Why Patreon, Why Now?

If you’re a Facebook or a Twitter friend, you know that I launched a Patreon campaign yesterday. So here’s why I did it, and what that means for you guys.

First thing’s first: nothing changes on the blog, except that I will be talking about the campaign from time to time, and you’ll see links to Patreon in my posts, and in the sidebar. You’re also going to see the Brought to You By section in the footer once we start getting $15 patrons.

I’m just happy you guys read my posts. That you decide to spend a portion of your day with me is humbling, and it makes me so happy that I can do shit like write a blog five days a week. When I say in the video that I want to use Patreon to increase community buy-in, I don’t mean money. You can give me money through Patreon, and I will be happy if you do, but what I really want is more reader participation.

In the beginning, this was just a place for me to process my thoughts, and it was great at that. Now I’m writing content with you guys and for you guys more and more, which is awesome. I get blog suggestions, I get feedback and comments on Facebook, and twitter, and in the comments section and I love it. I’ve had more participation lately, but I’ve noticed that a lot of my social media friends, on Twitter especially, aren’t regular readers. So when I want to talk shop on there, the majority of my followers aren’t about it. And that’s cool, but Patreon seems like it will be a good place for us to hang out and talk about the blog with each other, which is what I’ve been missing lately.

Another reason I want more community buy-in is because I tend to expend every drop of my energy and creativity on the business, and then there’s nothing left for the blog. I hate that. I want to make things with my name on it, and I want to make things for you guys, but it can be hard to say yes to blogging when that means saying no to potential income for the consultancy. Even when I know that, in the long run blogging is good for my mental health, and actually keeps the creative juices flowing in order to do even better work during the day. Which, again, is where Patreon comes in. I want a closer relationship with the readership. Knowing you guys are on the other end of this keyboard means more than numbers on an analytics report.

I’m alone most of the time. I work alone, and I blog alone. I like knowing you guys are out there. So, please follow me on Patreon. Following is completely free, and I will be making posts that followers can read and participate in. Mostly about meta stuff like numbers, and blogging in general. If you become a $1 a month patron, you have complete access to all my Patreon posts, which will be about this blog specifically, as well as story ideas, topic suggestions, and all that stuff. $5 a month patrons get access as well as a “Thank You” sketch. $15 a month Patrons get access, a “Thank You” sketch, and they get listed in the Brought to You By section. There are only 25 slots, and patrons will only be listed in the section for as long as they’re patrons, so when they unsubscribe, they’ll get taken out.

As you can see, I don’t intend for this to support me, or anything like that. I just want a place for those of us who want to be more involved to be able to do so.

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As a promotion for the launch, I’ll be posting every 3 hours starting at 8am today, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 on here, on Facebook, and on Twitter. The posts may not have anything to do with Patreon, or they might, you’ll have to wait and see!