Patreon

Related: Art

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Articles:

Source: A Guide to Using Patreon: Artists and Writers on Using Membership Platforms | Creative Capital (creative-capital.org)

"While Patreon won’t help artists expand an audience, it can help create connection and patronage from an existing audience, or one growing on a different platform."
- "Patreon works best when a creator brings an audience to their platform, and not the other way around—it won’t help grow an audience, just engage and raise money from them in monthly installments."
"Before getting started, artists should consider setting up benchmarks to determine how much money is received. If an artist hopes to make $1,000 per month from their Patreon, considering that the average user pays $6 a month, the artist would have to have about 167 members."
- "25% of the active campaigns receive more than $120 monthly, 5% make more than $750 monthly, and 1% receive more than $2,500"
2 types of audiences - 1 not interested in hearing from artist and other expects regular communication
- “Surveys are good to know what works best for people,”
  - "Since Shyu began focusing on “the community needs rather than just talking about myself and my own work,” she has seen improved engagement from her audience."
"Benefits help add value to a membership, and can differentiate between different tier types"
"As stated above, videos and podcasts tend to be the most subscribed to kind of media, but there is a wide range of other potential types of products."
- "offers her members time-lapse process videos, and videos on philosophy, techniques, and beliefs around Chilkat weaving."
- "sends her members “monthly hand-printed postcards in the mail with a statement describing process and inspiration.”"
- "Lily Hope sends her top-tier members “weaving materials and start-to-finish video tutorials of a new project every three months,”"
- "That human connection can be important to drive one’s work. Molly Rice says her subscribers love videos where she and her producing partners’ faces appear to talk about their work. “Videos where we or other people are connecting directly to them are most popular,”"

Source: The Artists Making a Living (or Trying to) with Patreon (format.com)

“We are not solving the ‘you don’t have any fans, to having fans’ problem—we’re solving how you go from fans to patrons, and building that sustainable income,”
"Patreon wasn’t able to share how many patrons a user typically has, but I tallied up the numbers on a few of the more arts-oriented Top 20 categories (Video & Film, Comics, Crafts & DIY, Drawing & Painting, and Photography) and found that the average creator from these categories had about 2,000 patrons. These creators are raking in an average minimum of $2000/month, and perhaps much more if they have a lot of patrons subscribed to higher payment tiers."
- "Alice Oseman, who is currently making $3,849 monthly from 954 patrons, calls Patreon her “most regular and reliable source of income.”"
  - "“As I create and post the web comic entirely for free, it was a great way for people to support the comic financially so that I could dedicate more time to it and post updates more regularly,” she told me in an email. Oseman’s patrons receive early updates to the comic and exclusive artworks which aren’t available to non-paying readers."
"Pierce told me that most of her patrons found her through other websites. She promotes her Patreon to more than 150,000 engaged followers on her Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. On Instagram, Pierce’s posts routinely receive hundreds of comments from fans who are clearly close followers of her comics."
"Hurd currently has 954 patrons, who receive access not only to behind-the-scenes looks at his photo process, but are also able to join in group photo critiques and pose technical questions to Hurd."
“For up-and-coming creators, what we find is that they can sometimes start a Patreon and it can be really difficult to build a Patreon and build your business at the same time,” she said. “The product itself is really designed to build that membership business.”
"The New York-based artist and writer, who has about 65,000 Instagram followers, does a monthly artwork giveaway for his patrons and also offers them in-person studio visits and exclusive access to paywalled content. With 694 patrons, starting at $5 and up, he’s making at minimum $3470 monthly from Patreon."
- "Troemel’s method of offering physical rewards to patrons resonated with James; his $15 patrons receive monthly publications that he makes by hand. For just $5/month, patrons receive a 18x24” poster, a print, and a sticker."
- "“The actual upkeep required to run the Patreon is negligible.”"
"Miller currently has 38 Drip subscribers and makes $244/month from the platform. For $3/month, subscribers are able to follow along with Miller’s creative process as she works on an installation project inspired by beehives. Her model is similar to James’ approach, with subscribers following along for updates on ongoing work as well as special rewards. For $8/month, Miller’s subscribers will receive a limited edition 11x14” print when her project is complete."
"She says she uses social media to find patrons; she has an audience of close to 300,000 fans on Instagram and Facebook, and 61 patrons. Lipscomb acknowledged that building a social following is often an important element of a successful Patreon. “Patreon can be an incredible platform for creators, but it is entirely what you make of it.”"
"It’s really hard to talk about what’s the optimal number of patrons to have, because it’s so dependent on the creator and what they’re offering as their membership tiers and benefits,” Carla Borsoi told me. “For example, you might see someone that only has 20 patrons on the platform and you won’t see how much they’re making… But they might have 20 patrons who are all contributing 50 dollars or 100 dollars each month. That membership can be a very strong financial signal to the creator. Whereas you might have someone who is more support-based as a creator, and they might have 500 patrons who are only giving them one to three dollars."
"talking to successful Patreon users showed me that these aren’t people who ask for support without giving back, but instead actively do a lot of work for their patrons (sharing works in progress, studio photos, professional advice, and so on). And a lot of this work is labor that many artists not on Patreon are actually already doing, for free, on social media."

