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alexandraerin...and it's spawned some thoughts about the way I've benefited from Patreon even though I haven't had a single payday from it yet (first one coming at the end of the month).
The main benefit is in the immediacy provided by its feed. My most prolific periods as a writer have been the ones where I shared most freely, but despite my championing of the "give it away for free" model, it is hard to make a living when you're giving everything away for free. But holding back... well, it makes me hold back.
Just having a space where without setting up my own password system or anything like that I know I can go and post things and say, "This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm working on. This is a thing that I wanted to write so I wrote it." is a huge and pretty direct benefit.
With just under 20 sponsors, I don't get a ton of feedback on the things I post... but enough to know that people are seeing it, which is really all I need to swing the pendulum from "I don't know if it's worth it to write this" to "this is totally worth it".
That's an emotional determination that's crucial to the writing process. I can want to write something... I can be fairly certain it will be decent if I do... but actually starting to write it and then carrying through to the end depends on being able to convince myself on a deep visceral level that it will be worth it, which is a different matter entirely.
If you want to get in on the fun of my feed or you want to read this newsletter when it goes out, go sign up to pledge: http://www.patreon.com/AlexandraErin My goal for January is to wind up with over $100 per cycle there, which seems very doable as we're only $20 away, but only pledges made before next chapter goes up next Wednesday will count on this month.
The main benefit is in the immediacy provided by its feed. My most prolific periods as a writer have been the ones where I shared most freely, but despite my championing of the "give it away for free" model, it is hard to make a living when you're giving everything away for free. But holding back... well, it makes me hold back.
Just having a space where without setting up my own password system or anything like that I know I can go and post things and say, "This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm working on. This is a thing that I wanted to write so I wrote it." is a huge and pretty direct benefit.
With just under 20 sponsors, I don't get a ton of feedback on the things I post... but enough to know that people are seeing it, which is really all I need to swing the pendulum from "I don't know if it's worth it to write this" to "this is totally worth it".
That's an emotional determination that's crucial to the writing process. I can want to write something... I can be fairly certain it will be decent if I do... but actually starting to write it and then carrying through to the end depends on being able to convince myself on a deep visceral level that it will be worth it, which is a different matter entirely.
If you want to get in on the fun of my feed or you want to read this newsletter when it goes out, go sign up to pledge: http://www.patreon.com/AlexandraErin My goal for January is to wind up with over $100 per cycle there, which seems very doable as we're only $20 away, but only pledges made before next chapter goes up next Wednesday will count on this month.