Creative Funding Show

In this episode, I do a crosscast with Richard Bliss from the Funding the Dream on Kickstarter Podcast. The episode will go out on both feeds and if you haven’t checked out his podcast, you really should. We talk about what it takes to lose your Patreon followers, how to get them back and a whole lot more. The post 028 Patreon vs Kickstarter (a Crosscast with Funding the Dream) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Announcement: The Creative Funding Show will be going on indefinite hiatus soon. If you have a question you want me to address in a wrap up Q&A episode feel free to leave it as a comment below. In this episode, Jamie Jenson from the Creatives Making Money Podcast interviews me about crowdfunding. You can find her version of this episode here. The post 027 Crowdfunding for Creatives with Jamie Jensen appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Tom Boruta (Baruta) is a Software Engineer who created Graphtreon because he wanted to follow the progress of Patreon creators. Questions: For our listeners who did not listen to episode 4, what is Graphtreon? Why are analytics so important? What is new about the new system?   Links: Graphtreon The post 026 How to Get Advanced Patreon Analytics with Graphtreon appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Michelle Kopper has helped thousands of creatives, small business owners and entrepreneurs embrace self-promotion and selling as serving. Michelle’s combines her journey overcoming crippling stage fright, with her performance background and her ability to intuit aligned marketing language to help clients share their transformational message with full confidence. Questions: Why is fear such a challenge for so many creatives? Has fear kept you back as a creative? How did you overcome it? What advice do you have for creators when it comes to fear of criticism? Let’s talk about haters and trolls. What is a troll and how should creators handle them.   Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. About Michelle: Website: www.michellekopper.com   The post 025 Finding Your Courage and How to Handle Haters appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Stress and busy work are the biggest enemies of creative people. And today we have someone on the show to help solve that. Kim Sutton is the host of the Positive Productivity podcast, runs a team of 10 people and has 5 kids. So you can say she knows a thing or two about productivity. (Twitter handle, special requirements, etc.): https://twitter.com/thekimsutton?lang=en https://www.instagram.com/thekimsutton/?hl=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlyannesutton/ https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.anne.buckley Question: Let’s talk about Working with VA’s What is a virtual assistant? What are some tasks that VA’s can take off creator’s hands. Where can creators find good VAs? Upwork Virtual Assistant Jobs on Facebook Tips for working with a VA’s Mistakes creators make when working VA’s.   Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 024 How to Reduce Stress & Increase Creativity with Kim Sutton appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Your time, energy, and money are valuable, but many people struggle to assign a dollar amount to each. Creators running crowdfunding campaigns often need help deciding what to offer backers and how to price each reward level.  Janene Liston helps her clients build value and know what and how to charge their customers confidently. She reminds her clients that having a profit mindset in their businesses makes them smart, not greedy. Janene is a Certified Pricing Professional, experienced in value creation, and a European Public Speaking Champion. She believes each person possesses the wisdom they need to thrive in life, but sometimes they need help tapping into it. This belief led her to “pack up” her pricing experience to step out of the corporate world and into the entrepreneurial world. When I interviewed Janene, I asked her about pricing crowdfunding campaigns.  Why is pricing products and services so difficult? Thomas Umstattd, Jr.: For many creatives, pricing their products and services is the hardest part of launching a Kickstarter campaign or Patreon page. Why is choosing a price so hard? Janene Liston: First, it’s difficult because people fear rejection. For some reason, we attach that rejection to our personal value and worthiness, which brings up baggage from our growing up years. It can be very uncomfortable. Second, most people simply don’t know how to choose a price. They believe there is a specific method to follow, but they don’t know what it is. If they do choose a price, they often feel uncertain about whether they’ve chosen correctly.  Thomas: It’s particularly difficult for people who are offering a service. For example, a photographer who’s been taking photos for free will find it difficult to start charging. When they do set up a fee schedule, they often charge too little.  It’s hard to know what your time is worth, especially for people who struggle with their self-worth. Choosing a price point is more psychologically challenging than choosing a logo or writing copy for the page.  How do you know if you’ve priced yourself too low? Thomas: Whether you’re running a business or creating art, people often price themselves too low when they’re starting out. What are some signals that you’re not charging enough? Janene: It is a common problem, and there are several signs that you need to adjust. Customers Tell You If your customers tell you, “You should be charging more,” please heed their advice. Your customers know the value of what you’re offering.  Thomas: Sometimes they’ll use different wording and say, “Wow. This is a great deal!” If people always talk about your product’s price as a “deal” or “steal,” you may be priced too low Spinning Your Wheels Janene: If you feel like you’re working hard but making little progress, you probably need to charge more. For example, if you have loads of customers but you’re having trouble meeting your financial goals or needs, you’ve probably priced yourself too low, particularly for service-based businesses. For product-based businesses, if you’re delivering more value than your competitors but are still priced lower, you’re not operating with a healthy or profitable pricing strategy. Thomas: You might think you could put your competitor out of business with that strategy, but you’re more likely to put yourself out of business because you run out of cash. When I launched my first Patreon page, we had $2.00, $5.00, and $8.00 levels. The first 15 people to back the campaign chose the $8.00 level, which told us that we priced that level too low. It was supposed to be the luxury level that only a handful of people would want. It was a limited level, and it sold out.  We ended up hiding that level on our page so that new backers couldn’t buy that level for that price. Then we copied the level and raised the price to $20.00. That way, the people who backed at $8.00 still got the benefits for that price, but new backers at that level would pay $20.  It was a hard lesson learned, and we left a lot of money on the table by pricing it that low. We just didn’t value what we’d included in that $8.00 level.  Price Point Positioning Janene: How we position prices next to each other on a page says something.  There was a famous example of a newspaper that started offering online publication. During that transition, the paper priced the print subscription at $80, the online-only version at $125, and the print and online versions combined at $125. Their pricing strategy was to push people to buy the combined subscription. If they had priced the combined subscription higher than the online-only, people would have gravitated to the cheaper online-only version. Thomas: One of the advantages of having multiple price points is that you create a market. You can influence which package people choose.  Some people have a worldview that dictates they only always buy the cheapest option, while others only buy the most expensive. But most people are looking for the option that provides the biggest bang for their buck.  Make your most profitable level the most attractive level. Patreon backers don’t support people just because they want the rewards. They back campaigns because they want to support creators. Some folks forego the rewards and simply donate to support the creator. What is price anchoring? Thomas: What is anchoring, and why is it important for pricing? Janene: My perception of a price is influenced by many things. I might think about how much money I have in my wallet, but the value of the product or service is influenced by what’s around it. You can use price anchoring to steer your customers’ behavior, as did the newspaper I mentioned.  You can also use anchoring to help lessen the blow of a higher-cost product or service. One way to anchor a price is to use the copy preceding the price tag to mention statistics that use bigger numbers than your price. For example, if you mention that products like yours typically cost thousands of dollars, your $250 product doesn’t seem so expensive.  The benefits of anchoring generally happen at a subconscious level. Studies show that these fine-tuning tactics are effective.  Thomas: Once you understand anchoring, you’ll see it everywhere. You’ve probably noticed that Amazon places the original price with a line through it right next to the sale price. Even Apple uses anchoring techniques. In Steve Jobs’s original iPhone presentation, he billed the iPhone as three devices in one: an iPod, a phone, and an internet communication device. Each device would cost $500. But instead of selling the iPhone for $1500, they priced it at $600. If price anchoring works for a company as sophisticated as Apple, it can work for you. It can sound cheesy if you don’t do it right. For example, if you ever hear yourself saying, “But wait! There’s more!” you’ve probably fallen into the trap of cheeseball land. Janene: Anchoring can be used in a sleazy or eloquent way. Whatever you’re selling, you need to talk about it in a way that aligns with your values.  What are some signals that your price is too high? Thomas: How do you know if you’ve priced your products or services too high? Janene: If what you’re delivering doesn’t bring the value you promised, you may be out-pricing yourself. Many people out-price themselves when they make a product that feels exciting to create rather than making what their customers want or need.  Thomas: Value is subjective. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  The iPhone came out when I was in college. I couldn’t afford one, but I knew what they could do, and I knew the value. I knew people who had purchased an iPhone but were only using it as a phone and a camera. It was more valuable to me because I knew what the iPhone was capable of. The value to me was high, but as a college student, I couldn’t afford a $600 phone. The higher your price, the more people you exclude. Sometimes exclusionary pricing is intentional. Consider a country club. People pay substantial club fees so they can exclude people who can’t afford it. People want to feel like they’re in the exclusive in-crowd, and pricing is one way to give that feeling.  You can offer that exclusive feeling on your Patreon page by limiting your rewards or giving them only to your most passionate fans. Reward their passion rather than their money  Janene: When you’re selling something, you often get requests for discounts. I teach people not to offer discounts but to offer bonuses instead. Instead of adjusting prices, you can include new and innovative rewards in your packages. Thomas: On Patreon, changing the price point on your reward levels is hard, and it creates a lot of friction. People tend to cancel if they have to pay more than they used to. Kickstarter doesn’t allow you to change your price points. But on Patreon and Kickstarter, you can change what backers receive.  On Kickstarter, you can offer stretch goals. For instance, you might say, “I need $10,000 to produce the album, but if we raise $15,000, I’ll add two new songs.” That’s one way of enhancing the benefits of that reward level. The backers don’t pay more, but they may get two more songs. To help you meet your stretch goal, your backers will spread the word and tell their friends to hurry up and back your campaign so they can all get more music.  Stretch goals are built into Patreon’s platform. They’re simply called “goals,” but once you get 1,000 backers or raise $1,000, a new benefit for everyone is unlocked. You have a lot of room to experiment with what you offer in your package. Janene: Another strategy is to use a reverse auction. Instead of buyers outbidding each other to pay the highest price, sellers try to underbid each other, and buyers get the lowest price available.  Thomas: It’s similar to a reverse coupon, which has worked well for selling our courses. You begin by offering your product at a low price and encouraging buyers to get it while the price is low because the price will increase in the future.  We underpriced our first course by a long shot. Instead of raising the price randomly, we occasionally let people know that the price will increase in two months so they can purchase before then and get the best deal. It functions like a coupon in that it has urgency and anchoring, but we’re not actually lowering the price. Instead, we’re anchoring it to the future higher price. It’s a good strategy for raising prices, and it prevents people from being disgruntled about the higher price. You give them plenty of notice about the price increase so that it’s not a shock.  Pricing Strategies for Patreon and Kickstarter Thomas: What tips do you have for someone setting prices for their rewards on a new Patreon page? Steer Behavior with Price Points Janene: Remember that you can steer people’s behavior by offering multiple price points.  You don’t have to price your packages with equal dollar amounts between them. If you want to steer people toward your bottom levels, price the bottom and middle packages closer together and price the highest level farther away from those dollar amounts.  Know Your Financial Goals Do the math and determine how many backers you’ll need at each level to reach your financial goals. A simple spreadsheet can help you find those numbers. Maybe you need 20 backers at the $5.00 level and 50 at the $2.00 level. Use those numbers to guide you when you’re targeting people.  Value Sells Selling is still about value. People have to understand the value behind something before they will buy it. Patreon appeals to people from an altruistic perspective, and yet, there’s a value component where people get excited about what’s offered in the packages. However, as the seller, you must communicate that value.  Thomas: In business school, we toured restaurants to learn about their fascinating business plans. At restaurants, each menu item has a different level of profitability based on the cost of its ingredients and the time it takes to prepare. While the steak is expensive, the restaurant may not profit much from it because the cost of the meat captures most of the value.  Restaurants often display photos of their most profitable dishes on the menu to steer patrons toward those. Restaurant patrons are more likely to order the dish that’s pictured. For example, you’ll often see flashy pictures of entrees with potatoes and eggs, which are traditionally cheaper ingredients, because those dishes have a higher profit margin. With Kickstarter, the two most popular price points, in general, are $25.00 and $40.00. You’ll get the bulk of your backers at those two levels. Make sure those levels are “flashy picture” type dishes, where your cost of materials and preparation is low and your profit margin is high. If you’re an author, you may be tempted to offer backers a signed copy of your paper book at the $25.00 level. It might sound like a good value, but if 1,000 people back your campaign at that level, you’ll be stuck signing and shipping 1,000 books, which is expensive and time-consuming. If you’re offering signed copies of your books, price that reward at a profitable and doable price point.  