How Much Is Your Author Really Making With Patreon?

Most of you know what Patreon is, but if you aren't familiar with it The Literary Mercenary covered it in the post Patreon.com: Bringing Patronage Into The 21st Century. For those of you who skipped the link all you need to know is Patreon is a crowd-funding website that gives little payments to creators who work on a series of projects (making YouTube videos, writing blogs, drawing webcomics, etc.) instead of making a single, big project. In short you become a patron, and you agree to pay your artist $1.00 for every piece they create so that they can focus on making things you like.

It seems straightforward enough, doesn't it? There's just one, little problem that can really mess things up for a lot of creators. That little thing is the "earning per entry" field.

The What Now?

If you go to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page you'll see what I'm talking about easily enough. The left hand side of the page shows you how many patrons are supporting my blogs, and below that it shows you how much I get paid per blog entry.

If you're thinking "Wow, I wish I got paid $48 per blog entry" let me be the first to say I wish I was being paid that as well.

Then I could give up writing ad copy for lingerie catalogs and mail-order brides.

The difficulty with that little scale is that it doesn't take patrons' monthly limits into account. Say you became a patron (which you should totally do), and you decided to give me $3 per blog entry. I write an average of 8 blogs per month that I charge my patrons for, which means you'd be charged $24 at the end of the month. However, you might decide you're only willing to part with $10 per month, so you set your monthly cap at $10.

This is a really common patron strategy to avoid going over a budget, but it isn't reflected in that "paid per blog entry" field. According to my page I should make about $320 a month or so; in reality I make about $120. Not bad money, and I thank all of my patrons for their support because you all are allowing me to pay bills I wouldn't otherwise be able to pay, but it isn't enough that I can stop writing fake success stories for mail-order bride services (I really wish that was a joke... seriously, help me walk away from that job).

Why Does It Matter?

In a word: empathy.

Let's say you just discovered an author you like, and you're considering supporting them so they create more content that you like (hello to first-time visitors, by the way). You see they have a Patreon page, so you decide to go there and see if they need help. What you find is that this artist is getting $200 per entry, so you decide to just lean back and enjoy the content that's being created.

What you don't know is that each of those patrons has limited their support to $1 per month, so that $200 is all that artist is getting for a month's worth of work. No matter how much content gets created, or how much sweat equity that artist puts in, rent simply isn't going to get paid for the simple reason that a lot of potential patrons think the artist is well-taken-care of and doesn't need anyone else to brace the rickety platform they're standing on.

For a lull in the depression discussion, have a laugh at this silly goat.

Some of you reading over those numbers will be thinking "what a shame that artists and authors have one more hurdle to overcome in pursuing their careers," and some of you will be thinking, "pshaw, that's a lot of money just doing something you'd be doing for fun anyway." To those first people I say thank you for your compassion, and to those second people I'd ask you to read Why Do People Hate Artists Who Expect To Be Paid? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Finished? Good, glad we're all back on the same page.

Now Then, Would You Like A Free Book?

Now that I've made my point about how you can't always judge an artist's income based on his or her Patreon page I'd like to make a pitch for your patronage. If you become a patron during March 2015 and pledge at least $1 per month (not per entry, just per month) then in addition to that warm feeling of helping an artist stand on his own two feet I'll also give you a free book! No strings attached, you just pledge at least $1, and I give you a book.

For my patrons who are reading this, all you have to do is increase your limit by at least $1 per month and I'll extend you the same gift! Tell your family, tell your friends, and if you're not sure whether or not the sorts of things I write are the kinds of books you'd like to read then have a look at my short story "Blackwater" in the free preview of SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror, or check out a high fantasy black ops team busting heads and breaking chains in "The Irregulars" a story feature in Paizo's Pathfinder Tales.

Also if you want to make sure you get all of my updates then be sure you follow me on Facebook and Tumblr!

Why Do People Hate Artists Who Expect To Be Paid?

Conventions are one of my favorite things. I get to meet readers and other writers, sit in the green room with guests of honor, and hold forth during panels. I also get to see friends I only see during cons, and I get to write all of it off on my taxes. This past November was my second year at Windy Con in Chicago, and overall I had a great experience. It was also the first time that I had someone decide to hold up their opinion flag and wave it vigorously at me.

