a more concise explanation, tells you about what’s what and how this will work.
Or you can read everything here:

patreon.com/knbanet

So I mentioned the Tribunal Archives world above. With three series and over fifteen books in the world already (and too many to count in the future), I decided to make this insane website because readers were asking for it:
https://tribunalarchives.com/

It’s a resource for readers to reference while reading. A place to look up characters, see what books they appear in, see the world’s timeline, artwork I’ve made, and to find extra written content about the world. It’s not completely filled in. The website is time consuming. I just don’t have the time to do it all by myself.

I also want to write more. I know, that sounds crazy. I release out 6 to 8 full length novels a year, I can’t possibly want to write more. I do, just not what I normally write. I write full length novels for my solo-releases, which is the bulk of my publishing. The problem lies in the fact that I would love to write more content… but not full length novels. I want to write shorts. Short stories like ‘day in the life of’ or backstories. Just anything and everything about characters in this world that would never make the cut as a scene in a book. Main characters, side characters, and even characters I might never get the chance to write.

There’s mini-series I want to write, a series of shorts telling a small story about a side character or two. One great example of this would be the romance of Dirk and Landon from the Jacky Leon series. Much of their romance is off the page because the main character, Jacky, doesn’t see it. They’re private characters and didn’t want her meddling.

Again, there’s this time issue, but not only a time issue; it’s also a monetary one. I have to focus on the work that pays the bills. These sorts of things have often been pushed to the bottom of my to-do list because of more pressing things I needed to do.

But maybe…

Like all good humans with some understanding of the supernatural, we need an iron clad bargain-
Wait, I probably shouldn’t make this sound like you’re signing away something dangerous.

By signing up for my Patreon, you will get those short stories, delivered electronically. These will be 5000-20000 thousand words. Once a month, I will publish the partially edited work here. Partially edited means it will get read through for typos but isn’t going to get the four-month editing treatment like my full length novels/full release novellas.

For one year after their release, these short stories will be available to patrons only. If I release a short story in July 2022, it will only be on Patreon until July 2023. After that, there’s one of two things that could happen:
A. They go up for free on the Tribunal Archives website- smaller shorts, under 20k.
B. They go on sale full edited as a standalone- full story novellas between 20-30k words.
I will tell you the fate of each short.

That is the ultimate goal of writing the shorts to me: for people to enjoy them along with me. By being a patron, you can support me writing them and that means I can actually write them. This means you get them to yourself for an entire year.

There’s other things you can get as well right now, depending on your tier of support.

Ask the Author: Submit a question every month. I will pick up to 5, depending on how many submissions there are, and answer them as best I can. You can ask about writing craft, business, management, characters, or the world.
There’s a single rule: I won’t answer story spoiler questions but asking one will use your question of the month.

Featured Character Vote: I have a lot of ideas. I’ll make a list of the characters and YOU get to vote on which one I write next. This does have some lag. Example: If you vote in January, I will write it in February, and you will get the short in March. This is so you have the entire month to decide and I have a month to write, so it’s fair.
This character could be from any series I’ve published in my time as an author including completed series or ones outside the Tribunal Archives. Just depends on the ideas I have before I give you the list to vote on.

Behind The Story: I’ll give a breakdown about why this character and why this story as best I can. This could lead to some interesting answers or… could be a bit goofy, honestly.

My Ideas: I’ll give you a running list of my short story ideas. This way, when you vote, you have an idea of the sort what story you’ll get for that character! This will include short stories you can’t vote on yet, but they’ll be there!

Sexy Versions: Where applicable, some shorts might have a sex scene. Downloading this version would be optional and clearly marked. This will not be available every month, because I’m not here to only write sex scenes, but I don’t shy away from them either.

Tribunal Archive Supporter Page: A page on the Tribunal Archives website that is dedicated to supporters of the highest tier.

Sneak Peeks: I will drop some sneak peeks from my current main project, the full length novel I’m working on. Some teasers (3-4) pulled directly from the first draft I’m writing every month.

And more to come in the future, if everything goes well. However, I have to keep Patreon from being more work than I can manage, so it could take some time for me to add more benefits and some may get reworked in the effort that Patreon doesn’t get in the way of my full length works. I want this to last and therefore, it can’t become too much.

By hitting goals, you will unlock more rewards to go with the short stories, but the focus here is the writing and supporting the Tribunal Archives website.

I have three goals set up. This is what the community will work towards, for new stuff and to help me. There will probably be more in the future as I get the hang of this and have more ideas.

$1000 a month: I will do artwork in the same style as my book covers for everyone. You will get one 6-month exclusive image every month to use as a phone or desktop background. The banner is an early example of this sort of work. Then the artwork goes onto the Tribunal Archives site.
Here’s the artwork page where you can see the banner artwork in full and other examples:
https://tribunalarchives.com/artwork/

$2000 a month: I will hire someone to manage the Tribunal Archives website. This is one of the most important reasons behind this Patreon and this amount will cover that expense. This person will keep it up to date, adding characters, books, my artwork, my writing. All of it. It might take some time for them to catch up, but now, I’ll have someone and it’s thanks to you. I will introduce said person when I hire them.
They will do a monthly update post to list what’s been added or updated to the site.

$5000 a month: Purely for fun, I will stream whatever game catches my interest for everyone. This could be a two hour stream or a 16 hour stream (I am known to hyper focus).

Now back to the blog. I hope that was an good read.

You can sign up starting today (and you won’t be billed for January). The first 2 months will have predetermined content because of the voting system needing some time to kick in. Not in that big thing up there is explanation of the tiers. Here’s one, if you decided to stay here instead of checking out the Patreon page.

$3/month Tier: Monthly Short Story (and access to goal-related content, if applicable)
$5/month Tier: Monthly Short Story, Ask the Author, Featured Character Vote
$10/month Tier: Monthly Short Story, Ask the Author, Featured Character Vote, Behind the Story, My Ideas, Sexy Versions
$20/month Tier: Monthly Short Story, Ask the Author, Featured Character Vote, Behind the Story, My Ideas, Sexy Versions, Tribunal Archives Supporter Page, Sneak Peeks

Content begins on February 1st, 2022.

Month 1, Day 1 (February 1st) will have:
Hisao and Kaliya (From the newsletter)
Back to Work (Kaliya short from the newsletter)

Mid-February:
One surprise short

Month 2 (March, probably mid-month):
A Visit Home Complete (Jacky’s visit to her family between books 5 and 6, originally started on the blog, but left unfinished)

After these 2 months, the short you get every month will be determined by the vote from two months before. (The vote in February will be what decides what you get in April, and so on)

A bit more information from the first public post on the Patreon:
You will not be billed on February 1st because you joined early in January. Like anyone who joins in February for the first month of content, you’ll be billed on March 1st for the first month of content (February).
After that, you’ll be billed on the 1st of every month for the previous month that I produced a short/novella. I will pause a month’s billing if I, for any reason, can’t get the short story to you before the end of the month (ex. You won’t be billed June 1 if I don’t give you a short in May). If I’m sick/out of town/thrown off schedule, you won’t get billed at the beginning of the next month.
Now, there is a chance I turn on upfront billing later on if I see people subbing and leaving before a month is over, just to download content but avoid being billed. If that starts happening, upfront billing will be turned on.

$20 Go Big Tier: Your names will be added/removed in a batch at the beginning of every month. Names will go on the website for the first time in the first week of February. I will only use first names.

That’s all I’ve got! I really hope this works out for us. 2022 is the testing year and we’ll revisit how it’s working frequently. I really hope this becomes a long term, established piece of my career.

patreon.com/knbanet