The key is to know what your audience finds valuable. Just because you think an audiobook is valuable doesn’t mean your audience will.  I was at WordCamp, a WordPress user conference, where a WordPress developer presented all the new features they’d worked so hard on. He received polite applause with each feature he listed, but when he said they’d improved the copy-and-paste feature from Microsoft Word to WordPress, he received a standing ovation. He was dumbfounded because all the other features required teams of people to develop, but the copy-and-paste feature was the simple fix that the users were most excited about.  When Apple revealed the new Dark Mode feature on iOS10, they received a similar response for a relatively simple change because people really valued it. Janene: People often appreciate simple things more than big gestures. Keep that in mind as you decide what to offer people.    Connect with Janene Liston at ThePricingLady.com. Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to earn an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 023 Pricing with Janene Liston appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Why do people back crowdfunding campaigns and creators on sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Patreon? What makes them want to support creators they don’t know personally? Two words: social triggers. What is a social trigger? In marketing psychology, a social trigger influences a person’s behavior by indirectly creating a need. For example, if you are compelled to run to the store before their sale ends, you have been influenced by the social trigger of urgency. In this article, we’ll explore ways to use the social triggers of Urgency, Scarcity, and Popularity to influence people to support your crowdfunding campaign or your Patreon page. Social Trigger Trifecta: Black Friday When urgency, scarcity, and popularity work together, we get the Black Friday phenomenon. People stay up all night to be first in line. They elbow each other to grab a limited product, and the frenzied crowd rushing from the same item tells us the product is popular! Everyone wants one, or so it seems. We may not like the fact that we are so easily influenced on a subconscious level, but we can’t change it. Humans respond to social triggers. The only people who don’t are hyper-rational sociopaths, and they are not in the majority. Marketers must learn to dance with people the way they are, not how we wish they were.  To motivate people to back your campaign, you must understand what causes people to act and how you can use social triggers to propel them. Urgency Why is urgency important?  Creating a sense of urgency in your campaign is more important than ever. The modern education system trains us to wait until the last minute to act. For example, most people cram for a test the night before rather than the week before.  We are chronic procrastinators, and we don’t act without a deadline. That’s why Kickstarter and Indiegogo have built urgency into their platforms via the countdown clock. The countdown is a powerful motivator. Every second that ticks away brings users one moment closer to losing their opportunity to get rewards.  As a creator, you can make a big deal about the deadline. Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing approach is better in this regard. On Kickstarter, if your campaign is not completely funded by the deadline, not one backer is charged, and you will not receive a dime. It creates a greater sense of urgency for you and your potential backers.  For most people, there has to be “blood in the water.” Consumers must buy on Black Friday, or they’ll miss the sale.  Urgency doesn’t have to mean a lower price. Apple uses urgency even though they don’t discount their products. Users who want to be the first to own the latest iPhone rush to be first in line on the day it releases.  Strategies for Creating Urgency Reverse Coupon The reverse coupon offers a limited-time, low price that will increase at a certain point in the future. When I launched my course, The Five-Year Plan to Becoming a Bestselling Author, we priced it too low. We occasionally raise the price to remedy the problem, but we make a lot of noise about it before we do. We warn our subscribers, patrons, and listeners that the price will increase on a certain date. The only way to get it for a lower price is to buy it before the increase. The threat of missing out on the lower price provides urgency and causes people to purchase. Limited-Time Bonuses When Michael Hyatt launched his book Platform, he offered a bundle of related resources to everyone who bought the book within the first few weeks. His readers wanted to buy right away so they could get the extras he was offering. After the bonus buying window closed, readers could still purchase the book, but the bonuses were no longer available.  Limited Quantities People go crazy when they know only a certain number of products are available. Creators tend to want to offer unlimited quantities, so this method of creating urgency can be difficult, but it’s possible.  Free for a Limited Time You can offer your product or service for free for a limited time. Services like Kindle Unlimited allow authors to offer their ebooks for $0.00 for up to five days per year. The free offer increases your book’s visibility and drives other paying customers to your book even after the free promotion has ended. On Patreon, creating urgency is difficult because there is no ticking countdown clock. However, it can still be done. You can offer a limited reward that patrons can receive by a certain deadline you create. For example, you could say, “Patrons who join this month will have their names mentioned in my next video.” Authors might consider saying, “Anyone who becomes a patron by a certain date will have their names listed in the acknowledgments of my book.” Musicians might offer the same perk on an album. Our patrons get a discount whenever we offer a course at Novel Marketing. If you become a patron before you buy the course, you’ll get the discount. Ye Ol’ Invisible Sniper Trick Many of these techniques employ what I call Ye Ol’ Invisible Sniper Trick. The Invisible Sniper Trick came from old spy movies where the hero in control tells the criminal, “There’s a sniper behind that window with his gun trained on you. If you don’t comply, he’ll shoot.” The criminal can’t see the sniper, but the threat is enough to make the criminal comply. For creators, the tactic is a bit less threatening but still effective. The creator asks their patrons, backers, or subscribers to present their receipts as proof of purchase in order to redeem the bonuses. When Michael Hyatt launched his book Platform, he asked readers to email him their receipts within the first two weeks, and he would automatically email the bonuses in return. Neither Michael nor his team checked the emails for receipts, but the fact that they could have kept people honest.  Scarcity Scarcity creates value, and value is determined by supply and demand. To create scarcity, you must control the supply. Scarcity is a challenge with in digital products because they are ubiquitous. YouTube videos may have millions of views, and free ebooks may have millions of downloads. It’s hard to manufacture scarcity, but with a little creativity, it can be done. Limited Quantities Author Brandon Sanderson creates a set number of his special collector’s edition leatherbound hardbacks, and he prices them high. His fans have paid hundreds of dollars for a single book because they know that if they don’t get one now, they never will. His superfans are willing to pay a high price because the copies are scarce. If you sell merch, you can apply the same principle to your online store. You can print 1,000 shirts and let your followers know that when they’re gone, they’re gone. Limited quantities only work well with physical products since there is no good way to limit digital products.  Offer Signed Copies Authors can create scarcity by offering signed copies. Your ebook may be ubiquitous, but your signed print copies can be scarce. By creating scarcity and ubiquity for the same book, you can take advantage of both social triggers at once. You can only sign so many books, so signed copies demand a premium.  First 100 People  Offer a variety of bonuses, extras, or bundles to the first 100 people to email you their receipts or the first 100 people who become patrons. This strategy uses scarcity in that the spots are limited to 100. Since it’s a race to get the bonuses before other people beat you to them, urgency is also at work.  Limited Number of Tickets Consider limiting the number of tickets to your live launch party. Musicians who give live performances typically prefer to keep their tickets scarce, and scarcity is one reason ticket scalping is such a big business. Even if scalpers buy up tickets to resell, the musician still benefits because scalpers help their shows sell out.  Limit the Number of Backers for a Reward Level When you limit your reward levels to a certain number of backers, the rewards of that level seem scarce. After the limited reward level is sold out, some aspect of it is no longer available. At Novel Marketing, our highest patronage level is limited. Each of those patrons is featured on our show on a rotating basis. We limit the level so that we’re not reading patron book blurbs for 20 minutes of each episode. Limited Early Bird Levels A limited early-bird level on Kickstarter and Indiegogo is both scarce and urgent. It’s a powerful technique because it combines two social triggers. However, early-bird levels can be a drag on your campaign later on. As people compare current prices to the early-bird price, the current price will feel expensive and may prevent people from supporting your campaign.  Early-bird pricing can make sense if you’re uncertain your campaign will fund 100%. You can use an early-bird pricing level to quickly get your campaign 60% funded since most campaigns that reach 60% funding go on to be fully funded.  On the other hand, if you already have a large audience and your campaign is likely to sell out quickly, offering an early-bird level can backfire. Backers get annoyed when the early-bird level sells out in 30 minutes.  Limited Edition Book Cover James L. Rubart offered a limited-edition book cover for his book. The book wasn’t scarce, but the collector’s edition cover was.  Push for a Goal Some authors create scarcity and urgency by offering a collective challenge, such as, “If everyone buys my book during the first week, we can hit the bestseller list!” YouTubers might challenge their viewers to view the newest video within the first hour after it goes live so they can hit a trending list. Live Webinars with No Replay Whenever I present to live audiences, I’m often asked for a copy of my slides or a recording of my presentation. I like to save certain information for my live presentations, so I don’t often offer recordings of my live presentations. However, have offered free live webinars with an option to purchase the replay. I think there’s something special about attending an event live.  Amazon Selling Out If Amazon sells out of your book, it certainly creates a sense of scarcity for book buyers. However, it’s not a great strategy. When people are ready to buy, they don’t want to wait. If they have to wait for Amazon to restock, they are far less likely to return to your Amazon page days later to try again. Selling out on Amazon is fun, but it’s a major inconvenience for your readers. Popularity People like to do what they see other people doing. They want social proof that they are making the best and most popular choice.  Consider your own behavior. At an amusement park, do you want to ride the roller coaster with no line or the one packed with people? Do you want to vote for a third-party candidate who aligns with your values or the candidate with the best chance of winning? If one restaurant is packed and the one next door is like a ghost town, where are you more likely to eat? Some people are more influenced by popularity than others, but everyone takes popularity into consideration when making decisions. Popularity on Display Crowdfunding Sites Patreon, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo have popularity built into their platforms. Each one publicly displays the number of backers you have. While you can hide how much money you’re making on Patreon, you can’t hide how many backers you have. That’s by design. The more patrons you have, the more credibility you have, and credibility leads to more backers. To parody an oft-quoted saying by Jesus, “To him who has patrons, more patrons will be given. But to him who has no patrons, even the patrons he thinks he has…are really just his mom.” Videos and Podcasts YouTube displays each video’s popularity by showing how many times a video has been viewed. People prefer to watch videos with lots of views. Interestingly, podcast download counts are hidden. Only I know how popular the Novel Marketing podcast is. Podcast stats are not public nor transparent as they are on other platforms. Books Social proof is demonstrated in the author world when you see a “New York Times Bestselling Author” sticker on a book cover. People are more likely to buy a book with a bestseller sticker because the book is popular, and the sticker is social proof. When I’m shopping for a book on Amazon, I care far more about the number of reviews it has than the number of stars it has. I’d rather buy a product with 100 four-star reviews than 11 five-star reviews. I want to know the product is popular with more than five people. But you don’t need to be a New York Times bestselling author to leverage the social trigger of popularity. Here are some other ideas. Show off any category or genre bestseller statuses you’ve earned. Feature endorsements from popular, famous, or credible people. Mention other books you’ve sold. Show social proof on social media. Mention the number of books in print. Mention the number of languages/countries where the book has been sold. Talk about awards your books have won. Final Thoughts Back when people went crazy for Black Friday, the discounts were large and limited, creating a sense of urgency, scarcity, and a sense of popularity since everyone was doing it. Those were the days of people fighting and franticly scrambling to get into stores.  Now that Black Friday has moved online, it’s not as scarce and urgent as it used to be. Amazon offers lightning deals for a couple of hours with only 500 units available, which is clever. Their big data tells them exactly how many units to offer so that the products sell out, but not so quickly that customers get angry. Amazon also goes out of its way to talk about how popular Black Friday is. The media often says, “This is the biggest Black Friday ever!” It’s a bit of a cheat. If inflation continues at 2% each year, every Black Friday will be the “biggest Black Friday ever” because the media never adjusts for inflation. Still, the urgency, scarcity, and perceived popularity propagated by Amazon pull people away from brick-and-mortar stores. Moreover, retail stores offer less impressive deals than they used to. The TV advertised on Black Friday isn’t actually on sale. It’s a different and cheaper model with a lower list price. This practice undermines scarcity, urgency, and popularity, and the social triggers fall like dominos, one into the other. As a result, Black Friday isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be. Now that you know more about the psychology of marketing, you can dance with how people are and not how you want them to be. That is the path to success. Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.   