And I got a little love for the offering

[sovay]

I am seriously considering setting up a Patreon, mostly to see if people will give me money to write about film with the same frequency I have been doing for the last several years, i.e., at least twice a month I talk about something that really interests me (and more often if I have regular access to TCM and/or arthouse theaters). Advice from people with Patreons of their own would be greatly appreciated. I have never run anything of this nature before. I don't even have a PayPal account.

In other news—

For the third year in a row, Strange Horizons has been nominated for a Hugo Award. Editor-in-Chief Niall Harrison talks about the ways in which the honor is complicated this year.

I did not know that anyone had, in poetry, called T.S. Eliot on his anti-Semitism while he was alive, much less to his face at a conference in 1951. That's where Emanuel Litvinoff comes in: "To T. S. Eliot."

I have just discovered there is a Takarazuka musical about the Mayerling affair. Given that a very distant relative of mine figures as the antagonist in at least five retellings of the story I've been able to verify, I'd love to know if anyone has information about this one. The whole phenomenon really entertains me. (Especially the Frank Wildhorn musical.) I am very invested in someday tracking down the TV film where Eduard Graf von Taaffe is played by Raymond Massey.

I have three books and an actor I really want to talk about. It's one of the reasons I need time.

Comments

[yhlee]

The practical advice I received was to be sure to include perks at the lower tiers, say $5 and $10, to induce people to bump up from minimum $1 monthly donations. I don't know what this would look like for you--maybe posting snippets from poetry-in-progress for those reward tiers. (You can post locked updates to Patreon, including locking entries to X tiers and above.) In my case, I am lazy and only have a $10 low tier where every month I send a postcard with a doodle and a trinket to the backer, but I am abusing Joe's willingness to snail things for me plus the fact that I have an insane supply of beautiful Korean stamps/bookmarks/etc. from decluttering that I want to get rid of anyway.

Also, have someone design you a really pretty banner! I have a ridiculous kludge of a banner. I bet you could nab beautiful and appropriate art out of public domain or screencaps from movies, though; I couldn't think of any options I was going to have for space opera from public domain. *wry g*

[sovay]

The practical advice I received was to be sure to include perks at the lower tiers, say $5 and $10, to induce people to bump up from minimum $1 monthly donations.

Hm. I don't tend to share works in progress, because the act of sharing tends to kill them stone dead, but maybe I could agree to write small extra things for people in exchange for the raise in price. Assuming it wouldn't cost extra to find them, I would be willing to take requests, although in an ideal situation I continue to watch the weird stuff off TCM and film festivals that I didn't know existed and need to tell the rest of the world about, because that's what really interests me.

Also, have someone design you a really pretty banner!

I bet I could use some of Rob's photographs that did not make the cut as the cover of Ghost Signs. They're very atmospheric. Otherwise, yeah, it should be film-related and easily accessible.

Thank you!

[yhlee]

You know your brain best...my strategy was to look for something low-effort (or stuff I had lying around already) that people might be willing to jump a hoop for. Are you any good at things like limericks? I'm throwing out random suggestions, which you are of course free to ignore, but you know. If not limericks, posts of interesting family recipes? Anecdotes? Rough drafts of old poems that might be interesting to fans of your work? Anyway, best wishes.

[sovay]

my strategy was to look for something low-effort (or stuff I had lying around already) that people might be willing to jump a hoop for.

Low-effort is good! I am not up for extended interaction with patrons. It will burn me out very quickly and it runs heavily against my degree of comfort as an introvert who doesn't let that many people that deeply into their life anyway.

Anyway, best wishes.

Thank you. I really appreciate all of the suggestions. If the rewards don't need to be thematically related to the main output of the Patreon, I'm sure I can find something.

[yhlee]

I'm pretty sure they don't need to be related. Remember, this isn't Kickstarter, where you're packaging a fixed project. You're asking for backing of whatever-it-is-that-you-do. Think of it as "what is easy for me to provide that will entice people into giving me extra money?" I hope someone with more marketing-esque experience can give you better advice. :]