Source: How Artists Make a Living With Patreon (tutsplus.com)

"Posting my work on Patreon is different from posting paintings on my online portfolio. There is not so much freedom as I have to prepare the files and paint following certain guidelines so people can more or less follow what is going on when they watch the videos. I also have to try and find themes that people appreciate and find interesting. It's challenging, because ultimately you have to keep motivated to post but that can only work if people support you. If you set pledge levels too high people won't support you, but if the income is too low it ends up not being rewarding. You must have patience as the number of followers rises, very slowly. My goal with Patreon is to share my workflow with people interested in knowing how I work and, of course, to provide another source of income."
"Engage, engage, engage! Build your brand before launching as much as possible, and then encourage people to check out your Patreon whenever possible. Rewards are a must, if that's WIPs or access to zips of unreleased art or whatever. People just like to get "something" for their money besides just the knowledge they're helping you. Patreon is half of our household income, so it helps a lot. More than anything, being friendly in whatever you do also pays!"
"Each artist must divulge their own work on social networks to be appreciated by followers and fans, and then communicate to their followers that they can support the work in patreon, and get exclusive content that can be found there."

Source: How to use Patreon for Artists? Tier / Reward ideas for Art (veryprivategallery.com)

1. Check Patreon earning visibility on Graphtreon
- Graphtreon shows Patreon earning visibility. Top Growing Patreon Drawing & Painting: Largest Growth + Successful (graphtreon.com)
1. Introduce yourself with an intro video
1. Don’t hide everything behind a paywall
1. Hack Patreon your way
- Surprise your audience by proposing something different
1. Propose rewards that you do naturally
Physical Rewards
- Postcards, art prints, art merchandise like t-shirts and mugs, sketches, original works of art
  - Postage could be costly, risks of damage (or gone missing) in the shipping, normal postage insurance doesn’t normally ensure original works of art, higher carbon emission (not eco-friendly) and many other problems with logistics.
Digital Rewards
- High-resolution images, PDFs, time-lapse videos, tutorials, layered PSD files, podcasts, behind-the-scenes videos and everything digital.
  - The sunk cost of time, being used wrongly, not attractive as they could access it anyway
Time/Service
- 1:1 coaching, video streaming, voice call, group call, meet-up
  - Not scalable, burn out
Privileges
- Mention on your website, shoutout on your social media, follow their social media, rolling credits, early access to content, access to historic content, invited to your art shows, their names appear on your art book.

Source: How To Use Patreon: Examples For Artists, Bloggers, and Creators - Ezoic

Patreon tier ideas for artists:
- PDF art calendars / downloadables / etc
- One-on-one tutorials
- Live group tutorials
- One-on-one art coaching / critiquing
- Extra video content
- Extra blog content
Patreon tier ideas for podcasts:
- Bonus episodes
- Discounts to merchandise
- Discounts or early access to both event tickets or merch
- Live Q&A
- Behind-the-scenes production content
- Bonus mini-episodes
- Allowing top membership levels to suggest content for podcast episodes
- Early access to podcast episodes
- Ad-free content
Patreon tier ideas for YouTubers
- Behind the scenes footage
- Private Discord / Slack / Telegram groups
- Blooper reels
- Live Q&As
- Bonus episodes / footage
- Voting / episode suggestions
- Merch discounts / early access to merch
- Signed swag or merch
- One-on-one video meetings
Lite – 5% of monthly earnings
Pro – 8% of monthly earnings
Premium – 12% of monthly earnings

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