The post 022 Crowdfunding Psychology appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Creating a solid sales page is the key to success. In this episode, you will discover the necessary secrets for: storytelling and the value of vulnerability and for crafting a sales page that sells. Introduction This is the meat and potatoes of your Kickstarter campaign. If you do your promotion right, people will spend hundreds of hours looking at this page. A good page not only convinces them to back the project, but also to invite their friends to back the project. Storytelling and the Value of Vulnerability You’re not crowdfunding a product, but a story. Frame the value of your potential product by telling a compelling story about WHY you are creating what you are creating and WHY it will make the world better. Make you laugh Educate you Entertain you… whatever. Be willing to be honest and vulnerable. You want your audience to RELATE to you. It’s ultimately NOT your story; it’s their story. Bring them into the story. Crafting a Crowdfunding Sales Page that $ells This is the heart of your campaign. The quality of your kickstarter page will be an amplifier on all your other  efforts. Elements of a sales page: Project Image The first thing people will see on Pinterest, Facebook & Google Plus Consider paying for a logo/cover before starting your Kickstarter campaign. 99 Designs or Fiverr is cash is tight. This will pay for itself. Project Title This is the only thing people will see in a Tweet. Think about SEO Provide a Clear Benefit Category Only get to pick one so pick a child category.  This should be pretty straight forward. If you are an author pick either fiction or nonfiction on Kickstarter Pick Writing on IndieGoGo Short Blurb This is the larger font text right under the video shown within Kickstarter. 135 Characters on Kickstarter 160 Characters on Indiegogo Funding Duration The benefit of short campaigns: Intensity, Faster money Less of the sagging middle. The benefit of long campaigns: More time to raise money. Time to make adjustments and make up for mistakes. Project Location Kickstarter will show people projects near them. If you don’t live in a big city select the nearest big city. Give the answer you would if you are in a conference in another state and someone asks where you are from. Page Copy Headings Headings Headings Zoomable Tell your story in images. You can change (improve) this as you go. FAQ Testimonials from others (Video). Your credibility. (Mary showed her books.) Other places on the web where you’ve discussed your topic. (Trust symbols) A gracious, thankful tone. Risks and Challenges: Spend some time thinking about this. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Common Risks & Challenges: Launching on time Going over budget Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 021 The Anatomy of a Successful Crowdfunding Page (Deep Dive) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Today we are going to talk about email. But first, I would like to say we are not going to have an episode next week. I will be at the New Media Summit all week and won’t have a chance to record an episode. Why Email is So Important for Creators Platform Independent, if YouTube or Facebook keeps you from contacting your subscribers you need a way to tell them you’ve moved to a new platform. While your fans may not see every Facebook post or YouTube notification they will get every email if you follow the advice I will give you in this episode. Email is often the primary driver of new Patrons and Backers. For my Kickstarter campaigns, it is not uncommon for 60-80% of the backers to come from email Before we talk about email, let’s talk about how to have an excellent email newsletter, but first let’s talk a bit about respect. Respect: Spam is in the eye of the beholder. Creepy / Charming (thin line in between) Permission Tip 1 Give People A Good Reason to Subscribe The initial incentive you give someone to subscriber to your email list is called a “lead magnet.” If you are a band, give a free mp3 of one of your songs. If you are an artist, give a free wallpaper. If you are an author, give a free short story. If you are a guru, give a tip sheet or a resource guide. How to Create a Lead Magnet Tip 2 Create an Onboarding Campaign The emails that automatically drip out to your subscribers is sometimes called a drip campaign. These emails are great for introducing new subscribers to you and your work. It allows you to focus on true fans in your periodic emails.   We having an example of this for authors at the Novel Marketing podcast. Tip 3 Provide Consistent Value. Only send out emails that your fans want to read. New Book Announcements Concert in Your Area (MailChimp makes this easy) Fan Art for Your Book New Video on Youtube (if you don’t post often) Tip 4 Use MailChimp at First It’s Free Everyone uses it so tutorials are easy to find Integrates with everything Has decent onboarding features I am an affiliate and have used MailChimp for over five years. If you want to support this show, use my affiliate link. Once you have over 10,000 subscribers, there may be reasons to move to something more powerful like Drip or Convert Kit. Tip 5 Be Consistent Don’t Boost Your Frequency Without a Good Reason Don’t go dark for too long or you will hit spam traps. Tip 6 Experiment Split Test Your Subjects Emotional Headline Analyzer Tip 7 Measure Your Results Read your email campaign reports Poll Your Readers. Ask them what they want. www.SurveyMonkey.com. Tip 8 Keep it Short and Simple. Beautiful emails are more likely to go to gmails “Promotions” tab Beautiful emails get fewer clicks Beautiful emails sell fewer products. Beautiful emails are more work to make. Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 020 What Creators Need to Know About Email Marketing (Deep Dive) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Welcome to the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love. I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr., your fellow companion on the journey of making money doing the creative work you love, whether that’s video, audio, or the written word. In this episode, we’re going to talk about how to break past the Patreon plateau. If you feel like your Patreon has stalled, where new backers are being offset by canceled pledges, this episode is for you. Patreon CEO Jack Conte recently shared research during a Hang Time session, and I was there. Today, I’ll share some highlights from that research and offer some of my own insights along the way. What was the research about? Patreon analyzed campaign data to determine what successful creators did to break past plateaus. This wasn’t a manual study; it was computer-driven data analysis. While that has its pros and cons, the findings were valuable, and I’m excited to share them with you. What strategies helped creators grow their Patreon? 1. Revamp your tiers and benefits. The number one factor linked to increased patronage was updating reward tiers. Many creators are hesitant to make changes, fearing backlash, but I’ve never seen evidence that people get upset when you adjust tiers. In fact, feedback shows the opposite. People like it when you change things up based on their input. There’s a saying in business, “The system you have is perfectly designed to give you the results you’re getting.” If your reward tiers aren’t attracting new patrons, they’re doing exactly what they were built to do: not attract new patrons. Keep in mind, improving your tiers doesn’t always mean adding more content. Sometimes it means removing perks that no one values. For example, on the Novel Marketing Patreon page, we offered access to a free monthly resource. It’s great for email list building, but our patrons didn’t care about it. Track what resonates. Remove what doesn’t. Remember that some people back you just to support your work. Others are only there for the rewards. 2. Use more locked posts. The second tactic that moved the needle was increasing the number of locked posts. Locked posts are posts that are only visible to paying patrons. They are highly motivating, especially to non-patrons or lower-tier patrons who feel like they’re missing out. Since hearing this advice, I’ve increased the number of locked posts I publish, and guess what? My patronage has gone up. You can also add teaser text to locked posts. This is visible to everyone and helps create curiosity. So if only $2-and-up patrons can access the post, use the teaser to show what they’re missing. 3. Offer limited-time promotions. The third strategy, which I’ve seen work in my own experience, is offering a limited-time deal. People procrastinate, and urgency helps take action. But to be effective, the offer must be authentic and not gimmicky. One great example Jack shared was from his wife, a musician. When she launched a solo album, she offered to include the names of anyone who became a patron before the end of the month in the CD booklet. This wasn’t a gimmick because the CDs were going to press, and the deadline was real. This type of offer creates urgency and relevance. You can use the same concept by saying, “Be featured in my next album, video, or book if you become a patron by [date].” We tried this on the Novel Marketing Patreon by offering a $50 discount on our Book Launch Blueprint course to patrons. That discount was only available for a limited time, and it worked. Patronage spiked. Most people signed up to get the discount, and we’ll see how many stick around. Even if some drop off, others are likely to upgrade from the $2 to the $5 tier, which is our sweet spot. 4. Personalize your appreciation. But how do you keep patrons? Retention is a big part of breaking past a plateau. If you gain five patrons but lose four each month, your growth is slow. What helps reduce attrition? Personalized thank-you messages. Using a patron’s name in a thank-you message significantly improves retention. I learned this when I interviewed Tom from Graphtreon. I backed his Patreon before our interview, and he sent me a personal thank-you message. I assumed it was because we were about to chat, but he told me he does that for everyone. Now, I do the same. Every person who backs the Creative Funding Show on Patreon gets a personal message from me. These messages are powerful, inexpensive, and they make people feel seen and appreciated. That emotional connection increases loyalty. It also opens up conversations that help me make the show better for my core supporters. The bonus is that gratitude is good for your health. Google it. There’s plenty of science to back that up. Saying thank you makes the world a better place. 5. Copy successful creators. Jack’s final piece of advice was to look at what fast-growing creators are doing, and copy them. It’s simple, but effective. That’s exactly what we do on the Creative Funding Show. We bring on creators at all stages so you can learn from what they’re doing and apply it to your own journey. The best way to learn is by backing 10 creators at $1 each. For just $10 a month, you can get a masterclass in Patreon strategy that no course can match. Watch what they do, see what works, and adapt it to your own campaign. By implementing these five principles, you can begin to move past your own Patreon plateau, gaining new patrons and retaining the ones you already have. 6. Poll your fans to understand what they really want. The sixth suggestion from Jack Conte was simply to poll your fans. I can tell you from experience, this is incredibly powerful. Polling our audience transformed the Novel Marketing podcast. You can learn more about it in this Novel Marketing episode. We had been podcasting for years. The show was good but not great. We had better equipment, tightened up the format, and gained experience, but we weren’t seeing the kind of growth or engagement we wanted. When I ended my radio show to focus more on Novel Marketing, one of the first things we did was send out a listener survey. That feedback was a game-changer. We had assumed our audience was evenly split between those pursuing traditional publishing and those going indie. It turns out, that assumption was completely wrong. Almost none of our listeners were pursuing traditional publishing or wanted to hear about agents and publishers. But about one in five episodes was devoted to that topic. Once we realized most of our audience members were independent authors, we shifted our focus to speak directly to them. Traditional authors still listen, and they’re welcome, but we made indie authors our priority. That shift in focus caused engagement to skyrocket. It led to the energy and momentum that eventually launched our Patreon page. If you run an educational podcast or YouTube channel, don’t just ask your audience what they want. Ask them what annoys them. What are their pain points? In the Novel Marketing drip sequence, we have an email that invites readers to share their pet peeves. We want them to vent because, as Henry Ford once said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” People may not always know what they want, but they do know what’s frustrating them. As creators, we can offer solutions to those frustrations. That’s where real value is found. 7. Hold a promotional push or pledge drive. The seventh idea isn’t something Jack Conte mentioned, but it’s vital. It wasn’t part of Patreon’s research due to the limitations of their data-gathering method, but it deserves to be included in any conversation about breaking through a plateau. If someone asked me how to grow their Patreon, I would tell them to run a pledge drive. A limited-time promotional push is incredibly effective, especially when combined with urgency, scarcity, and revamped rewards. And changing your tiers gives you a natural excuse to talk about your Patreon again. If you change your rewards, you need to let people know. It’s only fair. Don’t wait until someone finds out they didn’t get what they expected. Use your podcast, email list, or social media to communicate the changes. This also helps you launch a pledge drive naturally and organically. That’s exactly what Jack Conte’s wife did with her album campaign. She had daily tweets, images, and a clear message that said, “This is your last chance to get your name in the album.” It worked like a pledge drive. A focused, time-limited campaign is far more effective than a low-level push stretched across three months. In fact, it can be more effective to use a full year’s worth of promotional energy in just one month. Public radio does this. Many nonprofits do it because it works. Related Episodes How to Get Advanced Patreon Analytics with Graphtreon How to Create Urgency to Buy Your Book (Marketing Psychology) How to Use Scarcity & Ubiquity to Make Your Book Irresistible (Marketing Psychology)     We have a YouTube Channel! Thanks to repurpose.io (affiliate link) for helping make the videos.  If you want me to review your Patreon or Kickstarter live on the show, drop me a line. Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 019 How to Break Past the Patreon Patron Plateau appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to membership sites, one is to use a 3rd party platform like Patreon, and one is to do it yourself on your own website. I want you to hear from people from both schools of thought, which is why I’ve invited Ravi Jayagopal to the show. Ravi Jayagopal is the Co-Founder of DigitalAccessPass.com, a premier membership platform for WordPress. He also hosts SubscribeMe.fm a podcast about making, marketing & monetizing your content with membership sites, online courses & subscriptions. Questions Why would someone want to host a membership site on their own website rather than using a platform like Patreon? What are some of the downsides of hosting it yourself? How do you design a membership program people want to join? What do you include with the membership? What are DOGPOO and DOSAA? Let’s Talk About Membership Models. When do you go lifetime? When do you go recurring? Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 018 How to Host Your Own Membership Site on WordPress with Ravi Jayagopal appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

