Hej there,
I don’t know if what I do is a bit uncanny or commonplace, but I thought I’d share because I think it’s interesting.
When I started my patreon, I decided to offer early bird spots that would get access to higher pledge tiers even by pledging $1 only. Little did I know before getting my hands on it that it actually isn’t possible to do this. So yolo, I decided to do it anyway.
In practice, I don’t post anything directly on Patreon but previews like:
Instead I host everything on Google Drive, in a set of folders and subfolders to both help me give my patrons the right permission access depending on what they pledge for, and so they can navigate and find what they want to see easily (comic pages, concept art, wallpapers, etc).
It’s also practical if you have NSFW rewards: if you post them on Patreon, you can’t enable Paypal, but if you you post them somewhere else that your patrons can access as a reward, but not through Patreon directly, then it’s fine (I asked). Google Drive is also good for that.
Recently, Patreon implemented an option to give patrons roles on Discord servers. I plan on using this to give sneak peeks of what I’m working on, share some rewards, and hopefully in the future, stream art when the screenshare feature will be implemented if it works well (which I quite expect will be the case, as Discord has been outstanding about everything so far). I have channels for each tier, and only patrons with the associated role can access them, so I can be sure they don’t get to see what they shouldn’t. I keep the main channels accessible to non-patrons as well in hope to build more of a community, and also stir interest in supporting me.
I’m curious to know if any of you has some special use of Discord?
Or are there other services and apps you use to help yourself manage your Patreon?