Variety May Be The Spice of Life, But It Is Often Too Risky (As a Creator)

There is a cycle I've gone through several times as an author, and it sneaks up on me every time. In short, when I first get a new job, or enter a new niche, it's thrilling, exciting, and I have fun with it. Whether it's writing short stories, putting together newspaper articles, or working on TTRPG supplements, there's always a period in the beginning where it feels good to flex the creative muscles to accomplish a new task. Then the check comes, and it validates all of the effort I put in, giving me the fuel to get up and do it all over again.

With that said, though, it's really hard to keep doing the same thing day in, day out, with no changes in sight. And while it's an uncomfortable topic, I wanted to broach it today, because it's something that affects all of us who create professionally, and we're often not allowed to talk about it without sounding like we're ungrateful. However, I want to remind everyone that if you're doing the work, you have the right to complain. Period.

And this is something we ALL have to grapple with.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

The Grind, and "The Muse"

Have you seen the ARG from Happy Meat Farm? Well, in stage two this mysterious company that's conducting bizarre experiments started reaching out to various YouTubers with "sponsorship" opportunities. Those who accepted at first seemed to be doing great thanks to a strange "muse" who started dictating their content to them. While these creators were making money and getting the numbers they needed, most of them felt this was not the direction they wanted to go with their channels. The content was too socially engineered, too filled with clickbait, and too creatively hollow, even if it was paying the bills. In time these mysterious muses seemed to murder the creators, leaving clones of them behind who happily toed the line, delivered the content they were told to, and had no ambitions to do something other than what their corporate masters told them to.

Game Theory had a great video on it, in case you didn't see it.

What does this have to do with this week's topic? Well, everything, since you ask.

Because artists of all kinds (writers, YouTubers, audio dramatists, animators, etc.) are stuck living under capitalism the same as everyone else, that means we have to find ways to monetize our skills and abilities to make art that people want to consume. And when we're faced with the option between a project that we think would be exciting and fulfilling, and one that is likely to pay the bills, we often have to go with the latter simply because we cannot afford the former if it turns out the thing we want to make has low prospects for actually keeping the lights on.

And because I can hear throats clearing in the comments, and the future echo of people saying, "Just work on those passion projects in your free time..." you're grossly overestimating the amount of freedom and juice most of us have. Because if an artist has the energy, time, and ability to handle the "pay the bills" projects on one hand, and to work on longer-shot projects that are more fulfilling on the other hand, they do not have a problem.

Most of us, though, have both hands full with pay-the-bills work. We spend all day, every day working on it, and when the day is done we have nothing left except for a couple of fumes in the tank to maybe jot a couple of ideas into a notebook, or maybe sketch a concept or two. We simply cannot do more than that because there are only so many hours in the day, and only so many actions your brain can take before the quality of your output degrades, or your brain simply refuses to do more.

What Can Help Avoid This Problem?

The best solution would be the fall of capitalism so that artists could just make art without having to worry about the twin threats of starvation and homelessness if they don't make a certain amount of sales/reads/views every month. Failing that, though, the best practical solution would be if folks listened to the advice that Mat Pat gives at the end of that video about the muses and the Happy Meat Farms ARG.

In short, when a creator you like tries something new, or does something different, audiences should support them if they want to encourage them to keep making things. You aren't obligated to automatically love everything a creator makes, but if their new book, new podcast, new show, etc., seems like something you wouldn't normally go for, give it a try. See if you like it, and do all the things a creator needs from their audience to keep them moving forward (buy copies, make donations, share stuff on social media, read articles, watch videos, and so on).

Numbers matter, and the easiest way for you to help the creators you love avoid burnout is to make sure they have enough money on-hand that they can try new things, or that experimenting with a new format, new genre, etc., isn't going to land them on the street because they didn't pull in a certain amount of sales, views, etc. Because if the only thing that ever gets support is one type of content, then that's all a creator can afford to make if they don't want to come up short at the end of the month.

Getting Personal About This Problem

The reason I wanted to talk about this topic is that it's been creeping up on me for a while now, and a lot of the time I want to use this platform (small as it is) to talk about issues I'm facing as a professional. Especially if they're issues that other writers might consider personal failings, or just try to endure because they don't want to be seen as complaining too much.