In this episode, we talk about how to make money by creating informational products. I also share an example of how to do it from Novel Marketing. Thank you for your kind reviews. I was feeling very low yesterday and for some reason I stumbled across the reviews for Creative Funding Show (which I haven’t checked in months.) There were a lot of really kind reviews. I’m glad you are enjoying the show! So far, I have not been getting much mail. So it is good to know that you are out there listening. Today we are going to take a deep dive on info products. What is an info product? Ebook Audio Course Video Course The key is that it is distilled and it solves a very specific problem that your audience has. Better fit for educational creators rather than entertainment creators. How To Create an Info Product Start with your audience. What questions are they asking? We have a lot of listeners ask us about launching their books. A lot of this materials is repackaged and re-recorded from the podcast, but focused on the book launch. All the audio is new, but the lessons have been taught before, at least some of them have. We have over 50 hours of audio recorded, this course focuses on the critical info. Here was our process: We started by writing a draft of the landing page, and focused on the benefits that people would get from taking the each session, We outlined the sessions We recorded the sessions We developed the handout/homework for the session (this sometimes happened before.) Then we developed the actual landing page Got feedback from our Mastermind Group Went back and reworked the landing page. Our students are getting more than just lessons. Part of what people are paying for is the community aspect. We will create a students only Facebook group. This is where a lot of the value is going to come from. Now let’s talk about promotion. The main way we are going to promote this course is via email. Mary, Jim and I will all email our lists. We developed an editorial calendar of when the emails will go out and from who. We are also promoting it on the Novel Marketing podcast Novel Marketing Patrons save $50 on the course. This encourages people to sign up as patrons. Example Episode from Novel Marketing   Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 017 Creative Funding With Info Products (Deep Dive) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

This is the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love. I’m your host, Thomas Umstattd, Jr., and with me again is Mary Demuth. She’s an international speaker and podcaster, a novelist of both fiction and nonfiction, and has published over 35 books. Her latest, The Seven Deadly Friendships, is coming out in about a month. Mary loves to help people re-story their lives. She lives in Texas with her husband and is a mom of three. When Mary was on the show last time, we talked about her Patreon and brainstormed ways to improve it. After the episode, we kept brainstorming, and I joked that once she doubled her revenue, we should have her back on the show. Well, she contacted me and said, “Hey, I doubled my revenue!” So true to my word, I’ve invited her back. What is “Pray Every Day”? Thomas: Tell us a little bit about your podcast. Mary: I have a podcast called Pray Every Day, where I pray for people based on scripture. I usually go through books of the Bible in order, like Philippians, James, Psalm 119, and the Sermon on the Mount. In my next episodes, I’ll be praying through relational verses from The Seven Deadly Friendships. So if you’ve got some broken relationships and would like some prayer, you can check it out. What did Mary’s Patreon look like before the changes we brainstormed? Thomas: What were you doing on Patreon before our last interview? Mary: I had shared my Patreon with my email list and got a few subscribers that way. These were diehard fans who supported me no matter what, which was really humbling and sweet. At that point, I only had one reward level. Anyone giving over $5 a month would receive an original art piece from me each month. People loved it because they had already asked for it in the past. And I enjoyed doing it; it wasn’t a burden at all. That’s how it started, but we’ve added more levels since then. I also started promoting it more on the podcast, and that’s when I saw real change. What difference does a big promotional push make? Thomas: One thing we talked about was borrowing a strategy from CBS or NPR and having a focused pledge drive instead of a constant slow drumbeat. CBS, for example, does an intense pledge drive once or twice a year. Wikipedia does the same around Christmas. They don’t ask for money every time you visit, just during that one period. You tried something like this. Tell us what happened. Mary: Initially, I sent it out to my list and did a big push. That brought in the first wave of patrons. But then I started doing what you call the “drumbeat” of mentioning it regularly. Every few days, I’d see another $1, $5, $10, or $20 come in. I also added several new levels in addition to the Art Level. One was called “The Brick.” I created a graphic that looked like a wall of bricks, similar to the donor bricks you see at libraries. Anyone who sponsors the podcast gets their name on a brick, and that wall appears in all show notes and on every podcast episode. It’s like advertising year-round. Then I followed your advice and added an exclusive audio podcast for $20-level patrons. I don’t have a ton of patrons at that level, but I’m grateful for the ones who are there. I record a casual, heartfelt update about what’s going on in my life, what I’ve learned, and answered prayers. It’s about 15 to 20 minutes long each month. Why offer higher-level Patreon tiers? Thomas: One thing Bremner Morris from Patreon mentioned is that people want to give at higher levels. A common mistake creators make is only offering low-tier options. We saw this on Novel Marketing. Our highest level was $8, and someone still donated $20. That told us we needed a $20 level. People want to give more, and we should make that possible with appropriate rewards. When I pulled your Graphtreon reports (you can see public stats at graphtreon.com), I could see that your revenue stayed flat for five or six months. Then suddenly, it shot up. You went from 20 to nearly 60 patrons, almost tripling your number of patrons. Your revenue is up 481% since October. Your earnings per patron are up over 20%, and your total number of patrons is up 383%. That’s massive growth. And what you’ve done is very reproducible. How did you create sustainable reward tiers? Thomas: You expanded your offerings in a smart way. For example, the digital brick wall isn’t a lot of work. You only update it monthly. Mary: Right. Otherwise, it would get chaotic. When someone joins, I email them and say, “Thanks! I’ll add you to the brick at the beginning of next month.” I usually include a free painting download as a bonus. I try to give more than they expect. Thomas: That’s smart. Patreon doesn’t charge new patrons right away. They’re only charged at the end or beginning of the month, so delaying the reward works well. It also prevents abuse. People could sign up, grab the perks, and cancel before being charged. Your approach follows good reward design because it’s simple and scalable. Sending a unique piece of art to each person doesn’t scale. But creating one piece of art and sharing it with many patrons does. Same with the bonus podcast. It’s special now with just a few listeners, but you could easily handle more higher-tier patrons without adding extra work. How did you implement the funding drive idea? Thomas: Another great move was your big funding push in July. Normally, you don’t talk about Patreon much on the podcast, but that month, you mentioned it every day and gave a personal shout-out to 30 different patrons by name. That’s powerful. People love hearing their name on a podcast. It creates loyalty. Once someone hears their name, it’s harder for them to cancel because they feel connected. These were all really smart strategies. Your growth hasn’t plateaued yet. You might hit $1,000 soon, or even $1,500. You’re still climbing. The beauty of Patreon is that as your audience grows and you apply these principles to better monetize that audience, your income can keep increasing. What else have you changed on Patreon? Thomas: What else have you done with your Patreon that’s changed in the last few months? Mary: Those are the main things. Occasionally, I mention Patreon on social media, and it’s linked on every post and on my website. But the most effective tactic has been consistently mentioning it to the people who actually listen to the podcast. Is it okay to ask for support to pay yourself for your time? Mary: I’m hoping to start providing transcripts for Pray Every Day. Our mutual friend Tricia Goyer, who is now one of my patrons and an enthusiastic fan of the podcast, suggested it, and I thought it was genius. Of course, I’ll have to pay for transcription. However, I struggle to ask for money for myself. I’m comfortable asking for funds to cover production costs or services like transcription. But is it okay to ask for money to compensate myself for my own time? For example, if it costs me $800 a month for transcription and other services, is it acceptable to set a goal of $1,500 to help pay for my time as well? Thomas: Absolutely. Many Patreon pages include a $1 tier with no reward, just to say, “Hey, I support what you’re doing.” It’s important to remember that people on Patreon often aren’t backing you for the rewards. Some love the exclusive content or goodies, but many just want to support your work. They want to make sure you can eat, pay rent, and keep creating. If you look at creators pulling in $50,000 or $75,000 a month, that’s far more than their production expenses. They’re funding their lives, and that’s okay. Phil DeFranco, for example, earns something like $100,000 to $150,000 a month on Patreon. He also has a big team and other income streams, but that Patreon income helps cover payroll. A million dollars a year is nothing to sneeze at. Transcripts are expensive, especially if you want quality. Even if you use automated services like Sonix (which has partnered with Patreon), you still need to clean them up. It’s not just the little words; the problem is when it gets a noun wrong. If it says “pears” instead of “bears,” the whole sentence becomes confusing. It’s easy but time-consuming to fix. Why offer transcripts at all? Thomas: The upside of transcripts is that they open up your podcast to people who don’t listen. Listening is a skill, and not everyone prefers audio. Some people read much faster and find listening tedious. My wife is like that; she can glance at a page and take it all in, but she finds listening slow and frustrating. There are many others like her, especially among writers. Transcripts also help with SEO. Google doesn’t usually transcribe podcasts on its own because it’s too expensive in terms of computing power. The only way Google knows what your episode is about is if you provide the transcription. That makes your podcast page more searchable and indexable. A page with just a play button looks empty to Google. That said, transcription alone won’t magically make your page rise in Google search results, but it does help make your site more index-worthy. One idea is to set transcription as a goal on Patreon. For example: “Once we hit $1,000 a month, transcripts will be unlocked.” The challenge is that the people who love your podcast right now are already happy listening and may not care about transcripts. The people who prefer to read and would care aren’t hearing your message. So it’s a communication challenge. Fortunately, you have a blog, books, an email list, and a social media presence, which gives you other ways to reach potential supporters. Is it okay to raise money to hire help? Mary: I think this ties into something more philosophical. For years, I’ve done everything myself. A couple of weeks ago, I was speaking to about 150 writers, and someone asked, “Who handles this or that in your business?” I had to say, “You’re looking at her.” There’s value in raising money through Patreon to hire help for the time-consuming tasks that take me away from my deeper mission. I’d love to get to the point where I’m not bogged down by the little details and can focus on the bigger picture. Thomas: You’re right at the tipping point in your career. As you grow, it becomes easier to afford help. But hiring isn’t a silver bullet. You still have to manage people and make sure things get done right. That’s a job in itself. Still, there’s a powerful principle at work here. When you delegate your weaknesses, you can focus on your strengths. That leads to more creativity and productivity. Phil DeFranco doesn’t worry about cameras anymore because he has a team. Early on, he was both in front of and behind the camera. That’s tough. The same is true with podcasting. Post-production, transcription, and graphics all take time and people. As you get more patrons, you’ll be able to outsource that work. I suspect you’ll double your Patreon again soon. Maybe once you hit $2,000 or $2,500, we’ll have you back on the show for a “Mary DeMuth journey.” I really believe you’re going to get there. Your consistency and connection with your audience are going to pay off. The growth may not be a straight line, but it will trend upward. Do small tweaks really make a difference? Mary: I hope that’s encouraging for your listeners. These weren’t big hacks or major overhauls. Just small, consistent tweaks that made a huge difference. For example, I have an Etsy shop for my watercolor art because readers asked for it. The other day, I posted a piece on Instagram and got $100 worth of orders. I realized that Instagram works well for visual items. You start to learn which social platforms work best for which kinds of outreach, whether it’s patronage or podcast promotion. It’s been an interesting journey, and I’m always learning something new. Thomas: It’s about figuring out which platforms work best for your audience. Some audiences aren’t on YouTube or Pinterest or Instagram. Others are thriving there. Pro tip: Don’t try to be on every platform. Focus on what works for you and lean into that. Remember, you can follow creators for free on Patreon. Just click the Follow button to get free updates. Even better, support them with a dollar or more. As I said in our last episode, spending $10 to back 10 different creators is a fantastic education in how Patreon works. But even following is helpful. If you want to watch Mary’s journey from $200 to $2,500 on Patreon, I highly recommend following her. I feature her often on the show as a test case. If you want to see cutting-edge Patreon strategies in action, follow Pray Every Day on Patreon. Connect with Mary De Muth MaryDeMuth.com Pray Every Day Patreon Mary DeMuth is an international speaker and podcaster, and she’s the novelist and nonfiction author of over thirty-five books, including the latest: The Seven Deadly Friendships (Harvest House Publishers 2018). She loves to help people re-story their lives. She lives in Texas with her husband of 28 years and is the mom to three adult children. Find out more at marydemuth.com. Mary’s Patreon Mary’s Instagram Mary’s Website Mary’s Graphteon Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 016 How Mary DeMuth Doubled Her Patreon Backing in 4 months appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

