I’ve been teaching French online for nearly 20 years, and until Patreon came along my only income was through advertising and affiliate programs. At first I just promoted Patreon to my readers as a way to support the work I was already doing - sort of a “thank you for all the free content.” But then about a year ago I decided to do a word of the day available only to Patrons.
In the beginning, I published the words on Patreon and had limited success. I made the first word of each month free in order to let potential supporters see what I was offering, and picked up maybe 20 Patrons over 6 months.
When the WP plugin came along, I switched to publishing directly on my site and this has made all the difference. Now each word is its own little ad and I get 2-3 new Patrons a week.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing as there were some issues with the plugin which led to me losing a few Patrons who simply could not log in, but overall it’s been great and I’m thrilled with my Patron growth.
Just putting that out there in the hopes others might find inspiration from it. 