A soldier's privilege is to grumble, though, and we're all mercenaries here.

Folks who are familiar with my work know that the bulk of my output these days is tabletop RPG supplements, which typically take the form of some kind of numbered list. Whether it's more general supplements like 100 Fantasy Professions (That Aren't "Adventurer") and 100 Knightly Orders For a Sci Fi Setting, or more specific ones like 100 Shadow Names (And Their Meanings) for Mage The Awakening, that format is the dominant one.

And the reason is because that's the product that sells. Full stop.

I would love to write more short fiction, like what I did for the Werewolf: The Apocalypse collection Tales From The Moot, or even more free stories like 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, Cthulhu Mythos Edition. I'd love to write more novels like my sword and sorcery book Crier's Knife, and I wouldn't even mind putting together additional gaming modules like my recent piece The Price of Iron where players take on a dark fey threat in the middle of a major city. I've also been steadily releasing content for an entire fantasy setting titled "Sundara: Dawn of a New Age," and I've been putting out audio dramas for over a year now.

At the end of the day, though, what moves copies is numbered lists of random stuff. So that is what always takes priority.

What brought all of this to something of a head for me is "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic". This RPG is on Kickstarter for one more week, and though we've met our minimum funding goal, I was really hoping to at least make it to the first stretch goal. This game has been several years in the making, and it's nearly been killed twice in pre-production. I have all kinds of plans for expansions, additional rules, new enemies, and all manner of ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek nonsense for it... but I need folks' help to make that a reality.

Because I think this game has a lot of potential... but it's going to be really hard for me to actually explore that potential (and create more content for it) if I have to devote a majority of my time and energy to writing even more supplements for other genres, other game lines, etc. because those are what pay my bills.

If you could back this KS, I would really appreciate it. If you can't, or if you already have, please help me spread the word about it so we can reach more fresh sets of eyeballs. And if you're reading this article in the future after the campaign is over, consider searching for Army Men on Drive Thru RPG, and getting yourself a copy... hopefully future me got the support he needed to write some of those extra expansions I've got in my notes!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Marketing Misconceptions: Let's Talk About Affiliates, and Audience Reaction

Regular readers know that among the various hats I wear I'm an author, RPG designer, and occasional audio drama creator. However, what I feel like a lot of folks either don't know (or forget) is that probably a third of my income every month comes from affiliate marketing. I've talked about what that is and how it works on this blog before in posts like If You're An Author, You Really Need An Affiliate Marketing Account, but the short version is that when you're an affiliate marketer you make special links to products that you then share on your social media, in your content, and so on. Whenever someone clicks your link and buys a product, the company gives you a cut of their proceeds as a commission for being instrumental in making that sale.

And there seems to be a lot of misconceptions about this process, who it does and doesn't hurt, and how it actually works. So I wanted to take a moment to talk about a recent experience I had, because it illustrates a lot of things folks out there might now know.

Landlords don't take wooden nickels, friends. We do what we have to do.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Mercenary Work For A Good Cause

For folks who don't know, Owen K.C. Stephens has had a recent run of really bad medical stuff come his way. An RPG designer and big name in the community, he put together two really big bundles of gaming content to try to help him pay his bills. Owen's Medical Bills Bundle #1 and Owen's Medical Bills #2, in case you haven't checked them out yet, and you're a fan of TTRPGs.

When I saw the news about what was happening, and I saw the bundles go live, I wanted to help. After all, if I were in his position, I'd want people to do the same for me. However, before I made a single post, I reached out to Owen and asked him if he was cool with me attaching my affiliate ID to the links I shared. He knows the struggle of being a game designer as well, and he enthusiastically supported my doing that. Because both of us knew that the 5% commission I would receive for the sales I helped make wouldn't come out of his earnings... they would come out of what Drive Thru RPG, and its parent company One Bookshelf, would have made.

So with the blessing of the person I was trying to help, I set about sharing the link and boosting the signal. By the end of the day I'd been permanently banned from two forums, temporarily banned from one more, and had at least two more posts removed. In every, single case the reason was because I had used an affiliate link instead of a "clean" link. Several individuals left comments claiming I was "just trying to make money" off of someone who'd received a cancer diagnosis, and others argued that since I didn't have any products in the bundle then I had no right to make this kind of link. Other colorful things were also said, but those were the two most common accusations.