The Creative Funding Show is a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love. I’m your host Thomas Umstattd Jr., and with me today is Steve Olsher,  who’s known for helping individuals and corporations get exceptionally clear on the one thing they were created to do. His no-holds-barred approach to life and business helps his clients achieve massive profitability while leading lives of purpose and contribution. He also runs the New Media Summit and hosts Reinvention Radio. Is podcasting just a fad? Thomas: You have a podcast, and the New Media Summit is specifically for podcasters. What would you say to people who think podcasting is just a fad? Steve: I think there was a time when people questioned whether podcasting had staying power. It started in basements, so to speak, and some folks weren’t sure it would go mainstream. But that’s no longer the case. Now that Wi-Fi is standard in cars, Apple CarPlay and Google CarPlay are more prevalent, and NPR and other major media outlets have podcast momentum, there’s no way podcasting is still a fad. It’s growing rapidly. In fact, I recently heard that, for the first time, podcast listenership has surpassed satellite radio, which is huge. That happened in the first quarter of 2018. So yes, podcasting is alive and well, and the fear that it’s a passing trend is behind us. Thomas: I come from the terrestrial radio world. I used to host a radio show, and people have been predicting the death of radio for over 60 years. TV was supposed to kill it. Then 8-tracks and then cassette tapes. Yet radio’s still around. If radio can last, I think podcasting has an even longer road ahead. Steve: I agree. In fact, I think podcasting may eventually lead to radio’s final demise. Having done interviews on both platforms for 20 years, I can say that most radio goes unheard, while most podcasts are actively chosen by listeners. Podcasting is a pull medium. People raise their hands and say, “I want that.” Nearly 100% of podcasts are listened to. It’s the opposite of traditional radio. Why is podcasting better for measurement? Thomas: There’s a reason I now have several podcasts and no longer do radio. Coming from the marketing world, I was used to measuring everything. With radio, you have no idea how many people are listening. They use clumsy methods like surveys or tracking devices, but it’s not precise. With podcasting, you get much better data. YouTube is even more advanced. You can see exactly which second someone stopped watching. That transparency helps creators adapt more quickly to what their audience wants and improve their content. Steve: I completely agree. We still have room to grow in podcasting when it comes to tracking and metrics. Some platforms are trying to improve that, but generally, when someone downloads your show, you don’t really know who they are. That’s one of the few downsides. Still, it’s far ahead of radio in terms of engagement and feedback. Thomas: It’s one of the last anonymous things you can do online. A website knows everything about you, but when you download a podcast episode, all the host knows is your device type, app, and maybe a few more details. That’s it. Do you need your own podcast to profit from podcasting? Thomas: Let’s talk about the money side. Do people need to have their own podcast to make money from podcasting? Steve: Not at all. We actually have a course called Profiting from Podcasts that focuses on monetizing the guest side of the equation. You can absolutely make money as a guest without having your own show. That said, I’m a big advocate of starting your own podcast. As you get clearer about your topic of influence (that one area where you’re an expert and passionate) you’ll get better at articulating your message. The more shows you guest on, the more refined your message becomes. For example, if you want to pitch our show, Reinvention Radio, which I’ve been doing since 2009 (and more consistently since 2015), you have to clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and the value you bring. That kind of clarity appeals to a specific group of people who are waiting for your expertise. So yes, you can monetize your guest appearances, but many people who start as guests end up launching their own shows once they realize the potential and find their voice. Thomas: It’s a great way to get started without investing in hosting, equipment, or building a website. For authors or YouTubers, guesting on podcasts is a fantastic way to promote a book. As a listener, I buy a lot of books I hear about on podcasts, but only if there’s an audiobook. I’m not going to listen to your podcast and then read your book with my eyes. I want to listen to it on Audible. Podcast interviews can be very effective for building your platform and growing your audience. Each podcast has its own community. Having your own podcast creates deep connections. People who listen regularly hear your voice for hours, but being a guest on many different shows gives you a much wider reach. What makes podcasting so effective? Steve: That’s exactly right. Because podcasting is a pull medium, listeners are actively choosing your content. No one is forcing it on them. They’re raising their hand and saying, “I want that.” It’s similar to email marketing, where you have to consider open rates. Most emails are opened by only 10 to 20% of recipients. But podcasting is like having a 100% open rate, and even better, a 100% click-through rate. Listeners aren’t just opening something; they’re consuming the entire episode. That creates a very different relationship between the podcaster and the audience. What’s the difference between push and pull media? Thomas: Can you explain the difference between push and pull media? Those were popular terms a few years ago, and they’re still important, but I don’t hear people using them as much anymore. Steve: Pull media includes things like podcasts, YouTube, and blogs. The consumer chooses what they want to consume, when they want to consume it, and on their preferred device. They “pull” it from you. Push media, on the other hand, includes things like radio, TV, and newspapers. Listeners don’t choose what’s being broadcast. They either consume it or they don’t. The content is pushed out to everyone, whether they want it or not. So with pull media, you have an opt-in experience. With push media, it’s more hit or miss. You’re sending the same message to a mass audience and hoping it resonates with some of them. What makes push media less effective than pull media? Thomas: The ultimate example of push media is something like direct mail or a billboard. Not only do you not control the content, but you don’t even control whether you receive it. It’s a more intrusive form of communication and harder to use persuasively. Pull media takes longer to grow because people have to discover and choose it, but it’s much more effective in the long run. How do you get booked as a podcast guest? Steve: It starts with understanding the value you bring. Like push versus pull media, podcasting isn’t one-size-fits-all. Your message will naturally resonate more with certain audiences. So first, get really clear on what you talk about and what your topic of influence is. Make sure you can speak in sound bites. Understand the needs of your audience. Have a system or structure you can share during interviews that provides real value. Know who you are, what you do, and how you help people. Then find relevant shows. One of the easiest ways to do that is to identify the one- to four-word phrase that defines your area of expertise or your topic of influence, and use that as a keyword to search for shows that already focus on that subject. Listen to those shows. Make sure they do interviews and that you’d enjoy being on the show. You want to pitch the right shows, and that means doing a little research. Thomas: As someone who books a lot of guests, I always ask, “Why should I book you? Why would you be interesting to my audience?” A podcast feed is an act of trust. Listeners get every episode. If they get a couple of boring ones, they’re tempted to unsubscribe. There are dozens of other podcasts on nearly every topic. When we started Novel Marketing back in 2013, we were the only podcast focused on fiction marketing. Now there are genre-specific marketing podcasts, so it’s gotten very niche. We protect that trust. I’m always asking, “Is this guest experienced? Will this be interesting?” If you can clearly articulate your value, it makes me far more likely to book you. Why is it a privilege to be a podcast guest? Steve: From the guest’s perspective, being invited onto a podcast is a privilege. It’s a relationship you need to honor. The host may have spent years building trust with that audience. To be handed the microphone and invited to speak to that audience is an honor. Unfortunately, some people don’t see it that way, and that catches up with them. If you want to be a guest, approach it with humility and respect. Thomas: At the very least, if you’re just getting started, listen to the podcast you’re pitching. Make sure you’re a good fit. When I do pitch myself to other shows, it’s only after listening and thinking, “This topic fits well with what they’re doing.” It’s also about respecting that trust between the host and their audience. Steve: Exactly. Sure, you could probably talk in a way that benefits any audience. Most smart people can. But if it’s the right message and the wrong audience, it still won’t land well in the long run. How do you maximize your time as a guest? Thomas: Once you start getting booked, maybe on some smaller shows to get practice, how do you make the most of that time? You obviously don’t want to spend the whole interview pitching. That’s a fast way to get cut from the episode. So what’s the sweet spot? Steve: I’ve been a guest on over 500 shows in the past three years, and I also host my own podcast. To me, it’s all about teaching and adding value. Focus on giving listeners something they can walk away with. I suggest dedicating 98% of the interview to sharing value like strategies, tips, and frameworks. Only 1 to 2% should be self-promotion or calls to action. Unfortunately, many guests don’t follow that 98/2 rule. They spend too much time being self-serving or veering off-topic. But if you focus on teaching, the audience will want to learn more from you. Thomas: I listen to over 50 podcasts, and if a guest starts pitching too early or too often, I skip ahead or stop listening altogether. They lose the opportunity to make an impact. One of our best guests on Novel Marketing created a free guide specifically for our audience. It tied directly to the episode’s topic. She mentioned it once or twice, gave the link, and that was it. People flooded her with signups. She didn’t pitch a product; she offered value in exchange for an email address, which started a relationship. It was powerful and impressive. I’ll admit, when I’m a guest, I don’t prepare that thoroughly. Steve: The more shows you do, the easier it gets, and the more tempted you are to get lazy. But it’s a good reminder for me, too. I should treat each interview like it’s my first and prep accordingly. How do you simplify podcast scheduling? Thomas: When you said you did 500 podcast interviews in the last couple of years, some people fell out of their seats. They’re wondering how on earth you schedule that many shows? Having booked you myself, I know your secret. I use Calendly to schedule guests for this show, but you were the first guest I’ve had who had his own Calendly link for booking interview times. I thought, “Wow, this is cool.” So what is Calendly, and how do you use it to keep all your interviews from colliding? Steve: Calendly.com is a tool that connects with your calendar and allows people to book time with you. I have several options for 20-minute calls for coaching clients and hour-long slots for interviews. It syncs with my calendar, and I try to schedule everything on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Coordinating schedules without a tool like this can be a nightmare. I use Calendly both for private clients and for podcast hosts to book time with me, usually within those three days. Thomas: It’s amazing. I love Calendly because when someone books a slot, it appears on my Google Calendar and blocks that time. I can set buffer times before and after appointments, and if I add anything manually to my calendar, it blocks that off in Calendly too. This prevents double-booking, and I can send the same link to a dozen people without worrying about overlap. Compare that to the old-fashioned way of emailing back and forth, saying, “Can you do 2:00 on Tuesday?” “No, how about 4:00 on Thursday?” Calendly turns a 15-minute email exchange into a 30-second interaction. I’ve even connected Calendly with TextExpander, so I can type “-coffee” and instantly send a personalized link for coffee meetings. It’s one of the best quality-of-life tools I use. We’re not sponsored by Calendly; I’m just a fan. What is a joint venture? Thomas: I want to switch gears and talk about joint ventures. This is one of the most effective ways podcasters and YouTubers can monetize. What is a joint venture, and how would a creator get into one? Steve: “Joint venture” can mean a lot of different things to different people. I define it as a partnership where someone with an audience (a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, or email list) introduces that audience to a product, program, or service they believe in. If someone from that audience buys the product, the promoter earns a commission. For example, when we launched Profiting from Podcasts in April 2018, most of our sales came through joint venture partners promoting our program to their audiences. In that two-week window, we added about 22,000 subscribers to our list and had a few hundred enrollments in the training. Around 60% of those sales paid commissions to partners. Thomas: I recently did a joint venture for K-lytics, which is a Kindle analytics tool that helps indie authors find popular but less competitive Amazon categories. It’s super niche, but very relevant to our Novel Marketing audience. We mentioned it on the podcast, sent a couple of emails, and hosted a webinar. That combination was incredibly effective. In this case, I was on the promotional side, helping spread the word. You were the creator, partnering with others to promote your program. It was a win-win. Often, the people who are great at creating products don’t have large audiences, and the people who’ve built audiences don’t have time to create high-quality products. So joint ventures are a perfect fit. But like you said, it has to be something valuable to your audience. You can’t just think, “Mattresses are high-margin. Everyone sleeps. I should promote mattresses.” That won’t work unless you have a sleep podcast! Steve: I work both sides of that coin. I create products for others to promote, but I also promote offerings I think will benefit my audience. I know I’m not the solution to every problem, so if I come across something that is, I’ll share it. How can creators find joint venture partners? Thomas: Many of our listeners are YouTubers. Joint ventures could be a great opportunity even if they don’t have a podcast. So how do creators find joint venture partners? Steve: It’s a bit of a tight-knit world. Some call it “incestuous” because many people in the affiliate marketing space promote one another. John promotes Jay, Jay promotes Sally, Sally promotes John, but it’s in a good way. It’s a rising tide that lifts all boats. To find products or services worth promoting, start with your own email inbox. You’ve probably received emails promoting someone else’s offer. That’s one way to identify opportunities. You can also check affiliate marketplaces. ShareASale and ClickBank are good examples. These platforms offer hundreds of affiliate programs. But unless affiliate marketing is already part of your revenue model, that may not be the best fit. The best and fastest way to find solid joint venture partners is to talk to your peers. Ask them, “What products or services are you promoting that are producing good results?” That peer-to-peer recommendation is often more valuable than anything you’ll find in a directory. Why are in-person relationships so valuable for joint ventures? Thomas: That was a very humble answer, but let me tell our listeners the real secret to how top people do it: they build in-person relationships at conferences. That leads us perfectly into your event, the New Media Summit. I appreciate that you didn’t try to promote your summit, but I will say that most of the joint ventures I’ve done started from relationships I formed at conferences. Sometimes I meet someone who introduces me to someone else, and we form a mastermind group, which leads to referrals. Let’s be honest, there are some really sketchy people in the joint venture world. They don’t have a good product, they can’t sell it on their own, and they’re just looking to borrow your credibility. The best way to protect yourself is to meet people in real life or have someone you trust vouch for them. Someone who can say, “Yeah, Joe’s product is great, and my audience loved it.” If you are going to use affiliate marketplaces like ShareASale, you really need to go through the product yourself or do your due diligence. Never violate the trust of your audience. That’s your most valuable asset. What is the New Media Summit? Steve: You’re absolutely right. The best way to develop real relationships is to meet people in person. Everyone I promote is someone I know personally. There’s not a single person I introduce to my email list that I don’t know, like, and vouch for. In most cases, I’m good friends with them. I believe in them and in their offerings. The New Media Summit is a great place to meet awesome people from all over the world. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s a unique event. We bring in 40 top podcasters and give a relatively small group of 150 attendees the opportunity to learn from them, share meals, hang out, even dance together. The highlight is that every attendee gets to pitch the podcasters directly. You introduce who you are and what you do, and if it’s a good fit, you can literally get booked on the spot. Over the course of a few days, people really get to know each other. Since launching the event in 2017, I’ve had the privilege of hearing so many amazing stories from attendees. People share in vulnerable and inspiring ways that you wouldn’t expect in a public forum. It creates an extraordinary bond. We foster an environment of authenticity and transparency. We want attendees to feel comfortable being themselves, sharing what they know, and making real connections with each other and the podcasters as well. That kind of realness is exactly what podcasters look for in their guests. Thomas: The New Media Summit isn’t the only conference where you can meet people, but it is one of the only conferences where you can meet me. I’ll be there with the specific goal of booking guests for this show and for my other podcasts. I’m on a bit of a podcast-creation binge right now, so I may have more by the time we get there. A simple way to start building relationships is to attend local meetup groups on your topic. You can find those at meetup.com. Connect with Steve Olsher Steve Olsher Courses Reinvention Radio on Apple Podcasts Reinvention Radio on Spotify Steve Olsher is famous for helping individuals and corporations become exceptionally clear on their WHAT – that is, the ONE thing they were created to do – his practical, no-holds-barred approach to life and business propels his clients and presentation attendees towards achieving massive profitability while cultivating lives of purpose, conviction, and contribution. Links: ShareASale ClickBank Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 015 Profiting from Podcasting With Steve Olsher appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

In today’s episode, I’m going to take a deep dive on Patreon and Email. Why this is important. For the Novel Marketing Patreon, there are several rewards that we want patrons to get automatically. The biggest is a series of coupon codes that give them discounts on our courses and plugins. Right now we send these emails by hand and that means there is sometimes a long delay from when someone signs up and when they get the email. You would think there is a way in Patreon to craft a custom thank you email that would have all this information, but there is not. That said it can be done and I will walk you through how to do it in this episode. The other reason this is important is that it gets your patrons out of Patreon and into your email app. That way if something happened to Patreon or you wanted to move away for some reason, you have all your subscribers in a place you control. Also, it is nice to be able to send out emails to all your patrons. TL;DR The short version is you setup a Zapier Zap with a Patreon “New Patron” trigger that triggers a MailChimp action to add the patron as a subscriber. Then you create a MailChimp onboarding campaign that has the welcome email. If that didn’t make sense to you, don’t worry I will walk you through the process step by step.   Step 1 Sign Up for Zapier Zapier is a tool used for connecting online services. It has a free forever plan which is all we will need for this. Sign Up for Zapier (Free) How Zapier Works: A “trigger” in one app can create an “Action” in another app. Right now Patreon has 3 triggers New Pledge Updated Pledge Delete Pledge There are thousands of Action apps. For instance, you can setup Twitter as an action so that as soon as someone becomes a Patron, you send a Tweet thanking that person. Zapier has some built-in actions and can send out emails itself, so you could skip all the following steps if you don’t care about building an email list in MailChimp.   Step 2 Sign Up For MailChimp I am going to use MailChimp as my example in this episode because it is the most popular app. You can do this with nearly any other email service like ConvertKit, Drip, or Active Campaign. MailChimp is the most popular email marketing platform on the internet. MailChimp is free up to 2,000 subscribers. After that, it is on the cheap side of the platforms. It’s not the cheapest or the most powerful but it is a solid option for a lot of people. Sign up for MailChimp (Affiliate Link) There are many tutorial videos to help you with signing up for MailChimp, and there is a good chance you already have a MailChimp account so I won’t spend too much time on it here. Here is a guide on How to Sign up For a MailChimp Account. Step 3 Create a “Zap” between Patreon and MailChimp To start this step, the easiest thing to do is click the link in the show notes that will take you to the specific Patreon to MailChimp recipe in Zapier. At that point, you will just follow the steps.   In short, you will verify your Patreon account and Verify your MailChimp account. Patreon to MailChimp Zapier Recipe Tips: You want Patreon to be your “trigger app” You want MailChimp to be your “Action” Step 3.5 (Optional) Create a “Patrons” Group in MailChimp Since we already use MailChimp with Novel Marketing, I needed to create a Patrons only group so that our regular subscribers would not get the “thank you” email. Here is a guide on How to Create a Group in MailChimp. Once you create the group, you will want to make sure your Zap adds new subscribers to that group specifically. Step 4 Create a MailChimp Automation Email Now we want to create the email we want MailChimp to send out automatically. I’ll have a link in the show notes to MailChimp’s help article on how to create an email automation. Basically, you create this email the same way you would create any other email you just select automation instead of a simple email. Then you pick the trigger which will either be “added to the list” if you are starting from scratch or “subscriber activity added to a group” if you are using my group method. Tips: Keep it simple. No fancy graphics Make sure the from name and email are recognizable. Have it send immediately after the trigger. Here is a guide on How to Create an Automated Welcome Email in MailChimp Step 5 Write Additional Drip Emails (Optional) Now that you have created your first automated email, you can setup additional emails to come out after a period of time that you set up. This could be useful if you have a lot of complicated rewards that need explaining. Perhaps each day they get an email explaining each reward. Step 6 Setup An Auto Unsubscribe Zap (Optional) Zapier can also automatically unsubscribe people from a MailChimp list or Group if they stop being a patron. This is nearly the same steps as in step 3 but you want your trigger to be “Delete Pledge” and your action to be “Unsubscribe Email.” Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 014 How to Email Patrons a Thank You Automatically appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

This is the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love. I’m Thomas Umstattd, Jr., and with me today is Bryan Cohen, the dashingly handsome co-host of the Sell More Books Show. Bryan helps authors sell more books and make more money by helping them write better book descriptions and market their books more effectively. His podcast is one of the most popular in the publishing world. Thomas: Bryan, you’ve been on Patreon for almost two years now, so why did you start the Sell More Books Show? Bryan: It was at a time when I really wanted to use some of my skills that weren’t being used in my book writing. I have a background in theater, improv, and comedy, and I love connecting with people through audio. I had done voiceover and video work before, but I didn’t have an outlet for it. The story of the show is that Jim Kukral, my co-host, was looking for someone to join him. I barely knew him, but I saw his posts on social media. I knew he had an audience from his Author Marketing Club service, so I said, “Hey, I’d be interested.” We had a short interview, and I came up with the idea for the format of delivering the news. Lo and behold, we’re now at episode 223. We’ve never missed a week. Sometimes one of us takes a break, but the show itself has run for 223 consecutive weeks. Why did you focus on indie publishing? Thomas: Your news-and-commentary format could work well in so many other industries. There are a lot of political news podcasts, but not many focused on news in specific professional niches. Yet there are hundreds of industries that could support vibrant, profitable shows like yours. You do a great job covering publishing news, especially indie publishing. Why did you decide to focus on indie authors? Bryan: Part of it was that Jim and I both had more experience in the indie world. While Jim had a traditionally published book, he didn’t have a great experience with it, and that perspective influenced our early episodes. I’ve never been traditionally published. So it was really “podcast what you know.” Indie publishing was our world. Our show became a niche within a niche. It was about indie publishing for people who actually want to know what’s going on. That hyper-focus has been great for our businesses. Plus, having to report on industry news each week keeps us constantly learning. How does the podcast support your business? Thomas: Let’s talk business. You use your podcast to promote what you do. Walk us through how that works. Bryan: We had been podcasting for about a year when I launched my main business in May 2015, which is a done-for-you book description service called Best Page Forward. At the time, I didn’t have much of an email list. My only real audience was the podcast, so I promoted the business there. We didn’t do a hard pitch. I just explained what it was and sent details to our podcast email list, which was maybe up to a thousand people. In the first 60 days, I had over 100 orders. Our listeners immediately said, “Yes, this is what I need. I hate writing book descriptions.” Since then, we’ve used the podcast to promote other services, webinars, and sales. We even launched a live conference based on the podcast. Thomas: That’s such a smart approach. Instead of building a product and then looking for an audience, you built the audience first, then asked, “What do these people need?” For example, a lot of authors would rather write a whole new book than write a two-paragraph sales pitch for the one they’ve already written, so you created a service to solve that problem. When your audience is willing to fly in to meet you in person at a live conference, you know you’ve built something real. Those in-person events really strengthen the community. Bryan: Absolutely. It deepens the relationship. When listeners hear your voice, they already feel like they know you. Podcasting is powerful like that. But then they meet you in person, shake your hand, and have a drink with you. That takes it to another level. These are your potential “true fans,” that people always talk about. How do you get listeners to comment? Thomas: Podcasting is just so intimate. Unlike YouTube, it’s often created and consumed in solitude. It’s someone’s voice in your ears while you’re driving or working out. It forms a bond. But podcasts don’t get a lot of comments. Listeners tend to move on after an episode, and they’re not always in a place to engage. Yet you’ve done something special. Your podcast has one of the most active comment sections I’ve seen. How do you get people to engage like that? Bryan: We’re really proud of that. I talked with Joanna Penn, and she said she was a bit jealous of our engagement. She actually adapted her podcast and made a whole Twitter campaign based on what we do. Each week, we ask a “question of the week” related to one of our top news stories. It’s always an open-ended question. We invite listeners to leave a comment with their response. What’s fun is that people don’t just reply; they also respond to each other. It’s turned into a community. We learn a lot from the comments, too. We also offer a giveaway. Every week, we do a random drawing from those who comment. It’s usually for something we already sell, so it’s a natural and effective cross-promotion. Thomas: It’s a smart system. The giveaway gives you an easy way to promote something you’re already doing, and the question of the week sparks real conversation. YouTubers often use a similar tactic. They’ll start with a question of the day to get comments going. Sometimes they set guidelines like “no spoilers” to manage the discussion. It’s fascinating to see how creators build engagement, and I think you’ve done an excellent job. Why did you start using Patreon? Thomas: In terms of how you’re monetizing the podcast, you’re creating products, services, and events for your listeners, but you’re also on Patreon. In fact, you’ve been on Patreon for over three years, so you were early to the Patreon bandwagon. Why did you start using Patreon? Bryan: At first, we really just wanted to dip our toes in the water. It was a new service at the time. I like to refer to it as “ongoing Kickstarter.” We wanted to see if we could give some small rewards to our listeners and use that to help fund the show. Probably 80 to 90% of the money we make from Patreon goes right back into the show. It helps us gather content every week. We pay a contractor to help us find the news and tips. It’s been really helpful in covering the costs of the show, and it proved that if we offered rewards, people would contribute. Why did you choose the per-episode model? Thomas: You picked a per-episode model. There are two ways to use Patreon: per month or per episode. What was your thinking behind choosing per episode? Bryan: From a business standpoint, if you have a small amount coming in per episode and you release four episodes a month, it adds up. We’ve had people paying $3 per episode over the course of a year, and it ends up being a really nice amount. People are happy to pay it, and when everyone contributes together, it becomes substantial. What are your Patreon reward tiers? Thomas: You’ve kept your tiers simple with a $1 tier and a $3 tier. What do you offer in the $1 tier? Bryan: In the $1 tier, authors get their book listed on our website. After they’ve been a patron for six months, we also send them a couple of free courses. We offer the additional benefits to encourage retention and give people a reason to stay with us on Patreon. Thomas: How do you manage that? How do you know when someone has been a patron for six months? Bryan: We go by total dollar amount. We check our Patreon account regularly. For example, if someone is contributing $1 per episode, that’s about $4 a month. After six months, they’ve contributed roughly $24. When we see that they’ve passed that amount, we send them the reward. Sometimes we batch it and send it to everyone who’s crossed that threshold. It’s very manageable. Thomas: So technically, someone could donate more and reach that threshold faster. There’s no way for you to know if they’ve gamed the