So as you can see in spread 17, I am going to have a small intermission for a week to repost all the pages of chapter 1 with a few corrections and updated word balloons. So please don't skip out on next Mondays post, in turn missing these much needed improvements. Please call out any mistakes you've seen as soon as you can so I don't have to update them again in the future. 

When I started posting Chapter 1 in November of 2009, my main fear was getting through all my pages before getting an audience. It's really hard to release everything you've worked on for the last 3 years in a few short months only to find 3 people care enough to come back every week.

Here are a few stats since I started:

November 3rd I started posting spreads every Monday and had a steady flow of about 20 visitors a day.  (I'm starting to sweat)

December 2nd, Notcot.org featured reMIND driving massive traffic for a few days but back down to around 30 unique viewers a day for the rest of the month.

January, My new WordPress/Comicpress site was launched with an average of 40 viewers a day. (gulp, is anybody out there?) Shortly after the launch, CartoonBrew featured my new site on the 21st driving 3000 unique viewers in the next 2 days. Suddenly I had over 100 viewers a day and my first handful of subscribers.

February I learned how to start advertising and immediately got over 200 viewers a day along with more subscribers.

March is here and chapter 1 is online with a whopping 117 subscribers and over 275 unique viewers a day at this point. Thanks to all your votes at TopWebComics I am in the top 100 for this month. Help me stay there by voting every day for reMIND. This weeks incentive is an illustration for Vampire the Masquerade that never got published.

I'm not telling you my stats to brag about anything. In fact these could be considered really low when compared to other webcomics. I just know there are people out there who are in the same boat as me trying to figure this all out, wondering what's normal.  I want reMIND to be a completely transparent site instead of pretending I'm something I'm not. 90% of the time I don't know what I'm doing and when I figure something out that works I want to share it. Hopefully reMINDblog is not just a webcomic or a graphic novel to you, but also a helpful resource and motivational tool.

Chapter 2 is nearly completed with just 2 more spreads to finish coloring and I'm very curious to hear your comments on it. It's been my most problematic chapter to date with lots of exposition which I hope doesn't get to complicated for the sake of clarity. There is a fine line between telling a story and explaining a story which I've been juggling since I started this thing. Either way, some questions will be answered and I hope many more will arise. So once again, Chapter 2 will begin on Monday the 22nd. 

Now onto a small list of things I've been wondering about.

What's the deal with Donation Buttons?

So I've noticed almost every webcomic site has a donation button. I think it a complete waste of time to assume someone will just send you money but since everyone is doing it I want to ask if it really works. Does anyone have a donation button on their site and more importantly, does anyone give you money? 

I guess my thoughts are mixed on the subject. For example, if I were to have a donation button with a goal of X amount of money to help pay for the printing costs of my graphic novel, that would make sense to me. Or in the case of the most awesome webcomic I've ever seen, Axe Cop! They have a donation button for a college fund. That's a worthy cause in my book. If any of you haven't witnessed Axe Cop yet then PLEASE go there now. It's written by a 5 year old and drawn by his 29 year old brother (who is an excellent artist). It's one of the funniest and creative, original webcomics I've seen. Check out the first episode on Youtube too. It's amazing!

On WapsiSquare.com (a very popular webcomic), the artist is asking people to donate so he can get his wife a new TV for about $1000. Last I checked he has totaled about $700 in the last week. That's crazy in my mind but it's cool that he's making it work. If he can get money for his wife's new plasma then why couldn't I get a fund going for the printing costs of reMIND. Let me know if I'm crazy to think this might work.

There is also the question of taxes. From what I've seen with Paypal, the person who donates has to pay a little extra percent of what they are giving as taxes. I might be wrong but I'll ask my tax guy soon.

Should I start a mailing list?

Okay, so I have an RSS subscribe button. But I've been wondering if I should have a separate button for those of you who might not think to check back every week to see my progress. You know, to just get a monthly update of things like release dates and convention info. I know people are forgetful of what they came across last week on the net and not everyone likes RSS feeds. 

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Thursday I have a new video about the CMYK vs RGB workspace in Photoshop I'm excited to share. But first I need to fix all the times I said CYMK instead of CMYK. I'm an idiot.