Speaker 1: With technology with tex stuff from Hatflog, Patre everybody, it
Speaker 1: is tech stuff. I am Jonathan Strickland. I am so
Speaker 1: pleased to be chatting with you today. I'm on my own.
Speaker 1: It's another solo episode, and today I want to talk
Speaker 1: about Patreon and patronage. I mean, for today's episode. I
Speaker 1: thought it might be interesting to take another look at
Speaker 1: how people can use the Internet to make money. And
Speaker 1: I've covered topics like e commerce before, web advertising, We've
Speaker 1: covered multiple times on this show. We've even covered crowdfunding
Speaker 1: stuff like Kickstarter and Indiego Go. But I really wanted
Speaker 1: to look at patronage because it's interesting to see it
Speaker 1: come back so strong. That's not to say that patronage
Speaker 1: is new, even new on the Internet. It's not. It
Speaker 1: just seems to be rising in prominence right now. The
Speaker 1: idea of patronage dates back to the Renaissance, and I
Speaker 1: gotta be honest with you guys. I debated briefly, but
Speaker 1: I did debate on describing Renaissance patronage in the style
Speaker 1: of the character I used to play back when I
Speaker 1: was an employee of the Georgia Renaissance Festival. But then
Speaker 1: I figured, you guys, would probably unsubscribed so fast that
Speaker 1: you'd actually hear the whishing sound of the wind filling
Speaker 1: in the vacuum of missing listeners. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: spare you the corny Renaissance festival character for now. But
Speaker 1: if you really want to hear me cut loose as
Speaker 1: a Renaissance festival idiot, stick around to the very end
Speaker 1: and then you'll get a treat, or maybe you'll think
Speaker 1: of it as something other than a treat, but at
Speaker 1: any rate, it'll be at the end, so that way
Speaker 1: you can not listen to it if it bugs you.
Speaker 1: So getting back to Renaissance and the era of patronage.
Speaker 1: When you look at the Middle Ages in Europe, the
Speaker 1: period preceding the Renaissance, the primary social system in place
Speaker 1: was feudalism. And in case you're not familiar with feudalism,
Speaker 1: what the concept is or how that worked. This was
Speaker 1: where you would have a centralized power figure of some
Speaker 1: sort to whom everyone in the region would swear fealty.
Speaker 1: And this was a two way relationship. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: someone lording over a lot of peasants, although that could happen.
Speaker 1: The person in charge was supposed to make big decisions
Speaker 1: on behalf of the entire region, and in the best
Speaker 1: case scenarios, uh, they would actually take great pains to
Speaker 1: protect the people they ruled over. In fact, if you
Speaker 1: look at stuff like the old epic poem Beowulf, you
Speaker 1: hear about the the job of the king is to
Speaker 1: hand out rings, which is essentially the symbol of wealth
Speaker 1: two loyal subjects who have have contributed in some meaningful
Speaker 1: way to the area's success. That was the basis of
Speaker 1: society for centuries in Europe. But once you start getting
Speaker 1: toward the end of the Middle Ages, things start to change. Now,
Speaker 1: during the Middle Ages, you know the peasants really their
Speaker 1: job was to essentially make enough food for everyone to
Speaker 1: stay alive, including the person in charge. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the Middle Ages, the system of feudalism began
Speaker 1: to fall apart, and it also marked the first time
Speaker 1: people really begin gan to move in great numbers from
Speaker 1: the pastoral countryside and farms into cities. This was the
Speaker 1: era of cities having an enormous population booms, so places
Speaker 1: like Paris and London had their numbers swell, and out
Speaker 1: of that change grew something brand new, the middle class,
Speaker 1: or the bourgeois in other words, and as professions became lucrative,
Speaker 1: as people began to find ways to create things, to
Speaker 1: make goods or provide services that were valued within the cities,
Speaker 1: people began to make money. The middle class began to
Speaker 1: make serious money. Sometimes the people in the middle class
Speaker 1: were far wealthier than anyone in the nobility class. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of examples of nobles who were arranging marriages
Speaker 1: with wealthy middle class families because the middle class families
Speaker 1: lacked a title, but they had money, whereas the nobility
Speaker 1: had titles but no money. So it became this weird relationship,
Speaker 1: particularly in places like England. Now some of the people
Speaker 1: in the middle class wanted to use the money they
Speaker 1: made to do various things, including supporting artists of various types.