Opinions are like dicks; glad you've got one, I don't need it in my face.

Generally speaking when I'm at a convention people don't decide to walk up to my table and harangue me about how I'm doing my job wrong. Part of it's because I'm affable, friendly, and there to have fun. Part of it is that I'm a white male dressed in combat boots and weighing in at about 225 pounds. Putting both halves together means that I don't have to deal with problems the way some of my fellow authors and artists do when someone decides to inform them they aren't being a proper artist/author/filmmaker/painter/etc. In this instance an individual who is a former editor of a major publisher decided to pick up the book from my table (Sidekicks by Alliteration Ink which you can check out here), then snort at my business card. He then proceeded to talk down to me about how real authors do it for the love of the craft, and about how if you're just doing it for money then you've got no business being an author.

I smiled politely, nodded in the pauses, and eventually he grew tired and moved on.

Show Me The Money

There are two reasons I bill myself as the Literary Mercenary. One, it's pretty goddamn catchy. When you make most of your connections at cons and big events you need something that's quick and easy to remember, and that handle has proven to be a great advantage for not being forgotten. The second reason is that I'm a professional, and I expect to be paid for the work that I do. I make no apologies for expecting cash on the nail if someone wants me to put words on the page for them.

Is this the emblem of someone that works for exposure?

If I was an accountant or a blacksmith no one would be surprised. In fact I doubt I'd ever have to remind people that they have to pay for my services with real money if I wasn't a creative professional. But I am, and as a result I meet a lot of people who are interested in what I do until they realize that I'm not just going to give it away willy-nilly.

And I know I'm not the only one.

Problems With Pomplamoose

Pomplamoose is an indie music duo who recently posted the breakdown of their yearly finances. The point was to illustrate where money goes, and why touring really isn't a smart move if you're not a superstar. Instead of empathy for the artists who have to stretch budgets and try to make a living on very little though, Pomplamoose was blasted. Why were they paying back up singers so much money? Shouldn't those singers have just been happy to be on stage with a successful band? Why did light designers and sound techs get paid money for a job a computer could do? And so on and so forth, essentially demanding to know why the band had chosen to pay other professionals the value of their work rather than keeping all the cash for themselves. If they'd taken advantage of other creative professionals and given them pennies on the dollar, or paid them in sandwiches and "exposure," they would make a real living. Or Pomplamoose could charge less for the overall endeavor, enabling more fans to enjoy them for less money.

Martial artists are never asked for freebies because they may just oblige you.

Everyone who is trying to make a living as a creative professional has heard these arguments before, and they're like trickle-down economics. You know, if you just give all the money to rich people then eventually it will work its way down to the poor. The difference is in this case we're being told to just keep making art and giving it away for free because eventually people will come to value what we make and money will mystically come our way.

Neither circumstance works. In the former all the rich people hoard the money for themselves, and in the latter art isn't valued because it's been free for so long that the very idea of paying for it will stop occurring to people.

So what's the problem? Is it that artists are greedy? Is it that people are shitheads? Is it that the marketplace is flooded with so much creativity that the supply far exceeds the demand? Well according to this article it might be a lack of empathy between artists and fans.

What is Art Worth?

It's no secret that art is typically seen as a feast or famine career choice. The maxim is that with dedication and hard work you'll eventually rise to the top of your field and become rich and famous, but that's no more true with writing books and making movies than it is with working in an auto garage or building rocket ships. No one can download car repairs or make photo copies of a NASA satellite though, which presents authors with a unique challenge: Convincing culture that art doesn't grow on trees, and that you can't just pluck it off a branch as you walk by.

If it was that easy there would be no problem.

Art is a necessity. People want to read books, admire paintings, watch movies, and listen to music. But the idea of paying for these products is something people instinctively resist when all it takes is a right click to download the product for free. If an artist is famous then they can obviously afford to cover one little pirating, and if an artist isn't famous then they should be glad that someone as discerning as you wants to read their work.