system, but I guess it doesn’t really matter, since the goal is that they put in a certain number of dollars. Bryan: Yeah, we don’t mind if people game the system by paying more. That’s not really a problem. Thomas: Gaming the system by giving you more money isn’t really a bug. It’s a feature. Bryan: Exactly. We win that game. What’s included in the $3 tier? Thomas: Your next level is $3 per episode. What’s included at that tier? Bryan: This is the fun one. We actually read their book description aloud on the show and link to it in our show notes. People love hearing their books promoted on the podcast. This was Jim’s idea, and I think it was his best idea for the Sell More Books Show. People really wanted to hear their books mentioned and shared. We’ve received great feedback. In addition to everything from the $1 level, $3 patrons also get the courses a little earlier. After they’ve been members for a certain amount of time, they get even more perks, including a custom book description from Best Page Forward, a membership to Author Marketing Club, and so on. They get the best of everything at that level. Thomas: You also do a great job of motivating people to stay members, because a lot of these rewards are time-based. I’ve heard that tip from folks at Patreon, so it’s a pro tip. When you look at the reward structures used by people who work at Patreon, many of them are time-based, like yours. Patreon is even working on features that will make time-based reward delivery more automatic. Soon, you might be able to set up scripts to email rewards once someone hits a milestone. That would save you the manual work. Why don’t you have a premium, higher-tier level? Bryan: As you’ve pointed out before, this isn’t our primary focus. We’ve shifted a lot of our focus to our live event in Chicago, which we now do annually. We could definitely add a couple more bells and whistles, but it’s important to choose a focus when monetizing your show. For us, that focus has been our businesses. Jim promotes his Happy Book Reviews service, and I promote Best Page Forward. Those are our primary revenue sources. I love Patreon and I’m happy with its steady earnings, but I’ve made more money and seen a better return on investment from Best Page Forward, so that’s where I’ve focused. There are lots of monetization options, and you do a great job of sharing them on this podcast, but if someone tries to do everything, they’ll go crazy and waste time and money. The key is to find one primary source of income and focus on it. Thomas: That’s a good way to look at it. Patreon is a tool, but it doesn’t have to be the tool. For you, it helps the podcast break even. It covers expenses and maybe adds a little extra, but it’s not what pays the rent or mortgage. What advice do you have for podcasters who want to monetize? Thomas: What advice would you give a podcaster who wants to increase their monetization, whether through Patreon or another method? Bryan: It depends on the podcast type, but if you’re considering starting a business that aligns with your audience and offers something your listeners would want, then test it out. See if your podcast listeners and email subscribers are interested in what you offer. If they are, then as your podcast grows, your business will grow with it. That’s been the case for both Jim and me. Thomas: That’s really good. Being willing to think outside the box is key. One more thing I want to mention for people who haven’t listened to the Sell More Books Show: your show is not just a 40-minute advertisement for Best Page Forward or Happy Book Reviews. Those services might get mentioned two or three times in an hour-long episode. That’s important. You can’t build a community or a following with a 30-minute commercial. The show itself has to provide real value. What’s brilliant about a news show is that each week you have fresh content to cover. It gives you natural ways to mention your business without sounding salesy. Bryan: Absolutely. We stumbled into that format, but it’s really helped build trust in the community. People tag us on Facebook and say, “I can’t wait to hear what Jim and Bryan have to say about this.” The show almost fuels itself now. How can news podcasts create industry influence? Thomas: They help do your research for you! One of the first shows I saw that did this well was back in 2006 or 2007. A college graduate started a short podcast on news in the green energy industry. He covered green energy, fracking, petroleum, and whatever was happening that day. It was just a four- or five-minute news summary, released daily. That guy got snatched up quickly into a high-paying job because he became the foremost voice in the space. Mainstream media only covers the energy industry occasionally, but he was covering the nitty-gritty. With just a $50 microphone, he became the voice of that industry. That’s the power of this format, and we need more micro-news sources like that. Just going through the news every week builds real expertise. You start seeing long-term trends. You can say, “Amazon has done things like this before. We talked about this last year and the year before.” That kind of insight doesn’t come from shortcuts; it’s earned over time. Connect with Bryan Cohen Sell More Books Show Bryan’s Patreon Page Best Page Forward Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 013 How Bryan Cohen Built a Business Around His Podcast appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

James Rubart is a bestselling author, audiobook narrator and podcaster (Novel Marketing). He is also our intro guy, so his voice may sound a bit familiar to you. Audiobook sales are the fastest growing segment of books. If you have ever thought about writing a book, you need to also think about recording an audiobook. Questions: Why are audiobooks important? #1: The Size of the Audiobook Industry is Nearly a Billion-Dollar Industry. #2: Book Mavens Listen to Audiobooks. #3: Audiobooks Protect You From the Oprah Effect. #4: Audiobooks Boost Paper & eBook Sales. #5: Audiobooks Give You Access to Non-Readers. #6: Having an Audiobook Makes You Easier to Find. #7: Audiobooks Are Not that Expensive & Easy to Make. How does someone record an audiobook? What are the advantages of recording it yourself? What are the disadvantages of recording it yourself? What advice do you have for someone who wants to hire a professional narrator? Where can we find you online? Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers. The post 012 How to Boost Book Revenue With Audiobooks appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

This is the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love without selling out. I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr., and with me is Bremner Morris, the head of Patreon’s Creator Partnership and Success Teams. Today, we’ll talk about newbie mistakes people make on Patreon. Bremner consults with a lot of creators. In fact, his main job for several months was helping people take their pages to the next level. Just having a page on Patreon is not enough. How does a creator know when they’re ready to start a Patreon page? Thomas: When do they know their fan base is big enough to justify it? Bremner: It depends on the individual creator. Some creators only have a few thousand fans but do really well on Patreon because they have a deep and unique relationship with their audience. Others have millions of fans but lack that connection, so the outcome is different. From our perspective, it’s about whether you’ve developed a deep enough relationship with your fans that they would want to support you on an ongoing, recurring basis. You also need to consider if converting, say, 0.5% to 10% of those fans would be a compelling return on your investment. We help creators see what their potential earnings could look like. We typically explain it this way: you have your total addressable audience, which is people who’ve maybe seen your show once or a few times. Then a smaller portion of those become actual fans. From that fan base, a smaller group (between 0.5% and 10%) might convert into paying patrons. Thomas: Do you have an online tool where people can plug in their numbers and get an estimate? Bremner: Not yet, but that’s one of our opportunity assessments for our product teams. We want to build something like that so creators who are thinking about launching a Patreon page can get a sense of the potential return. It’s important to remember that launching a membership business is an investment. You’re not only marketing and educating your fans about your membership but also committing to fulfilling rewards on a regular basis. That recurring relationship comes with responsibilities. Thomas: One mistake is launching with just five backers and suddenly feeling obligated to do a ton of work to keep those five backers happy. Instead of charging monthly, you could charge per piece of content and set a rule that says, “I’m not going to charge anyone until I have at least 50 backers.” That helps protect against overcommitting too soon. Bremner: Yeah, that was our earliest business model. When Jack first launched Patreon, it was based on pledging per piece of content. So when he released a video, fans pledged a set amount per video, often with a cap like 10 videos per month max. But we realized that many creators were essentially turning it into a monthly subscription anyway. So we built that into the platform. Now, most creators use the monthly membership model. It’s more predictable and easier for patrons to understand. They know exactly what they’ll pay each month. And it aligns with how the industry is shifting. Thomas: Yeah, it’s scary to say, “I’ll charge per YouTube video,” and then realize you’re posting 10 videos a month. Even though you can set a cap, I get the impression that not many people actually do. Bremner: We don’t have specific data on how many people use the cap, but most patrons are your most loyal fans. They want to support your work no matter how much you create. So I’d guess a lot of folks don’t bother setting a cap. What are some common mistakes creators make when launching their Patreon? Thomas: Let’s say someone has a solid base of maybe 300 loyal fans or 10,000 casual ones, and they think they’re ready. What are some common mistakes creators make when launching their Patreon? Bremner: The biggest mistake is thinking that launching a page is enough. You’re not just setting up a page; you’re launching a membership business. That means ongoing marketing, continued engagement with your fans, and clearly explaining what membership means for them. A lot of people launch their page and then wonder, “Where is everybody?” But they haven’t done the work to acquire and convert that audience into paying members. So the number one mistake is not creating a compelling marketing plan for the launch. Thomas: A simple marketing plan can just be a Google Doc or Word Doc. List the next 14 days and add bullet points for what you’ll do each day to promote your campaign. That can make a huge difference. Bremner: Exactly. When we consult with creators, we often build detailed workback schedules. We plan what to talk about and when, leading up to the launch. You want your fans to pay attention when you go live. Some creators tease that something exciting is coming. Others survey their audience to learn what kinds of benefits they’d want. That builds momentum. Also, it helps to have a compelling event tied to your launch. Most people will delay a $10 monthly decision unless there’s a reason to “act now.” Offering a limited-time benefit or early reward gives them that push. Then, on launch day, be available. Be present for the people who sign up. Make them feel like they’re part of something special. Many fans are looking for a deeper emotional connection with the creator. That first impression matters. Thomas: That’s right. I’ve found online live events to be really effective. When we launched the Novel Marketing Patreon, our big Facebook Live event was a huge driver for early signups. In-person events might work even better, but they’re also more expensive and complicated. The best practice is to make a plan, tease the launch, then create a compelling limited-time event to drive urgency. That’s not a new approach. PBS gets support from “viewers like you.” They run pledge drives with emotional appeals and limited-time perks. When I was a kid, they’d show Riverdance or ice skating during those drives, which was entertainment you didn’t see any other time. You’re recommending something similar. Kick things off with a special event, then revisit it later with another limited-time offering. And it doesn’t have to be contrived. It can be something real, like offering to include patron names in an album. That’s a classic example. Bremner: Natalie Dawn, who is our CEO’s wife, ran a campaign where all her patrons’ names were included on an album cover. People had to sign up within a certain time period to be featured, and that campaign was a huge driver of her initial success. What are some strategies for ongoing acquisition? Once you have people sign up, though, you need to convert them into ongoing supporters. So there are different strategies for acquisition and retention. What you just mentioned about PBS and “viewers like you” is a great example of fan recognition. Mentioning supporters and making them feel acknowledged is an effective way to market your membership campaign. You don’t have to explicitly say “support me on Patreon.” Instead, you’re recognizing fans who already contribute and signaling to others what they’re missing by saying, “and viewers like you also get X, Y, and Z when you become a member.” There are a lot of creative ways to drive ongoing acquisition through your content. Thomas: The best tactics are often tied uniquely to what you’re creating. There’s no one-size-fits-all silver bullet. A lot of people want the “one easy trick,” but aside from putting people’s names on things, it really depends on your medium. What works for a musician may be totally different from what works for a podcaster. Just having a microphone doesn’t mean acquisition strategies are the same. What rewards work well and what mistakes should creators avoid? Thomas: Let’s talk about rewards. Natalie Dawn had people eager to be immortalized forever in her compact disc jewel case, which already feels like a relic. I wonder if we’ll even be using those in 10 years. But if she had put names on the record itself, those would be preserved even longer. What rewards work well and what mistakes should creators avoid? Bremner: We break rewards into five main categories. The first is fan recognition. It’s a major driver of both acquisition and retention. Recognition When fans receive recognition, whether a physical sticker or a digital badge, it becomes a visible symbol of their support. That recognition can extend across platforms, and we’re investing in ways to let it live with fans online. I was at a live podcast event during South by Southwest, and the show brought all of their patrons up on stage. There were about 15 to 20 people. If you’re a $10-a-month supporter and get to be on stage with your favorite podcast, that’s huge. Thomas: Absolutely. Everyone in the audience is suddenly asking, “How do I become a patron?” Bremner: Exactly. So recognition works as both a retention and acquisition tool. Engagement The second category is engagement. This is about creating opportunities for fans to interact directly with you. It could be through livestreams, AMAs, polls, or anything that creates two-way communication. For your most loyal fans, that access is incredibly valuable. Think of it like jamming with the Black Keys if you’re a die-hard fan. Thomas: The easiest way to start that engagement is to simply send a thank-you message when someone becomes a patron. Tom at Graphtreon messages every new patron. That opens a thread, sends a notification, and helps fans see you as a real person. Bremner: Exactly. Like I mentioned in the last episode, patrons support you as a creator. They might love your content, but they’re also backing the whole person. You may be