Speaker 1: Maybe they found it rewarding to support an artist's work,
Speaker 1: or maybe they got some other sense of value from it.
Speaker 1: At any rate, they became what we call patrons of
Speaker 1: the arts, and there are lots of examples of various
Speaker 1: patrons who were really famous at the time. The Medici
Speaker 1: family is probably the best known patrons from the era
Speaker 1: of the Italian Renaissance, particularly Cosimo de Medici and his grandson,
Speaker 1: Lorenzo de Medici. These two Medici's were famous for their
Speaker 1: patronage of various artists uh. Together, they supported some really
Speaker 1: famous ones like uh well, names that would seem familiar
Speaker 1: to anyone who watched teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because they
Speaker 1: supported artists like Donna Tello, Leonardo da Vinci, and michel
Speaker 1: Angelo and Uh. The patronage actually gave these wealthy people
Speaker 1: a certain social status. It allowed them to associate themselves
Speaker 1: with the most talented, brightest people of the age, and
Speaker 1: it also created opportunities for the artists to make amazing
Speaker 1: works of art, ranging from paintings to sculpture and other stuff.
Speaker 1: Often the artists were working on a commission by the nobility,
Speaker 1: so they didn't really have a whole lot of choice
Speaker 1: in what they were able to make, but the money
Speaker 1: they made from that allowed them to fund other things. Famously,
Speaker 1: Da Vinci came up with lots of different stuff. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: theater companies also had patrons. William Shakespeare belonged to the
Speaker 1: Lord Chamberlain's Men during Queen Elizabeth the First's reign. Uh.
Speaker 1: The initial patron of that theatrical company was a man
Speaker 1: named Henry Carey, who was the first Baron Hunston uh
Speaker 1: the Lord Chamberlain to the Queen. Now, eventually that company
Speaker 1: would become the King's Men, because Elizabeth passed away and
Speaker 1: James the First rose to the throne and became the
Speaker 1: new patron of this theatrical company. So they provided the
Speaker 1: budget that the artists needed in order for them to
Speaker 1: do their work, and then they would also reward the
Speaker 1: artists themselves. Um and this approach allowed ours to protect
Speaker 1: practice their craft without worrying about selling the finished product
Speaker 1: to buyers, though that could also happen depending upon the artist.
Speaker 1: So generally speaking, it was a work for higher sort
Speaker 1: of thing. It wasn't an idea, you know, create a
Speaker 1: product and then go to the market and try and
Speaker 1: sell the product. Today we still have patrons of the arts.
Speaker 1: A lot of wealthy people will end up funding arts
Speaker 1: in some way. There are a lot of foundations that
Speaker 1: also provide funding, and others who donate to museums or
Speaker 1: to theaters. But when it comes to supporting individual artists,
Speaker 1: patronage had largely faded away until relatively recently, but now
Speaker 1: we're in a new era of patronage and it also
Speaker 1: makes sense because honestly, the era of advertising is starting
Speaker 1: to come to an end. We've become tired of ads,
Speaker 1: so making money through ads has become increasingly difficult. It's
Speaker 1: a chat lunch. It's still very important, but it's harder
Speaker 1: to do, largely because the audience itself has become cynical
Speaker 1: or tired of ads. Uh. You can try to sell
Speaker 1: stuff in an online store instead, and that might work
Speaker 1: great for certain types of artists, like people who do
Speaker 1: graphic design work, and maybe they do sketches or paintings
Speaker 1: or comics or things of that nature, and they can
Speaker 1: sell different prints or posters. That sort of stuff. Also
Speaker 1: makes sense for musicians who might sell things like albums
Speaker 1: or individual songs that kind of thing. But there's some
Speaker 1: types of creative work that do not lend themselves to
Speaker 1: merchandise easily. So, for example, maybe you do a series
Speaker 1: of videos. Like you, you have a web video series,
Speaker 1: and you might have some merchandise options, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: those are probably not going to bring in enough money
Speaker 1: to support your work. So what do you do? Well,
Speaker 1: that's where patronage comes into play. Now. The best known
Speaker 1: service right now is patriot on, and that service allows