Most important to note here, though, was that no one said these bundles didn't belong in the groups I was sharing them in. No one argued that they were not a good deal, or that they shouldn't be present. Only that the way I'd chosen to boost the signal (namely taking my commission from DTRPG) was somehow so bad that it tainted the entire process. Fruit from the poisoned tree, and the like.

There were some very strange flexes, is what I'm saying.

First things first, I want to make something clear. The commission you receive as your affiliate payment is your motivation for helping do the marketing for someone else's products. Even if I like someone, even if I enjoy their work, or even if I want to help, I do not have an hour or more a day where I can just share a link around on social media. Especially when you consider a lot of groups limit how often you can post things, meaning that I would have to choose between paying my own bills by sharing something I made, or helping someone else by sharing something they made. Being able to still get paid for helping boost other creators' signals is the reason I can actually afford to help get eyes on other peoples' work.

Secondly, let's say that sharing these bundles was a purely numbers-driven decision on my part. Let's say I didn't know Owen, and I didn't care about his condition, but I felt that these bundles would make sales, so I decided to do my part to share them around. What does that change? I am still boosting the signal on his bundles, I'm still getting more eyes on his product, and I'm still helping make sales through those efforts. Not only that, none of the money going into my pockets is coming from him as the creator, or from any other creators I've helped over the years.

Again, One Bookshelf is giving me a cut of their profits. The company's profits. The same way that if I use an Amazon affiliate link, I'm getting a part of what Amazon would make, not part of what the seller is getting paid. End of the day, whether it was an affiliate link or not, the person who made the thing is making the same amount of earnings.

Don't Defend Corporate Earnings

I get it, none of us like advertising. None of us want to be exposed to constant posts about buying stuff. However, I feel that it's important that we understand the mechanism for how these aspects of our online experience work, and about how they affect the creators we see in our spaces.

Because if the argument had been that someone didn't want to see advertising, that's a fair enough statement. If the objection had been that nothing for sale should be posted in these groups, then that would make sense. But the argument was that I was trying to take advantage of someone who I was specifically trying to help earn more money, and that I should have just shared the link to the bundle without attaching any of my affiliate information to it.

And I genuinely believe that people making this argument have no idea how the process works. Because that statement basically boils down to two things:

- You shouldn't be paid for any of the work you're doing on behalf of another person.

- The corporation shouldn't have to share their earnings with you, despite you being responsible for helping them make money with your labor.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be mad about the constant monetization of everything in our world, or that there shouldn't be limits on where people can promote their work, and how often they can do that. However, if you are specifically mad about affiliate marketers getting paid for doing a job on behalf of themselves and fellow creators, take a moment and ask yourself why. Why are you siding with corporate profits over people doing a job getting a small piece of the pie for their efforts?

Because if someone out there wanted to do essentially free marketing to try to help me move copies of my books, I sure as hell would want them to get a commission from the corporation who owns the platform my work is on so that both of us can pay our bills at the end of the day.

Speaking of Good Causes...

If you got to the end of all of that, and you're wondering how you can help Owen out, give my blog entry Help Owen K.C. Stephens Roll His Save Against Cancer (And The Healthcare System) a read.

And if you'd like to help yours truly, my first Kickstarter just went live yesterday, at time of writing. So if you're in the market for an unusual TTRPG experience, check out Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic, and help me reach my goals on it today!

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Authors, You Can't Bootstrap Yourself to Success

We've all heard the phrase, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps." More importantly, a lot of us are realizing how patently, utterly ridiculous it is. After all, it was intended to showcase how absurd it was that any one individual, merely by the dint of their own efforts, could lift themselves into the air just by tugging on their feet and wishing as hard as they could.

This is for all the authors out there who are trying to hoist themselves into success all by their lonesome, and for all the readers and potential readers who keep urging us on in these fruitless pursuits. Because, as I've said time and time again, authors are actually a relatively small part of this equation; to make the thing actually work, we need help.