Stop and ask yourself what you would say if you got your dream job, but were told that you'd be working without pay until after your review. You'd say no, particularly if you still had to work a day job to cover your expenses waiting for the day that your dream job paid you enough to stay afloat. Now imagine if the hiring rep's response was, "Come on, everyone's going to see what a great job you did. Think of the exposure this will grant you! I'm sure that someone who can pay you will see this on your resume and snap you up immediately." Your reaction would likely be to slap this person, or at the very least to say something rude at a very high volume.

This is the reality that artists deal with every single day. Now imagine if artists were treated with respect, paid a fair price for their work, and given bonuses instead of pats on the head. Would that make them sell-outs? Or would it make them just another part of the workforce creating things that we desperately need?

Something else you might not know about Pomplamoose is that they created Patreon, a system for fans to support the artists they love. If you'd like to see more from the Literary Mercenary then check out my Patreon page and become a patron today! If you want to get the latest updates with no extra work just plug your email address into the box on your right hand side, or follow me on Facebook and Tumblr.

Care and Feeding of Your Author: How To Support Your Favorite Writer's Career

I've said it before, but this week I felt the need to remind readers that it is they who make authors what they are, not publishers. While Random House, Penguin, and the other Caesars might look like they have the power it is actually you, the mob, who gets to decide which of us lives and which of us dies.

It feels like this, but with pens instead of swords.

There's just one problem though; some supporters don't know how to make their desires heard. They're not sure if thumbs up or thumbs down is the good signal, or if they're supposed to shout your name, your title, or just shout to make noise. They don't know if they should bring signs and wear your colors, or if that would be tacky.

For those who are tired of metaphors, I'm going to explain in plain English how to help support the authors you love so their careers will flourish and they can keep writing the books that you want to read.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Buy Books

If you want an author to keep penning books then that means someone has to buy the volumes already on the market. It's a pretty simple equation, really. Authors write books, people buy books, author gets royalties. If no one buys the books then the author will have to do something else to make money, and then there will be less time for writing more books.

Some of us even consider piracy, since there's not a lot of money in revenge.

Many times people wonder if really buying one book is going to make a difference. Does one vote make a difference? How about one missed paycheck? One pint of blood more or less? Insulting questions aside, it's true that an author only gets a fraction of a book purchase. This means that authors have to sell hundreds of copies a month and several thousand copies a year just to maintain their careers. While one person buying a book might not make a huge difference, if everyone who wanted to support an author bought a book you'd be amazed at the numbers that can lead to when the quarterly royalty check shows up.

Become A Patron

For those who don't want to buy a book and who would rather offer support in other ways you could become a patron. An antiquated idea, patronage is when patrons of the arts (ie. you) give money to an artist to cover that artist's basic needs like food, shelter, etc. This allows the artist to keep making art, rather than being concerned with whether he'll be able to buy groceries this week. If an author has a Patreon account (I do, and here's where you can find my profile) then you could elect to give that author a certain amount of money a month to help pay bills, buy food, and most importantly not waste 40-50 hours a week doing something other than writing books for your enjoyment. If you'd like to know more about how Patreon works I wrote an entire entry about it right here.

Buy Some Swag

Your last option is to see if your author sells anything other than books. Authors may have tee shirts, bumper stickers, bookmarks, and other promotional items that would appeal to any reader and purchases of those items will also go to help support that author's career. The Literary Mercenary's gear shop is right here for instance, for those who didn't know it existed.

But I Don't Have Any Disposable Income!

That's fair, not all readers do. In fact since books can often be enjoyed in the comfort of a book store or rented from a library they're often seen as a pleasure that the poor can enjoy as well as the wealthy. Just because you don't have gads of money to fling at an author though that doesn't mean you can't still support your favorite tale teller.

In fact you can still offer some pretty significant support at the low price of absolutely nothing.

Willy Shakes, telling it like it is.

The best way you can support authors is by promoting their works. If you have a favorite book then tell your friends and family about it. If you go to a reading group suggest the title for discussion. Post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other website that deals in books. Talk about the book on your Facebook page, throw up some pictures on your Tumblr, and if your author has a blog or a website then become a follower. Join your voice with others to help get the word out.