Speaker 1: creators to build a profile for their work. Fans can
Speaker 1: contribute money on an ongoing basis. Creators can set up
Speaker 1: a Patreon account so that the pledges are collected monthly
Speaker 1: or every time there's a new piece of content for
Speaker 1: an audience to enjoy. So, in other words, if I'm
Speaker 1: a creator and I want to create a Patreon page,
Speaker 1: I could do it. Let's say I'm doing a web
Speaker 1: video series. I could do it where I say pledge
Speaker 1: X amount per month, and you might say a dollar
Speaker 1: or five dollars or whatever that might be. Or I
Speaker 1: could choose to say pledge x amount per video, so
Speaker 1: every time an episode comes out, you would end up
Speaker 1: contributing however much you had pledged, whether it was a
Speaker 1: dollar or five dollars or whatever amount. Those are the
Speaker 1: different options. Uh, It's kind of like a subscription service,
Speaker 1: only you aren't necessarily buying something. You're supporting the work
Speaker 1: of someone who's stuff you like, so you're not necessarily
Speaker 1: getting something that no one else can get, although that
Speaker 1: can play apart two and I'll talk about that in
Speaker 1: a second. But really what it's all about is saying
Speaker 1: I like the stuff you do. I want you to
Speaker 1: continue to be able to do the stuff you do,
Speaker 1: and I'm willing to pay money so that this happens.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because at least for some people it works. Now,
Speaker 1: in the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you guys know I support to Patreon campaigns right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm not asking anyone else to go out and
Speaker 1: support them. I just want to be able to talk
Speaker 1: about my experience as a patron as opposed to a creator.
Speaker 1: I don't have a Patreon campaign for anything that I do.
Speaker 1: I just support other Patreon campaigns. So the two campaigns
Speaker 1: I support. One of them is for Tom Merritt's daily
Speaker 1: tech news show, and Tom's a friend of mine. He
Speaker 1: does great work. He covers tech stories each weekday and
Speaker 1: brings on interesting guests and sometimes people like me to
Speaker 1: be on his show to discuss the stories and give
Speaker 1: them context. So I am one of many patrons of
Speaker 1: Tom Merritt's and I want him to continue to be
Speaker 1: able to do this work, which I think is valuable.
Speaker 1: It's entertaining, and it's informative, so that's why I have contributed.
Speaker 1: The other Patreon campaign I support is for a group
Speaker 1: called Red Letter Media, and that's an entertainment company and
Speaker 1: they create online videos and plus they create films. They're
Speaker 1: they're essentially a film studio that also does online video. Now,
Speaker 1: they're mostly known for their film criticism. I have several
Speaker 1: shows that focus on criticizing films in various ways. There's
Speaker 1: one called half in the Bag, there's one called Best
Speaker 1: of the Worst, and then there are the infamous Mr
Speaker 1: Plinkett reviews. So if you've ever come across one of
Speaker 1: those reviews of either Star Wars or Star Trek where
Speaker 1: the persona doing the review is a crazy, the sociopathic
Speaker 1: old guy, that's Red Letter Media. Now there are hundreds
Speaker 1: of projects listed on Patreon, and some of them may
Speaker 1: even be for stuff you already enjoy. So how does
Speaker 1: the service work? I mean, how can it actually work
Speaker 1: in a in a in a background sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: clearly it's not as simple as just a sorting house
Speaker 1: for audience contributions, right, I mean, how would Patreon even
Speaker 1: make its own money so that it could remain in operation. Well,
Speaker 1: to answer that, we need to look at the history
Speaker 1: of Patreon and then at how the service makes money.
Speaker 1: And it all starts with a pretty successful YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: Now that channel belongs to Jack Conti and he's a
Speaker 1: filmmaker and songwriter living in California, and he's also one
Speaker 1: half of the group Pomplo Moose, which if you are
Speaker 1: not familiar with Pomplo Mouse, you should probably go and
Speaker 1: check that out. They're pretty awesome. They do fun musical
Speaker 1: mashups and really creative music videos as well some very
Speaker 1: experimental film stuff that's kind of interesting, so check that out.