Tug all you want, those ain't getting you off the ground.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

You Can Only Do So Much

Though it's become a phrase referring to hard work and independent effort, Useless Etymology points out that the idea of lifting yourself by your own bootstraps was first used as a textbook case of something physically impossible. As in you found it in a physics textbook asking why it simply could not be done. And when the term was first applied to one's socio-economic status, it was often a term used sarcastically. After all, if one person could just work harder and make themselves wealthy, then surely that's what everyone would do, isn't it?

The phrase became common around the time labor fought literal wars with capital. Just saying.

"But isn't that what authors do?" you might be asking. "You write stories, books, blogs, articles, etc., and the more of them you have out on the market the more money you make over time? So if you're not making enough money, all you need to do is sit down and write more stories?"

I thought that when I first started out, too. Unfortunately if that's what you're thinking then I'm going to have to disabuse you of the notion that the main factor in your success is your talent... because it usually isn't.

Because at the end of the day, you can pour blood, sweat, and tears into your keyboard and not earn a single red cent. It's also entirely possible for you to just fart out your random thoughts, and to be showered in money. It isn't fair, but you can't do anything about it until you understand why it happens.

The Process

Regular readers probably know this already, but for those who don't I'm going to go step by step through what it means to be an author. And I'm going to cover different kinds of projects so that I have as wide a focus as I can. All right? All right.

First and foremost, you start with an idea. Maybe it's a novel, a short story, or an article. You write it up, put it through editorial, and then when it's ready you find it a home. If you're going a traditional route then you might submit your book to a publishing house, or your short story to a magazine. If you're going non-traditional you might publish the book yourself, going through Amazon or a site like Vocal (incidentally, check out my full Vocal archive to see examples of this).

And then money?

Rarely, yes. Generally, no.

In the old days when publishing was much smaller, larger companies regularly gave authors advances on their work. You'd get a check that was basically to keep your bills paid until you started earning royalties, but if your book didn't sell that was likely the only money you were going to see from it... worse, if that book didn't sell, you were unlikely to get a second shot at the market because you didn't have a good history as a publishing risk. This practice still happens at bigger houses, but it's nowhere near as common as it once was.

If you're going with a smaller publisher, or you're self-publishing, you don't get an advance. If your book doesn't sell, you don't get paid. The same is true if you're writing an article, posting on a blog, etc. You might put in hours and hours of work, but you don't get paid when it goes up... and if the public doesn't come along, then you may not get paid at all. While there are still a few publishers out there that will pay you up-front for your work, typically to put it in a magazine or on their website, those are quite few and far between these days. Worse, the rates they offer haven't gone up much from what H.P. Lovecraft and his ilk earned back in the days of the pulps, so the sheer amount of work you'd need to get accepted just to maintain a poverty wage is absurd.

So How The Hell Do You Make a Living?

This is where we come back to the bootstrapping.

Because as an author, you could write a brilliant book, or tell a phenomenal story. You could repeat this process day-in and day-out, hammering your keyboard to bits and working your fingers till they bleed. You aren't going to be able to stay ahead of your bill collectors just doing that, though, because most publishers out there either want the content you're creating for nothing up-front (promising a share of the earnings as a royalty payment), or for a pittance to keep you going (half a cent per-word was great in 1910, but not so much in 2022).

You need the readers, because without them you're just screaming into the void.

They are the ones that ride and die for you.

Every time a reader buys a book, you earn a royalty. Every time they read an article it boosts your numbers, and gets you traffic on an article archive or blog. It is the readers who follow you on social media to help you overcome the inertia of the algorithm, and it is the readers who fund your Kickstarter, back your Patreon, and who help provide the cash so you can keep your bills paid to keep making the things they like.

In order for you to succeed as a creator, you should create the best product you can. You should share it as widely as you can, and try to help it get seen by the people who are going to love it. But you can't just publish another article, or write another book because you need more money as an author. There is just as much a chance that's going to be a massive waste of time, energy, and effort as it is another pay day.

What determines that is whether your audience is eager to pick up more of what you're laying down.

