Patreon

[Deepwater]

I've been experimenting with using Patreon as a platform for my stories.

What's interesting about Patreon is that you can essentially sell stories to your patrons automatically. You post the story, mark it as paid content, and Patreon will charge the patrons at the end of the month. They've already agreed to pay for whatever you release.
They can change their minds about that at any time before the end of the month, though - even if they've already read the story. That's their side of the deal. Or they can change how much money they're willing to pledge.

It's kind of a weird arrangement, but it seems like it has some potential. It's sort of like having a very small magazine that only publishes your own stories.
My approach has been to set up the account around a specific series of stories, rather than my work in general - each month I release the next story in the series. That way, my patrons know what to expect.

Has anyone else used Patreon for writing like this? Or at all? What do you guys think?

[jayce]

Are you their pitchman?

[Rogue Mutt]

Are you their pitchman?

You'd think if he were he'd be smart enough to include a link.

[Wickett]

Have you been able to make some decent money off this place, or is it a lot of work for nothing?

[John Oberon]

Doesn't sound profitable to me. They can read your work and choose not pay? Okaaay...

[Deepwater]

Not their pitchman, no. Heh, I suppose in retrospect it kind of looks like that. If I have a Secret Ulterior Motive, it's that I'm hoping to push a bit of traffic maybe to *my* Patreon project - I admit it, I do! - but I also just want to discuss it. I think it's an interesting, experimental new thing that may or may not be useful for writers. (Let's face it, you'd have to be mighty curious to go out of your way to track my thing down on Google based on just what I've given you. I didn't even mention the title.)

Have you been able to make some decent money off this place, or is it a lot of work for nothing?

Me? Less than "decent" but more than none, at least. Some people - particularly webcomic artists and youtube video makers, not so much writers that I'm aware of - do pretty well for themselves. The webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, for instance, is making over $8000 a month.
It helps to have an existing fanbase. I'm not quite there yet. I suspect it's much less likely to be a lot of work for nothing if you secure the fanbase ahead of time, but I figured I'd try anyway - and I am getting some money from it, so hey.

John, maybe look at it this way: It's like an oversized tip jar, or putting a hat in front of your street performance. Except your audience isn't limited to just people who happen to be walking down the street. See?
You might think that people are greedy and would just pledge, grab the stuff, and then cancel the pledge, but in practice, they generally aren't and they don't. Look at the Humble Indie Bundle, for instance - it started as just a one-time thing and grew into a whole big deal.
Having said all that, that's one of the things I'm interested in figuring out and talking about. What should the money barriers be like? What's the best way to use Patreon, if you're a writer? What works and what doesn't? How can it best be made profitable? Are there ultimately any advantages to doing this rather than going a more traditional route? There may not be answers yet, since it's all brand new and doesn't seem to have much in common with any existing models.
I'm detecting a somewhat cold reception to the subject, though, so maybe nobody here has much to say about it anyway.

[John Oberon]

Yeah, it's a darn new thing. I suppose there's ways for those without fans to exploit it profitably, but I don't think there's been enough time for innovation to take root yet. I suppose you just keep working until you develop a fanbase, as you say. I suspect some newbie will invent an idea to profit from it eventually.

You know, this Patreon is geared for the visual arts. If I were to make a run at it as a writer, I'd probably offer only short pieces of writing (1500 words or less) with one or two graphics in it that pertain directly to the piece, something like a newspaper editorial. I think this Patreon kind of demands graphics, so you should include some in your writing, the more provocative or funny, the better.