Speaker 1: In two thousand thirteen, County had a YouTube channel that
Speaker 1: had more than a hundred thousand subscribers and his videos
Speaker 1: were racking up more than a hundred thousand views per video,
Speaker 1: but he was faced with a real problem. He says
Speaker 1: he was only making about fifty dollars a month off
Speaker 1: his channel from advertising, so that's a big issue he
Speaker 1: was He was doing well, he had a he had
Speaker 1: a sizeable audience, but he wasn't really realizing any true
Speaker 1: revenue from it. And there are a lot of factors
Speaker 1: that figure into this. If you allow advertising on your
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube, you only get a percentage of the
Speaker 1: money earned through ads on your channel. The rest goes
Speaker 1: to Google to YouTube itself. Now, on top of that,
Speaker 1: you have to choose whether your channel will serve up
Speaker 1: ads that people can skip after a few seconds, or
Speaker 1: ads that play all the way through and there's no
Speaker 1: skippable option, and subscribers tend to prefer skippable ads obviously
Speaker 1: they don't want to be forced to watch commercial if
Speaker 1: they don't have to. But if they get a skippable
Speaker 1: ad and they skip out too early in other words,
Speaker 1: before thirty seconds have passed, no revenue is generated from
Speaker 1: the ad impression, so that's an issue. And YouTube also
Speaker 1: has algorithms that determine how frequently ads are shown in
Speaker 1: the first place, so not every view of a monetized
Speaker 1: video may result in an ad display. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of factors here that actually limit the amount
Speaker 1: of money you're going to make. You on paper, it
Speaker 1: looks like you should be making a lot because you've
Speaker 1: got so many views of your video, but if everyone
Speaker 1: is skipping the the ads, or there are not a
Speaker 1: lot of ads being served up on that video in particular,
Speaker 1: you might be making very little in the long run. Now,
Speaker 1: the bottom line was that Conti was putting time and
Speaker 1: effort into creating videos but seeing very little return on
Speaker 1: his investments. So he began to think about way that
Speaker 1: artists could create a direct link to audiences, something that
Speaker 1: would allow audiences to support the artist rather than having
Speaker 1: to depend upon this third party advertising structure. So in
Speaker 1: May two thousand thirteen, CONTI paired with partnered with Sam
Speaker 1: Yam to create Patreon, and the idea was pretty simple.
Speaker 1: Artists would create a Patreon account. They would offer rewards
Speaker 1: to people who contribute money to their efforts. Uh So
Speaker 1: those rewards could be anything, really, but ideally they would
Speaker 1: be things that you could easily deliver reliably so that
Speaker 1: people who are supporting you actually feel like they're getting
Speaker 1: value for their contribution. So, for example, if I were
Speaker 1: doing that web video series, I might offer up an
Speaker 1: access to bonus videos or blooper reels and other content
Speaker 1: to people who contribute at a certain level, and anyone
Speaker 1: who is either not contributing or contributing at a lower level,
Speaker 1: they don't get access to that, but they can still
Speaker 1: see the regular web video series. The important thing here
Speaker 1: is I'm not forcing people to subscribe to something. I'm saying,
Speaker 1: if you want to support me, here's a way to
Speaker 1: do it, and in return, you get this bonus material.
Speaker 1: But if you don't feel like you can support me
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, maybe you don't enjoy the content that much,
Speaker 1: or maybe your money is very limited and so you
Speaker 1: can't really afford to support me. That's fine, enjoy the
Speaker 1: regular series with everybody else. You're still going to have
Speaker 1: access to it. It's only if you want to and
Speaker 1: are able to, and you want this bonus material in
Speaker 1: the first place, that you should contribute. That tends to
Speaker 1: be the general approach most creators take when they're using Patreon.