Will It Really Matter?

Yes. Yes it will.

Let me give you an example. I have a little over 200 followers on my Facebook author page (you can follow it here if you're curious). When I post a link to an article or a blog that I've completed and no one likes or shares it then I can expect it to reach between 20 and 30 people on average. If one person shares that link then I will see a reach of between 60 and 120, depending on the follower and how big his or her friends list is.

Imagine for a moment if all 200 followers liked and shared one link. Thousands of people would see it, and at least some of them would also like and share it. This would put my name in front of people who'd never heard of me or my work, and make an impression on them. It could lead to an increase in my readership, more followers, and generally more people who are paying attention to what I'm creating and what I have to say.

Given that I'm a no-name author with a small following I'm sure you can imagine what the spread looks like for authors and artists who are bigger names with bigger pools of fans to draw on.

Things You Shouldn't Do

Some people might think there's no such thing as bad publicity, but that simply isn't true. Just as there are good ways to support your author, so too there are bad ways to support your author.

Don't be that guy.

Just Blast Your Feed Constantly

Authors need other people to help promote them and to spread the good word about their work. What authors do not need is the same one or two fans posting and re-posting a dozen times a day.

Perhaps the most common mistake made by well-meaning fans who want to help an author out is to simply spit out posts all over social media and forums. The best case scenario is that the promotional blitz catches a few new fans, but it's much more likely to simply fade into the background. The worse case scenario is that someone who constantly spams an author will have a forum account closed, be asked to stop posting, or be actively accused of just being a shill for the author. A few shares a week is usually enough to get the message out without barraging anyone with it.

Attack Others

We've all seen this in rabid fandoms. There's a conversation going on about a book you love, and one person has the temerity to speak up about a problem with the book. People immediately swarm that individual like a school of literate piranhas, tearing down to the bone.

Don't do that.

Political parties, religions, and authors are judged by our followers. So while the urge to click the caps lock and shout wilting profanity at someone in the echo chamber of the Internet might be strong, remember that your comments will reflect on the things you love. It's not fair, but it is true.

Offer Hollow Support

We've all been there at one time or another. Maybe you have a friend who's making a movie, a cousin who's writing a novel, or a significant other embarking on a painting. You might be totally unconnected from the work, but you want to help the artist all the same. So you go through the motions of getting a copy, showing up to speaking events, and being a dutiful friend, but you don't really care about the project.

This one's a crap shoot. On the one hand some people are just happy their friends take an interest, even if that interest is perfunctory. On the other hand there are artists that will feel like you're humoring them instead of legitimately trying to help. This can lead to hurt feelings and frustrations on both sides of the equation. This one really only applies to those who know an author personally, and it has to be taken on a case by case basis.

To Sum Up

The short version is this; no author can be successful without an audience. If you want to help the authors you love then the best thing you can do is to be the middleman and put their work in touch with people who will love it just as much as you do. If you have the spare cash to buy the books yourself, or to put some change in your author's tip jar every month then that's great, but if not you can still help.

If you'd like to help keep me up and running then stop by the Literary Mercenary's Patreon page and become a patron today! To get the latest updates then follow me on Facebook and Tumblr.

The Literary Mercenary Needs Your Help!

I regret to interrupt your regularly-scheduled serving of snark and biting wit, but unfortunately there's a rather serious issue I need to let you know about.

The Literary Mercenary is in Some Serious Shit!

I do hope that got your attention.

What's Going On?

I'm glad you asked. Let me break it down for you.

Chapter One: How I Got Fucked

Many of you have heard of Yahoo! Voices, but if you haven't it's a user-content creation website where people write articles and Yahoo! pays them a fee based on how popular those articles are. Yahoo! paid authors between $1.50 and $2 for every 1k page views their content received, and for those of you who don't work on the Internet let me testify that getting 1k page views isn't easy. That said, after half a dozen years of working on this platform off and on I had finally managed to earn a triple-digit royalty check. I was ecstatic, because my views seemed to have nowhere to go but up.

Until a week after this event, where I got an email from Yahoo! informing me that they are shutting the Yahoo! Voices network down completely at the end of July.

