Writing Wednesday: Patreon patronage

[mizkit]

A while ago I was muttering about how I wanted somebody I *knew* to have test-run a relatively new distribution opportunity for self-published writers, and one of my friends said, “Er, Catie, you’re the one who does that. You go charging off the cutting edge and we all wait to see how it works out and then follow, having learned from you.”

I said

Comments

[silly_swordsman]

I set up a Patreon in April, and I can definitely identify with the getting twitchy about asking for money. I'd hate to go on about it all the time, but on the other hand, people have said "Oh, I didn't know you had a Patreon" even though I have a link in my bio. (I primarily write microstories on Twitter/Facebook/Google+/Tumblr so I tend to pick up followers who never look at the bio.)

What I've settled on doing is to post a reminder (or three, for Twitter, which have greater timezone spread) one day, close to the end of the month. That gives new followers a chance to think about it and committing before the end-of-month billing, and shouldn't be too annoying to long-term followers.

I also post a note a few days into the new month to say that I have posted the physical rewards. With the EU VAT mess, I decided not to offer any digital exclusives. Most of my supporters give cheap-coffee-price support for the warm fuzzy feeling, and a few pay a bit more for a hand-made and handwritten postcard.

It might be worth talking a bit about the EU VAT on digital products, and how Patreon won't help with it (unlike Amazon or iTunes, for instance).