Speaker 1: It's the idea of added value and also for people
Speaker 1: to express their appreciation for the work that you do.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing because it actually seems to work. As
Speaker 1: for the rewards, there are a lot like you would
Speaker 1: see on stuff like Kickstarter or Indie Go Go, and
Speaker 1: higher levels of contribution typically correspond to more prestigious awards,
Speaker 1: such as being acknowledged as a producer, for example. And
Speaker 1: to give a specific incident, Tom Merritt and producer Jenny
Speaker 1: Josephson of Daily Tech News Show once read out the
Speaker 1: names of every contributor to the Daily Tech News Show
Speaker 1: Patreon when they hit ten thousand dollars per month. Ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of contributions per month, so it took them
Speaker 1: just under four hours to go through all the names,
Speaker 1: and they even throw in lots of puns and other
Speaker 1: silly things for almost every single name on that list.
Speaker 1: And if you want to search, the video is up
Speaker 1: on YouTube. You can find it three hours and fifty
Speaker 1: nine minutes. If you want to hear when my name
Speaker 1: comes up, because I was a patron at that time too,
Speaker 1: it's at the one hour twelve minute mark. He's actually
Speaker 1: really nice. He gave a shout out to how stuff works,
Speaker 1: which was lovely, so fun time there, it was interesting,
Speaker 1: and that was just something that he decided to do,
Speaker 1: and actually I think it was Jenny's suggestion. They decided
Speaker 1: just to do that spontaneously to thank the people who
Speaker 1: had been supporting them. It wasn't part directly part of
Speaker 1: the Patreon support. So that was really really fun and
Speaker 1: and showed a lot of dedication to sit there for
Speaker 1: four hours and thank every single person by name. Now
Speaker 1: this might sound similar to something that's been around for
Speaker 1: several years, that being the PayPal tip jar approach, so
Speaker 1: you've probably seen this around. Lots of creators have included
Speaker 1: a tip jar on sites to allow fans the chance
Speaker 1: to contribute directly to their favorite artists or writers or whatever.
Speaker 1: So this would be on various sites where you see
Speaker 1: the little PayPal button you can click and then contribute
Speaker 1: a certain amount. You can even make it a recurring
Speaker 1: contribution if you want it too. So that's very similar
Speaker 1: to what Patreon offers, and that's been around for a while.
Speaker 1: But it's one of those things that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure people have collected money from it, but not
Speaker 1: large amounts. It's not terribly visible, and so it's it's
Speaker 1: not like it's not like Patreon has replaced this button,
Speaker 1: but certainly augmented it. And Patreon also has built in
Speaker 1: tools that allow creators to communicate directly where their supporters,
Speaker 1: which was something that the PayPal button didn't supply at all.
Speaker 1: The PayPal button was really just a way for people
Speaker 1: to contribute directly to a person. Patreon is more of
Speaker 1: a community building tool because you can actually send a
Speaker 1: message out to all of your Patreon supporters and give
Speaker 1: them updates, give them links to special content, give them
Speaker 1: alerts to things that you have planned that haven't been
Speaker 1: officially announced yet. All of this kind of stuff. The
Speaker 1: idea of including people into an artistic endeavor is built
Speaker 1: into Patreon Now. Patreon charges the pledges at the end
Speaker 1: of each month, so if you end up supporting a
Speaker 1: Patreon campaign, you're not going to get charged until the
Speaker 1: end of the month, and that might mean for some
Speaker 1: Paton patrons a really long wait if you join at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of the month and pledge, because you
Speaker 1: won't be charged till the end of the month, and
Speaker 1: you might not actually have access to the patron level
Speaker 1: rewards until your money has been processed. So if I
Speaker 1: start off on on September one and I pledge at
Speaker 1: a certain level because I want to have access to
Speaker 1: this special stuff, it may not be until the following
Speaker 1: month until October when I'm able to actually access that.
Speaker 1: So that's one downside to Patreon. There are some others too. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you do not like PayPal, that's another issue, because
Speaker 1: that's the main way to contribute money through Patreon, and
Speaker 1: if you object to PayPal, then that could be a real,
Speaker 1: real problem. One thing that's nice about Patreon is that
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a means to get a project off
Speaker 1: the ground, So in other words, the work itself is
Speaker 1: probably already done. In most cases, you're you're not risking anything.