What This Means For Me

This puts me in a bit of a tight spot. I've gotten used to having a $40 or $50 royalty check from Yahoo! over the past year and change, and as I mentioned it seemed that I'd finally managed to get into the $100 range. In addition to royalties though, the website also offered up front payments to authors whose work was likely to earn lots of page views. So all told I'm not only out an employer, but the roughly $200 a month that employer represented.

Not enough to kill me, but much like my left leg I'm going to notice when it's cut off.

The rights to my content revert to me, and I'll be finding new homes for a lot of it. However there are no websites that pay for just getting traffic with the closing of Yahoo! Voices; they only pay on ad clicks. That means that no matter how useful, intriguing, entertaining, or helpful my articles are I don't get paid if viewers don't click ads.

How many ads have you clicked during your web browsing today? That's about what I thought.

How You Can Help

No, I am not asking you for money. That said if you have it and are offering it I'll gladly carry that burden for you.

Seriously, I am that kind of friend.

For those of you who do want to help me, and of course my blog, there are a couple of different ways you can do so.

#1: Tell Your Family, Tell Your Friends

This sounds obvious, but I'm going to say it again; if you want to help out then please tell everyone you know about the blog entries you like best. Like and share them on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, and whatever other social media you've got. Bring up my blog in conversation, tell that cousin of yours who wants to be a novelist to check me out. If you have a blog, a website, a Live Journal (people still have those, right?), use it as a platform and give me a second or two in the spotlight. Put your email address in the box on the upper right, and make sure that you get my updates as soon as they happen.

The more people who come and read what I've written, the more popular my blog will get. That will make it a popular destination, increase my ad revenue, and generally keep my bills paid while I keep providing all of my readers with more content.

#2: Make a One-Time Donation

If you were walking down the street and saw a street performer you liked you'd toss a buck in his cap. If you want to do the same for me click the "Shakespeare Gotta Get Paid, Son" button on the right hand side of the screen just below the email-followers box. This will let you toss some cash right into my PayPal account as a one-time "hope this gets you through the change over" sort of donation.

It's not tax deductible, sadly. I work cheap, but I'm not a charity.

#3: Become a Patron

Patronage has been around since the first artists wanted to quit hunting in order to put murals on the cave walls. For those of you who don't know, I have a Patreon page you can visit by clicking right here. If you choose to become a patron what that means is that for every blog entry I put up you are willing to give me a certain amount of money. This is a reward for me doing good work, and an incentive for me to keep it up. Generally all I ask is $1 per entry, but if a single Washington is all you're comfortable parting with then that's fine too. Just put your monthly cap at $1, and no matter how many times I post you're only spending a buck to keep me going.

Patronage is a big step, and I know that. All my patrons have my most sincere thanks, but since those aren't worth the dregs in a pot of government-employee coffee, I'm giving all my patrons their choice of ebook for free once they sign up.

The cost of the ebook is worth at least three months of support. I'm just saying.

Thanks for stopping by! I should return you to your regularly scheduled blog post as of this coming week.

Show Don't Tell: The Case For Story-Showers Vs. Storytellers

I've seen some terrible shit as an editor. Stories with plot holes big enough to accommodate a longshoreman's forearms, characters so shallow they had "no diving" tattooed on their foreheads, and honest-to-gods villain monologues have all made their way across my desk. If I had to pick the one thing that keeps coming back like a monster movie slasher though, it's writers who didn't get the "show, don't tell" memo. Rather than just complain about a problem though, I want to try and help writers of all levels stop being storytellers, and start being story-showers.

So, let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

Yes my map is a circle. Yes it still has a beginning.

What Does "Show, Don't Tell" Even Mean?

I have no idea who first coined this phrase, and the Internet has let me down on discovering the origin. However, famous writers as venerable as Ernest Hemmingway and as recent as Chuck Palahniuk have endorsed the advice. One of Hemmingway's most famous quotes regarding the advice of "show, don't tell" uses an ice berg as a metaphor. It goes like this:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.

This confuses a lot of people, but what big-daddy H is laying down is pretty simple to pick up. He's saying that if a writer needs to tell the reader every little thing, then that often represents a failure of communication. Story-showing uses words to craft a scene which the reader can take in, and draw the proper conclusions from.

