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Things to know before starting a Patreon page

pencerw.com

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Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#31

Post by redis_mlc »

fxtentacle wrote: post #11
redis_mlc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any artists who use QuickBooks, so I'm not sure where you're coming from. You're in some kind of parallel universe to the people happily using Patreon to collect from their followers. And they don't care about "revenue" vs "earnings" since they went to Berklee College of Music, and just want to pay their rent this month. To be constructive: - explain your use case in your blog. Perhaps you have an advanc…

I work with many freelance photographers who use QBO, so it is common in some industries. BTW, your example sounds a bit like those people have a complete disregard for tax law. That sounds like the end of the year is going to be very shocking when they figure out that the patreon money which they used for rent wasn't actually theirs to use.

> have a complete disregard for tax law.

BTW, you have no idea what you're talking about. I mean, none:

- foreign creators don't owe tax in the US

- tax is on goods, not services. No good, no tax.

- most artists don't pay personal tax because they're below the minimum

But Patreon is collecting, and keeping, the tax that leaks, just like ebay does now.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#33

Post by 936936 »

stickfigure wrote: post #13

I would add - as a patron, the UI is horrible. The one thing I'd like, when I subscribe to someone, is a list of patron-only content so that I can slowly go back and watch/listen to/read past material. Instead the only option is an infinite-scroll style blog roll, which makes it extremely hard to go back and pick up where you left off. It's also impossible to navigate in anything other than inverse chronological orde…

There is an option for normal chronological ordering on the posts page though I can't comment on the mobile version. A curious thing I noticed was every time I loaded more posts it would take longer than previously. Going through hundreds of posts like this would result in waiting for minutes for the next set of posts to load in.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#34

Post by zelphirkalt »

stickfigure wrote: post #13

I would add - as a patron, the UI is horrible. The one thing I'd like, when I subscribe to someone, is a list of patron-only content so that I can slowly go back and watch/listen to/read past material. Instead the only option is an infinite-scroll style blog roll, which makes it extremely hard to go back and pick up where you left off. It's also impossible to navigate in anything other than inverse chronological orde…

You could keep the e-mail in a "to do" or "to read" state and get to it this way later.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#35

Post by tellarin »

sebazzz wrote: post #32
sitkack wrote: post #20

PSA: If you are in the USA (and 32 other locales), setup a github page and use github's sponsor functionality. They take no cut. https://github.com/sponsors

Patreon is recurring so you can get income from sleeper subscriptions.

GitHub sponsorship can also do that.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#36

Post by SomewhatLikely »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #34
stickfigure wrote: post #13

I would add - as a patron, the UI is horrible. The one thing I'd like, when I subscribe to someone, is a list of patron-only content so that I can slowly go back and watch/listen to/read past material. Instead the only option is an infinite-scroll style blog roll, which makes it extremely hard to go back and pick up where you left off. It's also impossible to navigate in anything other than inverse chronological orde…

You could keep the e-mail in a "to do" or "to read" state and get to it this way later.

I interpreted their comment to be about content created before they became a patron, so there would not be an email.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#37

Post by serial_dev »

ehutch79 wrote: post #3

I'd love to know what the other options are out there, as mentioned in the article. Right now, patreon is well known, and I'd be concerned with an unknown site turning supporters off.

I know locals.com. I like their UI and they have a couple of bigger names on their platform. My impression is that most of the creators lean right.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#38

Post by buzzkillington »

pencerw wrote: post #23
zzzeek wrote: post #14

Patreon does not seem very spectacular but I don't exactly see what the reason not to have a patreon page is. I have one and it is one of several different income sources for my open source work. it's 100 bucks a month I wouldn't have otherwise.

(Author of the post here) I actually kind of agree with this: Patreon is indeed a good way to earn enough money to buy dinner once a week or whatever. I guess it's also good for big time influencer types who are in growth mode and not worrying about their overhead. I just think it's a mediocre solution if what you want is to create a stable, predictable, and mature small business out of your work. I totally appreciat…

>I actually kind of agree with this: Patreon is indeed a good way to earn enough money to buy dinner once a week or whatever. I guess it's also good for big time influencer types who are in growth mode and not worrying about their overhead. I just think it's a mediocre solution if what you want is to create a stable, predictable, and mature small business out of your work.

Pretty much, I was planning a system for bug bounties in 2011, after doing some back of the envelope calculations it turned out you would need 150% overhead for a $10 bounty with human due diligence and using master card/visa/pay pal. Oh and you could never support any project that has anything that the banks don't like, which then included porn, lgbt rights, fair use drm exemptions and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember any more.

So you either had to convince people to use some alt-coin that wasn't a pyramid scheme, then build an escrow service on top of it, then use that service to fund the bug bounty program. Or you could just do everything terribly and end up with Patreon (which for the above reasons will get even more creator hostile in the coming years).

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#39

Post by executesorder66 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #29
pencerw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Author of the post here) I actually kind of agree with this: Patreon is indeed a good way to earn enough money to buy dinner once a week or whatever. I guess it's also good for big time influencer types who are in growth mode and not worrying about their overhead. I just think it's a mediocre solution if what you want is to create a stable, predictable, and mature small business out of your work. I totally appreciat…

Which system did you switch to?

It's mentioned in the middle of the post:

> I moved to a combination of Quickbooks Online ($645/year; note that Intuit is a terrible company) and Squarespace’s ($480/year) recurring products feature.

But the squarespace's recurring products feature seems focused more toward physical products than digital creative artifacts which I mainly associate Patreon with.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#40

Post by zelphirkalt »

SomewhatLikely wrote: post #36
zelphirkalt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could keep the e-mail in a "to do" or "to read" state and get to it this way later.

I interpreted their comment to be about content created before they became a patron, so there would not be an email.

Ah, right, of course. Had a brain fart there.
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