So if you're an author, understand that you need a coalition of folks who are ready, willing, and able to boost your signal when you drop fresh work. And if you're a reader who's wondering why that creator you like is slowing down, or isn't making as much as they used to, remember, we need literally thousands of you all working in concert to share our messages, leave reviews, buy our stuff, and contribute to our projects in order for us to just keep the lights on and the wolf at bay.

We need you... otherwise we're just standing there in the dark jerking on our bootstraps and wondering why we haven't become bestsellers yet.

For all the folks who want to help me (and other creators like me who are having just as tough a time), drop by my Amazon author page to buy a book, leave a review, and tell your friends about it when you're done. Or become a Patreon patron, leave a tip on my Linktree, or kick me a Ko-fi. Every little bit helps, and we really do need every penny if we want to keep the lights on at the end of the day.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing!

If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Patreon Creators, Keep Your Patrons Happy (Without Busting Your Budget)

For folks who don't keep up on my offline doings, I spent the past weekend at Windy Con in Chicago. I saw a bunch of friends I've made over the years, and met a few new folks while I was at it. I sold a few books, and as usual sat on a couple of panels. Perhaps the best-attended panel I was on, though, dealt with crowdfunding, and how you can get your project off the ground. Some folks were experts on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, but some of us were more used to platforms like Patreon. Something I sort of rely on most months, and if you haven't read my previous post Why Patreon is a Lifesaver For Authors (Like Me), I highly recommend checking it out.

Anyway, it was while we were answering questions that an important point came up that I wanted to talk about this week. That point, in short, was that little extras and bonus gifts are what get people to pledge more... but you need to carefully consider what you're offering, and what these bonuses are going to do to your bottom line. Because the more it takes you to produce and send off those presents, the smaller your profits are going to get when all is said and done.

Don't promise, if you can't deliver.

Gifting Your Patrons (Without Going Broke)

If you've run any kind of crowdfunding enterprise, or just participated in a few of them as a backer, you've likely seen the kinds of high-dollar patron packages or stretch goal rewards. You know, stuff like tee shirts, or small statuettes, or signed copies of a bonus book, things like that. And you may have wondered why those only go to high-dollar donors when the items are so relatively small.

Relative is the key word, there, because you have to foot all the costs for it.

That means you need to buy the item in the first place, as well as designing it if it's a unique prize. Let's be generous and say it's only $3 for a paperback book that's being given as a bonus. You then need to pay the shipping on the item (sometimes twice if you need the item shipped to you so you can sign it, and/or repackage it before sending it on its way again). That could cost anywhere from $5 up to $15 or $30, depending on weight, location, and so on. You then need to perform this process for every person who contributed at a certain level, which means you need to handle all the costs, the mailing, and following up on deliveries.

Trust me, it hurts your bank account even more than your brain.

There is a middle ground here, though, and you've seen it even if you didn't put two and two together at the time. If you scroll through Kickstarter or Patreon right now, and you look at contributor rewards, you'll see all sorts of stuff that might strike you as kind of cool, but really low effort when you think about it. For example, a space in the credits of a film, or having your name on the special thank you list for backers for a book or game. If you're a patron, then you might receive free ebooks, digital art, or similar items in your email every month. If you support a YouTube channel at a certain level then you may be able to suggest topics for the show to cover, or even be treated like a sponsor and get a shout-out for the episode you helped make possible.

None of these things require a lot in the way of additional work, or (more importantly) additional costs to the creator. But they still provide something of value to a patron, or make them feel special, or valued in some way. Hell, I use this strategy myself. Folks who donate at least $1 over on The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page get a free copy of whatever gaming supplement I've released that month over on Drive Thru RPG. Why? Well, because they're digital, they're already out, it costs me $0 to send them to any patron anywhere in the world, and it provides them something of value that they no longer have to purchase outside of supporting me.

And that ticks all the boxes for what ideally makes a solid gift that should (at least in theory) act as a solid enticement to get your patrons to chip in just a little more every month.

Gifts and Prizes Are No Substitute For Quality

Since it has to be said.

To be clear, here, stretch goals, bonus gifts, tier levels... these things are icing on the cake when it comes to your crowdfunding efforts. They're nice to have, and sometimes they can be the extra little draw that gets someone to take a look at what you're offering.

