Crowd Funding and Patreon

So, I had heard of crowdfunding of course in which people give a small amount of money towards a venture or a cause with the idea that these donations add up via a crowd of donators. What I had not heard of was using a similar model to support creative people. However, I found one and am giving it a try.

The idea here is that people who write books, blog, make videos, paint and so on are often unable to make sufficient money to make it worth their while. So, why not get that persons ‘fans’ to pay a little money each month or by piece of work to supplement the artists activities? It’s actually a great idea in my opinion and it certainly offers another avenue to make some money doing what I enjoy doing. So, yes, I signed up and am offering three levels of monthly commitment to start off with. I will tweak it as it goes and try to see what is the best approach.

But think about this, I put out 4-6 ebooks a year. Some of them sell and some of them don’t but not in the quantity that it takes to cover my costs. Perhaps, if I got 10 people to sign up at $3 per month and simply gave them the books along with other gifts and pieces of work, I’d actually do better? So that’s what I will try. It still isn’t a lot of money and the day job remains important but it may just make the difference between breaking even and losing money and, I may be able to invest that money in more marketing or indeed, more time to write.

I think this is a great idea. Do you?

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