Speaker 1: You're not contributing money to a campaign that might ultimately fail,
Speaker 1: which can completely happen with Kickstarter and indiego Go. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, in Kickstarter campaigns, if the campaign doesn't fund,
Speaker 1: you aren't charged. With indiego Go, you are charged because
Speaker 1: even if a campaign doesn't mean it's campaign goal, some
Speaker 1: of that money will end up going to the creator.
Speaker 1: In both cases, if the campaign funds but nothing ever
Speaker 1: comes out of it, you are left in the lurch.
Speaker 1: And this has happened to me three times. I have
Speaker 1: supported three different campaigns through crowdfunding that never ever went anywhere.
Speaker 1: These are the infamous smart watches I have backed, and
Speaker 1: all three have length wished and never got to me.
Speaker 1: So learn from my lesson. Also, I think it's important
Speaker 1: to remember any time you see any kind of crowdfunding thing,
Speaker 1: if it's for a physical product, way that with the
Speaker 1: idea that this may never happen even if the project funds,
Speaker 1: because physical products are hard to produce, uh they can
Speaker 1: often cost more money and have more problems than someone
Speaker 1: would would have otherwise predicted. So that's always valuable to
Speaker 1: go into a crowdfunding situation knowing that ahead of time,
Speaker 1: and if you're okay with that risk and you believe
Speaker 1: in what the people are doing, that's fine. But if
Speaker 1: you're thinking of the kickstarter as a way to start
Speaker 1: a pre order on something, you could end up for
Speaker 1: with a rude awakening fur their down the line at
Speaker 1: any rate. Patreon is not like that. With Patreon, most
Speaker 1: of the time, the creators are doing something they love
Speaker 1: and they're going to be doing anyway. This is just
Speaker 1: a means for them to be compensated for some of
Speaker 1: that work. So, for example, it might be a web
Speaker 1: comics artist who is going to continue drawing web comics
Speaker 1: no matter what, but this is a way for you
Speaker 1: to express appreciation and help support the web comics artist
Speaker 1: in his or her efforts to bring that art to you.
Speaker 1: So it's it's very different in that it's not it's
Speaker 1: not like you have to wait for a certain threshold
Speaker 1: to be met and then you get whatever it is
Speaker 1: you're supporting. You're getting it already, so I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty exciting. And also, you can end your support at
Speaker 1: any time. You can go into Patreon and say I'm
Speaker 1: done supporting this particular campaign. I either you know, I'm
Speaker 1: no longer interested in it, or I can't afford it,
Speaker 1: or whatever the reason, Maybe it doesn't matter. You don't
Speaker 1: have to provide a reason. You can just stop your support.
Speaker 1: As for Patreon itself making money, well, it got started
Speaker 1: with venture capital investments. You know, this is the way
Speaker 1: we see a lot of startups start. You know, how
Speaker 1: how they're able to stay afloat early on is that
Speaker 1: they get investments from outside to get things moving. But
Speaker 1: beyond that, you have to create a different model or
Speaker 1: else your your business will ultimately fail. So what Patreon
Speaker 1: does is it takes five percent of all the pledges
Speaker 1: that are gathered for all the different Patreon campaigns, And
Speaker 1: so as more people create Patreon campaigns and more people
Speaker 1: support Patreon campaigns, more money rolls in, and eventually those
Speaker 1: different five percent uh pieces start to really add up.