What Does That Look Like?

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm not going to write that many, but an example will probably help. So, here, take a look at this image.

A look. Singular.

If someone were to describe this in the storytelling method, it might look like this:

The dancer was sexy.

You can replace "sexy" with whatever subjective word you want, point is that you are telling the reader how to feel about her appearance. You are, in essence, deciding how the reader is supposed to react and dictating accordingly.

Now, a description written in the story-showing style might look more like this;

She was music made flesh. Every sensuous curve gyrated, striking the bells on her hips and ankles in time with the plucking strings. Her smile was slow and wicked, like the sickle-grin of a Cheshire Cat. She swayed, and all eyes followed her hypnotic grace.

All right, maybe the second passage is laying it on a little thick, but look at the differences in context and in what the reader sees. In the first example words like "sexy" and "dancer" aren't very helpful to conveying the image to the reader. One reader might find women with large breasts and broad hips sexy, while another prefers slender, more athletic women. Some readers won't find women sexually attractive at all. Some people will think of ballet dancers, others of strippers, and still others will think of flash mobs or club dancers. By showing the audience the scene, by spending the time to draw out the details without just telling the audience what to feel, a story is greatly improved.

The Difference Between the Two

Some writers might be tearing out their hair, and angrily demanding of the screen if they're just supposed to never make statements about what's happening in their stories. If, to be considered good story-showers, they have to work purely in innuendo and couched terms in order to try to get from A to B.

No. No you do not. That isn't what I'm saying at all.

Then what DO we do?!

What you do need to do is to ask whether you are showing the audience what's happening, or if you're simply making the decision for the reader. For instance, you could say "John's car was a beat-up old rust bucket with peeling paint, but it was all he could afford and it still ran," or you could say "John drove an old '69 Gremlin, with mismatched doors and more primer than paint." By naming the car, you didn't tell your audience how to feel about a situation. You simply provided a detail to help set the scene. That is a "good" use of telling.

A "bad" use of telling would be to say something like "Jim was a real asshole." How do we know that? Subjective descriptions, whether positive or negative, should not be used in description. Dialogue is fine, because dialogue is where characters express their opinions. However, if you want readers to figure out Jim's disposition then you need to show him in a negative light. Have him telling racist jokes, blowing cigar smoke in people's faces, making threats, shoulder-checking people in the hallway; whatever it is that Jim does to make him dislikable, show that. The audience will get the picture you want them to get quickly enough, and you won't have to actually tell them.

One Last Thing...

Every story is going to have a certain amount of telling in it. Sometimes there's really no efficient way to get important data to the reader except to just tell them about it. That said though, it is best to let the readers draw their own conclusions whenever possible.

Nowhere is this more true than with characters' thoughts and feelings.

Except in some, extreme circumstances.

Sometimes writers can get away with this. First person stories, particularly gritty, noir style stories, are renowned for feeding us exactly what a character is thinking and feeling. We let it pass because we are supposed to be riding around in that person's head. If we are not jacked into that person's inner Twitter though, then you should not be giving us the play-by-play of feelings and thoughts.

This mistake happens a lot. It's most common when writers want to convey important feelings to an audience. Love between two leads, hatred between rivals, etc. It's tempting to use words like "angrily" to modify speech, or to just say "hate was written all over her face." Your writing doesn't have a broken leg, and it doesn't need a crutch. Roll up your sleeves and shape the important stuff with the same dedication you do all your other writing. Give us facial expressions, body language, word choice, and all of the other nuance that you have at your disposal to make us hang on your description. Draw readers in, and they'll never want to leave. Tell them how to feel, and they'll slam your cover hard enough to billow your dust jacket.


I hope all my readers, those who write and those who don't, found this week's update useful. If you'd like to keep the Literary Mercenary going, then drop some change in our donation cup in the upper right hand corner. Or, if you're a patron of the arts, check out my Patreon account here and pledge today! As always if you want to stay plugged into my latest, follow me on Facebook and Tumblr to get my updates before anyone else does. Remember, around here, we deal in red.

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.