2024 Year in review

Hi everyone! This is my first yearly review post here on Substar!! I do these every year to reflect back and talk about some goals for the next year :)

This year was hectic for me!! I moved house TWICE, and book 1 of Sparks came out. I'm actually still in the process of moving/unpacking now haha... I'm really glad I decided to pause Patreon & Substar for December and take the month off because I don't think I could have managed it otherwise.

The Sparks book release was a lot more work and more time consuming than I expected it to be... just with trying to create promotional material, market it, talk to local bookstores, etc. Hopefully now that I know I can be more prepared for the book 2 release! I actually don't feel like I did that great a job of promoting it or talking about it... one of my goals for 2025 will be to talk about it more. Marketing is my least favourite part of this work so it burned me out big time but I think I've learned some ways to make it easier and more enjoyable. I'm really looking forward to getting my office set up in my new place and having a dedicated work area again- just the fact that I'm feeling really energized and excited about getting back to work means my month off worked imo haha. 

Despite everything that was going on I still managed to make 96 pages of Sparks, and I'm really happy about that. My usual loose 'goal' for the year is ~150 pages (which is around the length of 1 book) so not too shabby, considering. I also started scripting ahead for the first time ever. It took me some trial and error to figure out what works for me but now I think I have a good method down, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it changes my work flow and if scenes will read better! I've attached a snippet of my script to have a look at if you're interested. At first I was trying to write all the dialogue out, but it felt too restricting when it came time to thumbnail. 

Oh, and how could I forget- I restructured Patreon and started my Substar at the beginning of the year because I was scared Patreon would delete my profile due to their new guidelines. That was really stressful and scary!! For a while I was trying to operate as though my Patreon could stop existing at any moment, but now that I moderate what I do and don't share here I think it should be safe. Another one of my goals for the coming year is to make it clearer what I share to which sites and what the differences are, and to make sure I'm putting equal effort into both platforms. 

Hmm... I don't think I have much else to say about 2024! It was difficult but nowhere near as bad as it could have been, and I'm grateful for that. Despite the future being scary I'm really optimistic about 2025 and I have so many plans I want to accomplish! It might sound weird to say this five years in to making a comic but I feel like I'm really starting to hit my 'stride', and I'm starting to feel more confident about my work (and less imposter syndrome lol). A huge thank you to everyone who's supported me- whether you're a current subscriber, a reader, have bought the book, etc. It means the world to me that I'm able to do this!! <33

I hope you've all had a good year, and here's hoping 2025 is good too! 

XOXO REVEL 

P.S There's a photo of yet another 2025 plan down below... :)