Speaker 1: In October two thousand and fourteen, uh, that was the
Speaker 1: first time we started seeing creators on Patreon collectively making
Speaker 1: more than one million dollars per month. So adding up
Speaker 1: all the different Patreon accounts, they're about a million dollars
Speaker 1: a month going through Patreon. But even then, if you
Speaker 1: look at that five percent, that's just fifty tho dollars
Speaker 1: a month, which that's a lot of money, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, but fifty a month for a company is
Speaker 1: a relatively small amount. So Patreon has to stay pretty
Speaker 1: small and nimble in order to uh continue to provide
Speaker 1: this service. Oh and one other thing. That five percent
Speaker 1: is just part of what gets taken out of the
Speaker 1: final pledge total. It's not like creators are getting of
Speaker 1: the money because of PayPal. PayPal also takes a cut,
Speaker 1: so ultimately about nine to of the money that is
Speaker 1: supposed to go to a campaign gets taken out for
Speaker 1: fees of various types, So that means you're going to
Speaker 1: end up with around nine of all the money that
Speaker 1: has been contributed to your campaign if you are a
Speaker 1: creator on Patreon. But then keep in mind that if
Speaker 1: you are trying to use advertising, for example, to support
Speaker 1: your work, you get to keep way less than of
Speaker 1: that money. So if you have a YouTube video series
Speaker 1: and you're monetizing your videos on YouTube, YouTube is taking
Speaker 1: a much larger chunk than ten, you are not going
Speaker 1: to be able to keep of the money that your
Speaker 1: videos earned. So that's something to keep in mind. Although, again,
Speaker 1: if this is an opt in situation where people come
Speaker 1: and then they dedicate their money to your work. You're
Speaker 1: going to see a much smaller percentage of your overall
Speaker 1: audience willing to actually pay a monthly or or per
Speaker 1: item fee to get the stuff they could get for free. Uh,
Speaker 1: there will be some, but it will be a percentage,
Speaker 1: a small percentage of the overall audience. So if you're
Speaker 1: a creative person, all this is kind of sounding pretty attractive.
Speaker 1: You could have a platform to reach an audience. You
Speaker 1: could cultivate a following and really gain support from the
Speaker 1: people who love your work. But it's not that easy.
Speaker 1: For one thing, making people aware of the option to
Speaker 1: support is already a challenge. Discovery can be a difficult
Speaker 1: thing on Patreon. Most people don't go to Patreon to
Speaker 1: just do searches to find out what kind of stuff
Speaker 1: they love and how to support it. If they hear
Speaker 1: about it, they hear about it from the creator. So
Speaker 1: it means that you have to use lots of different
Speaker 1: channels of communication to tell followers how they can support
Speaker 1: the work they love. It might be through Twitter and
Speaker 1: Facebook and Tumbler, and it might if you have a
Speaker 1: podcast or a video series. It could involve announcing that
Speaker 1: every episode so that people are aware of it, because otherwise,
Speaker 1: if they're not aware of it, you're never going to
Speaker 1: get any support anyway. Some people, some creators make it
Speaker 1: a point to regularly thank their supporters in every episode.
Speaker 1: So instead of saying, hey, go to Patreon and put
Speaker 1: money to support my work, they might say, I want
Speaker 1: to take this time to thank all of our supporters
Speaker 1: on Patreon, without whom this show is not possible. And
Speaker 1: that's a really nice way of saying thank you. It
Speaker 1: also reminds people, hey, if you want to support this,
Speaker 1: you can go to Patreon and be part of that group.
Speaker 1: But it really, ultimately is more about being genuine with
Speaker 1: your audience and saying you, guys are awesome for loving
Speaker 1: what I do, and I will keep doing this and
Speaker 1: keep making the stuff you love for as long as
Speaker 1: you love it. And I think that that is a
Speaker 1: really powerful message, and it's actually true for most creators.
Speaker 1: I don't think most creators are out there trying to
Speaker 1: get rich quick. They're doing what they do because they
Speaker 1: love doing it, and if they're successful, that's awesome, that
Speaker 1: is that's the dream. But if they're not, they're still
Speaker 1: doing what they love. But obviously all of this works
Speaker 1: best for people who already have a large following, people
Speaker 1: who have already established themselves and have an audience and
Speaker 1: can speak to that audience and say, hey, by the way,
Speaker 1: here's this place where you can support me. So if
Speaker 1: you're not fortunate enough to be one of those people,
Speaker 1: Patreon might not bring in enough to help sustain your work.
Speaker 1: But if you're planning on doing the work anyway, whether
Speaker 1: you get that support or not, and you just want
Speaker 1: to do it for the love of the work itself,
Speaker 1: it might be worth your while to go ahead and
Speaker 1: make a Patreon page. You might not have hundreds of
Speaker 1: Patrons supporters, but if you're going to be doing the
Speaker 1: work anyway, it doesn't hurt to also have the Patreon option.
