All that makes sense. What about viewing Patreon not as a store but as a subscription? Or at least presenting it that way? I’m trying to think of the best way to convey what Patreon is to my audience and it seems like talking in terms of subscription makes most sense…
Mostly, I think it’s important to note that offering education about financial stuff is an easier “sell” than art.
People view art as a luxury. They believe art is not a necessity like food, water, shelter, healthcare, or even financial security.
I have to say, even after years of being an artist, that most of my income doesn’t come from selling my original artwork. It comes from ads on the pages where I show how I created it, class fees from people who pay me to teach them in depth how to create similar work, shops where I sell prints and t-shirts with my work on them, jewelry made with tiny prints of my work, and wherever else I can leverage my creative output into actual dollars. People only have so many walls on which to hang art, so I’m always on the lookout to find other ways to present my work to them. Can they wear it? Make it themselves? Read about it? Watch videos? I sort of use Patreon as the clearinghouse for all that information, about all the various ways people can access my art, some paid, and some not. I guess that’s my reason for making everything public—because I’m sometimes guiding people to other places, where they can give me more dollars.
Subscriptions not too bad, except it implies an exchange of goods. The metaphor doesn’t map 100% to, say, a magazine subscription, because when you sign up in January you don’t normally get a carton of all previous issues. You do with Patreon.
The metaphor I use is ‘recurring tip jar’.
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yes. i have had people just pay me once and get exactly that. ie. they get all the back magazine issues as in access to all posts and 100’s of videos.
Most seem to stay though, as they want to get updates and remain in touch with me - the $ amount is so low its likely not an issue to them, and hopefully will serve as a reminder to keep them focused on their progress.
I don’t know, nowadays when you subscribe to a digital publication, you do have access to all the archives. That’s going to make intuitive sense to a lot of folks.
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