Forum: Author Hangout

That explains a lot. Thank you!

There's an old book from the 80s or 90s called 'the incredible nickle machine', which postulated that coming up with a single million-dollar idea is worthless if you can't do anything with it. Instead, you need to focus on solutions that consistently pay you small sums on an ongoing basis, as they give you the luxury of working on the bigger challenges (like implementing your million-dollar idea).

The same is true here, you can't count on any single reader paying you $3,000 for a book, instead, you make your work accessible, as LOTS of people are willing to pay $.99, and can therefore afford to take a chance on an unknown author.

Every artist I've every known always produces one or maybe two 'major pieces' a year, but keeps themselves going by churning out a shitload of cheap $5 works, so that people who admire their work can help them pursue their goal without having to pay $1,000,000,000 for a single painting.

Also, I see NO way for an author to build a fanbase and reach new customers using Patreon, as few people seem to go there seeking stories, everyone goes there simply to support one particular person (usually a well-known band or best-selling author who's decided to ditch their publisher). In other words, they bring their audience with them, rather than building an audience over time.

Patreon is not a place to market yourself directly, but a destination for those to whom you successfully market yourself. They take a fee for handling what amount to small financial transactions and make them relatively frictionless.

What I don't like is the blackmail type process common to the site where people say things like "When I get $X or Y followers I'll post the next ...."

Me either. I would guess that's their (lame?) attempt to use others to do free marketing for them.

I agree with Michael, Patreon is not a place to market yourself or your works, it's a place to get money from people who already follow your work and don't mind pay $20 to $200 for a book worth $5. To get people to go to Patreon you need to place the link to your section there before them at other sites.

Alas, what we see far too often is someone deciding to forgo posting stories for free on sites like SOL, deciding instead to concentrate ALL their efforts on Patreon. My main objection to that approach is that I simply can't conceive of how that will pay off in the long run. You need both a way to supplement your income, but also a way of reaching new readers over time. That's like figuring out how you'll get paid without ever writing anything, or locating your audience. Audiences shift over time, with many readers moving on to other stories, so you've got to keep attracting new readers, otherwise there's little point in continuing writing for an ever shrinking readership.

what we see far too often is someone deciding to forgo posting stories for free on sites like SOL, deciding instead to concentrate ALL their efforts on Patreon

That doesn't have to be the case. I assume Patreon got it's name from patron which means:

"a person who gives financial or other support to a person, organization, cause, or activity."

So it isn't like Dickens selling installments of his story to a magazine. It's more like someone giving Michelangelo financial support so that he can create sculptures.

That doesn't have to be the case. I assume Patreon got it's name from patron which means:

"a person who gives financial or other support to a person, organization, cause, or activity."

Understood. I understand the concept, but people keep trying to use it in the oddest of ways. Again, I can understand if people give their stories away for free on sites like this, but give their Patrreons the first peek at it, but foregoing any outlet other than paying customers, without at least offering sneak peaks (like the 'free read' chapters in most online books) seems fairly short sided.

I supported and championed Patreon when it first started, and soon realized that it's better for those with established fan bases, rather than those struggling for recognition.

Heads up for Erotica authors using Patreon. It seems Patreon is cracking down on erotica creators. If you're writing erotica, you may be kicked off Patreon soon.

That's the new standard wherever you publish. What it means, in real terms, is that if someone reports you for your content, they'll generally remove the book until you can resubmit a 'corrected' version. But they really don't check the contents, and even if the do ban you for repeated violations (based on Amazon and many other sites which claim the same thing), you can just create a new ID and offer the exact same books and no one will question it.

The various crackdowns on underaged sex and incest in books has just barely driven in under the radar.

Though, at least on Amazon, having someone report you for copyright infringement, they'll ask you to validate your claim, but if they complain about your content, they'll flat out delete your content and ban you if it happens more than once, without ever validating the claim, leaving you with no way to argue your case. Essentially, all these sites care about is covering their ass, as they realize those books bring in a LOT of cash for them, so they don't want to scare anyone off.