However, the icing can't make up for a shoddy cake. Remember that, because you need to be producing something good in the first place if you want people to be happy with you. The extras are nice, and may draw some occasional extra funding, but you can't sell a plate of icing and call it a cake. Well, you can, but it probably won't go over as well as you think.

Like, Follow, and Stay Tuned!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife!

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

Patreon.com: Bringing Patronage Into the 21st Century

Artists come in a myriad of mediums. Some of us work in watercolors, while others dabble in dance. Authors and poets make pictures with words, while photographers and filmmakers work to capture events as they unfold. From stone and wood to clay and sound it seems that artists can and will shape absolutely anything. For all our differences though, there is one thing that brings us together.

Most of us are broke.

I'm sorry my friend, but it was you or me.

Yes there are some of us out there who make a decent living as professionals. There are even a fortunate few of us who "made it"; the Stephen Kings, Madonnas, and Leonardo DiCaprios of the world. On the other hand, a majority of us have to hustle at art fairs and conventions, post endlessly to social media, and wheedle our way into interviews with local newspapers and television stations to get the word out about what we do. We hand sell a few books here, get a few Google AdSense clicks there, but more often than not we have to patch the holes in our budgets with part time jobs, holiday gift money, and tax return checks.

For those of you wondering if there's a better way, there is. It's called Patreon.

What the Hell is That?

All right, quick history lesson. From the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, and even into what most people would consider the modern era, the landed gentry owned pretty much everything. The kings, dukes, lords, barons, dons, and associated titled people owned all the land, bore all the titles, kept pretty much all of the valuables, and more or less ran the show. Commoners worked the land, made goods, and supported the upper class. So not much has changed, really.

Pictured: the Medieval 1%

There was an invention created around this time called patronage (the idea existed before then, but they called it something else). The word patron stretches back to the year 1300, and it comes from Old French. It meant a lord or protector, and soon after it was used to mean a benefactor. So if an artist had a patron it meant that a lord or lady was footing the bill for daily bread, ensuring said artist could focus on creating better and better art.

This notion never really died out. Wealthy people, endowments, not-for-profit organizations, and dozens of others have continued to donate money as patrons of the arts for centuries. The problem is that there's a lot of artists, and there are only so many rich people.

That's where Patreon.com comes into the picture. It gives everyone the ability to become patrons of their favorite artists.

How Does That Work?

All right, I'll give you a concrete example for this one. As my regular readers know, I'm an author (and I have the Goodreads page to prove it). I write primarily short stories, and I've been featured in half a dozen anthologies now. Because I am not swimming in royalty monies, I started this blog as a way to increase my reach, and perhaps earn some advertising cash. I don't charge any kind of membership to read my blog, and even if 10,000 readers come through every day there's no guarantee that I'll make a single red cent off them.

That's why I opened up my own Patreon account here. This page is sort of like an ongoing Kickstarter. The difference is that I'm not asking people to give me a boat load of money to write a novel, put together a new video game, or make a movie. I'm asking people to leave me little donations (say $1 a month) to cover my expenses so that I can keep producing useful, engaging content on The Literary Mercenary, and over on my gaming blog Improved Initiative. If someone wanted to help support me they would go to my Patreon page, and pledge a certain amount of money for every new blog I put up. If that someone was concerned about his or her monthly budget, then my mysterious benefactor could put a cap on the generosity. Someone might be willing to give me $1 per blog, but they can only spare $5 a month to help me out. I'd accept that, and say thank you for being a loyal reader and supporter.

Spread the Wealth

No, really, we kind of need you to.

Patreon is specifically geared toward people who need their fans to help them make a living, and who aren't shy about asking for a small donation to free up their time and energies to create more content. If you're willing to drop your change into a barista's jar, or to leave a couple bucks on the lid for the piano man, then why not toss some cash to your favorite Youtube actor, BlogSpot blogger, or Spotify singer? Seriously, why not?

If you're a creative type looking to make some scratch off of what you provide to your fans, stop on by Patreon.com today and ask them to help support you. The worst they can say is no.


As always, thanks for dropping in and seeing what I have to say. I am the Literary Mercenary, and I deal in red. Even if you don't have any change to spare, feel free to check out my Facebook page, or to mainline me over at Tumblr.