Speaker 1: So lots of Patreon creators offer up access to their
Speaker 1: work in different ways, including ways that are free, so
Speaker 1: for them, the Patreon link is about giving fans the
Speaker 1: opportunities to support the work they like. But others actually
Speaker 1: have just specific stuff that only Patreon supporters of access to,
Speaker 1: so that creates an incentive for people to join Patreon
Speaker 1: so they can get at the stuff they otherwise wouldn't see.
Speaker 1: And usually there's a balance between the two. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's not normally the case that someone says, all right,
Speaker 1: here's a special web comic, but you only get to
Speaker 1: see it if you join Patreon, otherwise you'll never see it.
Speaker 1: That's rare. It's more likely to say, oh, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you like this web comic. If you enjoy it, consider
Speaker 1: supporting me on Patreon, and then in return you will
Speaker 1: get all this bonus material. That's kind of That's that's
Speaker 1: the more common way this this rolls out, And personally
Speaker 1: it's probably clear. I love the idea of Patreon. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do support people, but I don't think I could
Speaker 1: actually use it for myself. Like I don't think I
Speaker 1: would create a Patreon campaign because I doubt I have
Speaker 1: enough of a following to bring in enough money to
Speaker 1: support the stuff I want to do outside of work.
Speaker 1: But for artists who are in a different situation, I
Speaker 1: think it's a great tool. It gives people an alternative
Speaker 1: to advertising or to trying to do direct sales, and
Speaker 1: it gives fans a chance to be part of something
Speaker 1: that they love. So I think that's a win win
Speaker 1: for everybody. And again, as long as it's opped in
Speaker 1: I'm cool with it. It's when it's when you require
Speaker 1: it that I start to say, well, that's less cool.
Speaker 1: Now it's about time for me to sign off. But
Speaker 1: I believe I made a promise, or maybe the better
Speaker 1: word is a threat to treat you, guys, to a
Speaker 1: little bit of my Renaissance festival character in honor of
Speaker 1: the theme of patronage, which in fact does have its
Speaker 1: origins in the Renaissance. So this is your opportunity to
Speaker 1: spare yourself the pain of hearing me be corny while
Speaker 1: speaking in a terribly inaccurate accent. If that's going to
Speaker 1: bother you, you might want to quit while you're ahead,
Speaker 1: because the show is essentially over at this point. But
Speaker 1: for the rest of you you have been warned. Lords
Speaker 1: and ladies, thou art most fortunate this day, for thou
Speaker 1: dost find thyself in the viable position of being within
Speaker 1: the presence of one Lord Admiral Edmund van Lory, the
Speaker 1: the Commander of His Majesty's Navy Royal and member of
Speaker 1: the Privy Council. And though it not be known by many,
Speaker 1: I be a distinguished patron of the arts, the man
Speaker 1: behind the purse, behind the theater behind the pub behind
Speaker 1: the Times, run by none other than the Lord Admiral's men.
Speaker 1: There thou mayest have had the glorious experience of seeing
Speaker 1: such unforgettable plays as Anything You Want to Love's labor
Speaker 1: One and cats. Verily, it doth please me to the
Speaker 1: ends of the earth to bring to the amusements and
Speaker 1: entertainments of such quality that audiences cannot help but to
Speaker 1: cry out in happiness when the doors be unbarred and
Speaker 1: people are allowed to go home. When next thou dost
Speaker 1: have need of a distraction from the plague, or a
Speaker 1: need a place to visit, because thy house is a fire,
Speaker 1: consider a voyage to the playhouse. I thank THEE and
Speaker 1: shall see the enough. All right, guys, If you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, let me know.
Speaker 1: Send me an email. That address is tech Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. If you have any other
Speaker 1: suggestions for people you would like to have on the show,
Speaker 1: either as a guest host or the subject of an interview,
Speaker 1: send that along too. I would love to hear your
Speaker 1: thoughts on it. And of course you can always drop
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook or Twitter or Tumbler at all
Speaker 1: three of those locations. I use the handle text stuff
Speaker 1: h s W and I'll talk to you again really
Speaker 1: soon for more on this and pathans of other topics,
Speaker 1: because it has to works. Dot com