It isn't "selling the work on Patreon", like some of you insist on thinking about it. The main work continues to be available for free on its regular schedule, but patrons get perks like early viewing of the content, bonus side stories or joke strips, or a look at pre-release stages of the work-in-progress.

That may be how some are using the site, but some are using it as the only source of their stories and you only get to see the bulk of their work if you're a paid up subscriber. Some authors are taking the line of 'next chapter after $x collected.' It's that attitude that's killing interest by many people.

Some shady, uninformed, or greedy creators are not representative of the whole "Community".

I never said they were all greedy or shady. However, there is enough greedy and shady operators there to make me, and many others, extremely wary of going anywhere near Patreon.

Even if they were all high quality and well behaved I'm against subscription type services like this. If someone were to create a web comic and then produce it as a PDF or EPUB format with enough strips to make it worth my while and it was a subject I like I'd buy the completed book and look for the next. I used to do that with all sort of comic strip books since the 1970s. I buy products to read and gladly pay a reasonable price for them, but I'll not pay a subscription fee for an unknown delivery date. I also know there are many other people who feel the same way.

You may be happy with the process of not posting until $x are raised to see the next chapter, but I'll wait until the story is finished. There are way too many unfinished works around for me to waste my time on ones that are not yet finished.

The way the site is set up it lends itself to plagiarism and other forms of abuse without allowing people to check what's going on before paying up. Also, the site managers don't seem to be interested in cleaning up the system. If you want to use the site go ahead, I won't. Nor am I the only one to feel that way.

You may be happy with the process of not posting until $x are raised to see the next chapter,

Unless I'm mistaken, the patron (not Patreon) concept is the chapter won't be WRITTEN until the funds are raised.

- Gating access to your content is making it impossible to grow your fanbase, some have to learn that lesson. Especially the Game mod, games, and cartoon creators. Their "Patreon-only" content gets pirated pretty much instantly.

I see this often on the 'picture posting' sites like Flickr, where cartoonists will post cute cartoons, and then direct anyone interested to their Patreon page. That makes sense, because they're still trying different markets to locate fans who may never have encountered them before.

That's sort of like authors (like me) who continually write in one particular genre, but occasionally cross over to another genre. That opens that authors work to a whole new audience who may never have considered their work before.

It isn't "selling the work on Patreon", like some of you insist on thinking about it. The main work continues to be available for free on its regular schedule, but patrons get perks like early viewing of the content, bonus side stories or joke strips, or a look at pre-release stages of the work-in-progress.

My objection wasn't with Patreon itself, but with users (of Patreon) who don't seem to understand this 'multi-phased' marketing strategy. It leaves me befuddled why someone would limit themselves exclusively to the few readers who already know their work, rather than continually searching for new consumers.

Now I can see someone dumping a particular site, as that's happened often as writers get fed up, either with SOL, its readers or management, but often they simply seem to cut off all outside contacts entirely.

I just don't see it as a good business model for authors with no outside sources to pull clients in.

Which is what marketing is all about, and true for any product or service which is offered for sale to the general public. If an author goes there assuming 'if I build it, they will come' then I suspect he or she is going to be VERY disappointed.

But that would be true if they simply set up their own website and waited for people to show up to buy whatever goods or services were offered for sale.

Now I've heard it said it's donations for the next whatever(chapter/comic/etc.). if I want to donate money there are plenty of people that use Paypal or some other sort of payment method for finished works. street venders are offering song, drawings, music and other entertainment with a hat and cup give you something before you offer up spare change.

The general Patreon model is that the artist doesn't get paid, except when they produce something. Thus saying 'pay me, or else' is inherently self-defeating, as you'll never collect any funds unless you regularly churn on content on a consistent basis (something that authors notoriously have a hard time doing).