Jan
29th
2020
Improving my Patreon · 3:54am Jan 29th, 2020
I’d like to start this year off with a request. While I have had a Patreon account for a while, I know that the tier list has been a bit bare bones. And with so few patrons pledging to me at any one time, I do not have much incentive to check on it more often.
My request is this. For anyone with more experience with the platform than myself, what can I do to improve my tier list and make my Patreon more enticing? Any recommendations?
The best incentives I've seen are Patron-exclusives like sidestories or art. Maybe offer your supporters some of the former, perhaps as a list of choices, and the top choice (or author's choice if there's a tie) gets a modest amount of words thrown into a one-shot?
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I’m afraid that just won’t suffice. Writing my main works takes up enough time as is.
For authors there isn't much extra you can provide, however there are a few things you can offer.
Early Access: Give Patrons access to chapters days or more earlier than when you post them to FiMFiction.
In-Progress: Use Google Docs and link the script in progress so folks can watch you write. Also makes editing a lot easier as folks can pick up errors and stuff and post relevant notes as you go. Your official editors will also thank you. :)
Give Patrons the opportunity to suggest potential story ideas to write. This obviously for a very high tier level so you don't get spammed with dozens of 'em. Also in a similar vein, use tiers to offer patrons the chance to have their OC appear as a background character or possibly a chance to name various characters in a story? I've seen both ideas work in the past. Just use them sparingly or they won't be such a special reward.
Link Patreon to Discord and run a Discord Server, creating roles for each of your Patreon Tiers giving users different levels of access to different content on the server. Brings readers together and gets them talking about the stories (among other things) and being able to talk to you when you're around.
There's probably a lot more but that's just the basics of what I've seen or read that others do.