Patreon advice · 7:22am Feb 14th, 2016
I never like asking for help with these matters...
As any readers who have read through my most recent chapters have seen, I opened a Patreon account not long ago. However, support has been sparse.
After seeing so many other Patreon accounts gaining many supporting patrons, I am left genuinely curious. Does anyone have any advice on steps I can take to increase my publicity and draw in more supporters?
All i can really tell u is just to get your really good stories out there man. I'm sure that would bring in more patreons, but that's just my opinion. I'd support u if i could but fam is scraping by.
Advertise, advertise, advertise...
There's no link on your FimFic profile... if you have Facebook, Twitter, etc make sure you link your Patreon from there too.
I couldn't tell ya. There's a few users on this site that have popularish ones, but I know o fat least one that really doesn't need or deserve any of it. I won't say who, but I'll say his stories go nowhere and have nothing but mindless fluff.
I support with what I can, though it isn't as much as I'd like.
To quote RallyFurre:
Basically, linking every kind of social media you're a member of together. Although... hmmm... have you thought about or tried to get a famous or semi-famous member of the fandom to endorse your work? Maybe one of the brony analysts, animators, or even voice actors? Just tossing out ideas here.
-Ru
Main idea is to just be happy with whatever you do get. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that if they put out content people like, they'll gain patrons and continue to do so just as a matter of course or because they need the money (and therefore believe that others will cover their needs), completely removing the human factor of the equation.
Keeping that in mind will help prevent over-saturation. Nothing kills any idea of charitable intent like an overabundance of pushing it too much. Provide the links in your profile, make a stark little note at the end of each chapter or something, but leave it at that. That's probably the most important advice - don't push it too hard, it'll just drive everyone away.
Another important thing to remember is that everyone and their mother has a patreon these days, and any one of your readership reads hundreds of other stories, many of which will have patreons, and they'll follow artists with patreons, streamers with patreons, etc. Most folk are straight up dirt poor, so even the ones who have enough money to just throw around generally will only do so so many times a month.
As for the really successful patreons... many of those are sellouts, or the author's (warranted/unwarranted) community-based popularity brings so many people to them that they also happen to catch some spenders in their net as well. Others are just putting out what more people want to see - either because they're lucky to match up with what people want at the moment, or because they're the aforementioned sellouts who do it on purpose for the potential patrons.
Another bit of advice is not to rely on the patreon. A lot, and I mean A LOT of people make this mistake. I see it from so many artists and writers it's not even funny. "I'm not going to seek gainful employment, I'm going to draw/write for a living and somehow I expect a handful of poor people to not only support my lifestyle but make me decently wealthy." For some it's the only hope they have, but there are people who have other means, who have actual options and opportunities that they just pass up on because they think "Make something someone likes = paid for life." and don't realize how incredibly boneheaded that expectation is. Don't do this! Always be mindful of your other potential opportunities. If you have the chance, only look at patreon as a way of supplementing your lifestyle, try not to base your lifestyle on it.
I can only give advice based on how I've watched others fail and just tell you not to do what they did. As for success all I can say is that it's kind of a competition and luck is a big factor.