doing things behind the scenes, like drafts, cuts, or abandoned work that feel mundane to you but are really compelling to loyal fans. Digital Offers The third category is digital offers. These are exclusive digital rewards like videos, behind-the-scenes content, and digital badges. We’re investing heavily in this area through Patreon-built tools like Lens, which lets you share ephemeral video content with patrons for a limited time. We also have integrations with various engagement platforms that make it easier to deliver these rewards digitally. Thomas: The platform is especially great for podcasters. It handles the delivery of bonus episodes seamlessly. There are podcasts I support where I’ve paid $20 during a fundraising push to access bonus content, and never listened to any of it because it came in a zip file. I would have to extract, sync to my computer, and then transfer it to my phone. Total hassle. Creating a custom RSS feed per person is hard. Most podcasters today don’t even know what an RSS feed is because it’s handled by their host. Patreon already takes care of that detail, and it’s huge. I use that feature all the time. On our other show, we do special Q&A episodes and bundled topic episodes. For example, we might gather four or five episodes on Facebook marketing from the last five years and package them into one long episode. It’s easy to produce, high-value for listeners, and super easy to deliver. Bremner: Some fans want the back catalog. Others want the uncut or bonus versions of episodes. In podcasting, we’ve made it really easy to deliver that via private RSS feeds. As our platform matures, we’re focusing more on specific content categories and building tailored features for each one. For video creators, that might mean partnerships with video hosting providers. For podcasters, it could mean integrations with podcast players that make patron-only content accessible. Across the board, we’re trying to build tools that make Patreon a more compelling platform for creators in every category. Access & Insight Bremner: The fourth category is access and insight. This is about giving patrons a behind-the-scenes look at your creative process or letting them participate in decision-making. Maybe they get to vote on what you cover next or participate in your show somehow. It’s like being in the Gold Club. They’re not just observing, they’re involved. That keeps them engaged and adds real value. Physical Offers (Merchandise) Thomas: That’s the scary one. Shipping boxes to thousands of fans is intimidating. Bremner: Exactly. We’ve seen creators offer merchandise with great success, but the logistics are brutal. That’s why we’re building tools to simplify it. We’re partnering with fulfillment services so that if a patron signs up at a tier with merch, the inventory, packaging, and shipping will be handled automatically. You can even set time-based rewards. Maybe they get something at six months, then another at 12 months. We want to make that process easy, because fans love it and it really works. Thomas: Partnering is key. I have a friend who runs a fulfillment center, and often their fees are offset by the shipping discounts they get from UPS due to their volume. So it actually costs creators less than doing it themselves. UPS doesn’t want people showing up at Office Depot with one box because it’s inefficient. They offer deep discounts to streamlined operations. So partnering is smart and opens up a lot of possibilities. Bremner: There are the discounts, of course, but this ties into where we’re headed with the conversation. One important thing to understand about rewards or benefits is that they come with a cost. Creators often forget to account for the cost of their time. This is especially true in the merchandise space, where creators end up giving away their time for free, and that becomes very costly. One of the best ways we can help is by reducing that time cost through automation and backend fulfillment partnerships. That’s a huge win for creators. Whenever we think about rewards, we encourage creators to consider two key factors. What’s the impact on your fan base? What’s going to convert and retain patrons? That will vary depending on the audience. For one group, an extra episode might turn them into loyal subscribers. For another, they might want a piece of merchandise every year. Others may want to attend a live event and get brought on stage. So the impact varies, but understanding it helps you decide how to price your rewards and what to offer. Then you weigh that against effort. If something is highly impactful but also takes a lot of effort, you can still offer it, but you’ll need to price it accordingly. If it requires little effort, you can offer it at a lower price point. Thomas: A good rule of thumb is to decide what your time is worth. Maybe you set it at $25 or $50 per hour. The exact number isn’t as important as having a number so you can make decisions based on it. Some authors calculate their time spent on social media marketing and realize they’re making 25 cents an hour. If you can make more standing by the road with a cardboard sign, it’s time to rethink your strategy. What makes a good Patreon welcome video? Thomas: There’s a huge range in video quality. YouTubers usually have amazing videos, and they’re on one end of the spectrum. Authors are often on the opposite end, with no video at all. Many are scared to be on camera. Podcasters fall somewhere in the middle. They’re comfortable with audio, but the video may not be great. So what are some best practices for creating a compelling “Welcome to my Patreon” video? Bremner: Let me step back for a moment and talk about educating your fan base. Most fans are used to consuming your content for free through podcasts, YouTube videos, or blog posts. If you’re an author, they may pay $10 or $20 for your book, but everything else is often free. That’s usually supported by ad revenue or book deals, but fans don’t necessarily see that. So when you introduce a paid membership, there’s a lot of education required. You have to help your fans understand why they should pay to support your content. First, creators need to recognize that what they create is valuable. That’s an internal hurdle many wrestle with because the industry has conditioned us to believe content should be free. But creators must own the value of what they’re making. Second, you have to explain to fans why your work is valuable and what’s in it for them. Educate them on how the current system undervalues your work, how that affects your independence, and how a membership helps sustain your creativity. Also, show them what they get in return as members. You can do this through a video, a blog post, a podcast, or whatever medium you’re comfortable with. The important thing is to clearly communicate why you’re launching a membership. You need to say, “Here’s what I gain as a creator, and here’s what you gain as a fan.” That’s the core script. Thomas: Mentioning Patreon by name isn’t enough. A lot of creators think, “Everyone knows what Patreon is.” But that’s not true. I was at an event recently where someone asked, “What’s Patreon?” If you’re in the YouTube world, you hear it constantly, but for people outside that space, especially older audiences, it’s still unfamiliar. Bremner: That’s why we’re working on building more brand equity for Patreon, but honestly, if our name fades into the background and the focus is on the relationship between creators and fans, that’s fine with us. We encourage creators to focus their messaging on membership, not Patreon. Sometimes the word “Patreon” causes eyes to glaze over because people don’t know what it means, or they’ve heard it so many times that it doesn’t resonate. It’s more effective to say, “I’m launching a fan club” or “I’m starting a membership program” and then clearly explain what that includes. We’ve seen a lot of creators just say, “Support me on Patreon” and leave it at that. That doesn’t educate the fan. Instead, say something like, “I’m launching a membership that includes X, Y, and Z. It helps me continue creating independently and gives you ongoing, exclusive access.” Thomas: Sometimes it helps to brand your membership separately. Philip DeFranco doesn’t say, “Support me on Patreon.” He says, “Join DeFranco Elite.” It sparks curiosity and signals that it’s for true fans. Anyone can do this. You could call it a guild, a society, a circle, or whatever fits your brand. You don’t need permission to use the word “elite,” by the way. So the goal of your welcome video isn’t to walk through every reward tier in detail. That’s risky, because rewards often change early on as creators figure out what works. If you list each one, then tweak them later, you’ll have to reshoot the video. Bremner: Exactly. It’s more about communicating the overall value of your membership program. Talking about your membership with confidence, excitement, and enthusiasm is essential. Fans want to feel your energy. In the early days of Patreon, we saw creators apologize for asking fans for support. But you’re not asking for charity. You’re inviting fans into a value-for-value exchange. They’re getting deeper, more meaningful engagement with you, and that’s exciting. We haven’t done a sentiment analysis comparing video tone to revenue, but it’s obvious that creators who pitch their membership with energy and passion tend to do better than those who say, “Sorry, please support me.” That kind of apologetic tone is the opposite of best practice. Thomas: This varies by community. Authors tend to be the most apologetic. YouTubers used to be, but now they’ve reframed the pitch by saying, “Help protect me from the evil YouTube that keeps demonetizing me.” That’s a powerful message. It’s not just support; it’s defense. Although I think some are exaggerating the demonetization problem. A lot of the pressure has come from traditional media companies, which view YouTube as a threat to their ad revenue. Mainstream media has a financial incentive to highlight bad actors on YouTube. They say, “If you spend ad dollars there, you might end up supporting Nazis,” even if that represents a microscopic percentage of creators. But that’s another conversation. Bremner: You make a good point. Things have changed. Many creators who once had a sustainable income on YouTube are no longer able to rely on it. We’ve seen creators with millions of subscribers earning almost nothing in ad revenue. That’s part of why Jack started Patreon in the first place. What’s compelling about membership is the predictability and the creative independence it gives. We recently launched a campaign with Cyanide and Happiness, the digital comic creators. They make short, animated videos with stick figures, and the stick figures have butts. YouTube demonetized their channel to the point where they were making just one-tenth of what they used to, all because of stick figure butts. Thomas: Big air quotes on “uncensored content.” Bremner: Exactly. So they told their fans, “If you want us to keep making uncensored content, we need a sustainable stream of income.” Their fans responded because they love the style and humor of Cyanide and Happiness. And that’s part of a bigger trend. Platforms are making broad algorithmic decisions that affect creators creating perfectly harmless content. It’s not about offensive or hateful material; it’s about what big advertisers are comfortable with. If your content doesn’t align, you get cut off. Thomas: So the algorithm is listening more to the five people who are offended than the 12 million who are subscribed. What are common mistakes creators make when engaging patrons? Bremner: One of the common issues, which is more of an oversight, is assuming that patrons are going to engage with you directly on Patreon. In reality, your patrons may still interact with you on YouTube, Twitch, via email, or wherever they’ve already been engaging with you. Just because someone subscribes to you on Patreon doesn’t mean they’re going to shift all their engagement to that platform. A lot of creators set up their Patreon and then say, “I’m not seeing much interaction here.” But that’s because many patrons are using Patreon simply as a transactional platform. They support you there, but they continue engaging with your content on the channels they’re used to. So the misunderstanding is that Patreon must become the central hub of engagement. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. That misalignment can lead to frustration. Thomas: If you’re doing a good job engaging with your fans, that’s what matters. It doesn’t have to be on Patreon.com. Whether they’re commenting on your blog, Facebook, or somewhere else, what’s important is that you’re engaging them. Bremner: It’s also important to know who your patrons are, especially when they engage with you elsewhere. If I’m a $10 patron and I leave a comment on your Twitter, I expect a different experience than someone who isn’t supporting you. It’s like being a top-tier member at a club. You expect special treatment. That differentiated experience matters, and it should extend across the internet. That’s where our platform API comes in. It can connect with services like MailChimp to help identify your most loyal patrons so you can email them differently. Or on platforms like Twitch or Reddit, it lets you know who your core supporters are so that you can engage with them more intentionally. Thomas: I got a long email from someone who didn’t like one of my podcast episodes. It was this long, rambling critique, and at the bottom, they said, “I’m not a patron.” I remember thinking, “If they were a patron, I’d definitely respond in detail, thank them for their feedback, and take time with the reply.” But they weren’t. And the internet is full of angry people. It’s not always worth the energy to try to convert someone who’s just angry for the sake of it. Bremner: Some of our creators call Patreon a “troll-free zone” because you have to pay to troll on Patreon. Thomas: The one safe place on the internet. Bremner: Exactly. I won’t say it’s 100% troll-free, but it’s pretty rare that someone’s going to pay $10 a month just to leave angry comments. Thomas: Our Q&A episodes on Patreon have been some of our most positive experiences. We ask for questions, and the patrons give us thoughtful, intelligent feedback. These are people who want to learn and grow. It’s our most fun episode of the month. Since it goes out to a smaller group, we can give more focused answers. It feels more intimate and enjoyable. Creating on the internet is hard. There will always be angry or jealous people who take their personal pain out on creators. That kind of feedback can be draining. So having a space where 99% of that is filtered out is incredibly refreshing. Patreon creates that space. People can still look and observe, but if they’re not paying, they can’t comment or engage directly. How does Patreon help build community among creators? Bremner: Another benefit is that many creators are excited to join Patreon because of the creator community. It’s tough being an internet creator today. You’re exposed to all kinds of feedback, good and bad. When we host meetups or community events, creators love being around other creators. At those gatherings, people don’t talk much about Patreon as a platform. They talk about the real challenges of being creative online, like burnout, criticism, algorithm changes, and emotional tolls. It’s support from people who understand those challenges. Thomas: Most people outside the creator world don’t get it. They say, “You have so much attention. Why are you upset about a few negative comments?” But they don’t realize how personal and draining it can be. How can creators connect with the Patreon community? Thomas: Other than listening to the Creative Funding Show, how do people connect with the Patreon creator community? Bremner: Listening to the Creative Funding Show is definitely number one! There are a few ways to connect. First, we have an online resource library to help creators learn how to be successful on Patreon at learn.patreon.com, though it may move in the future. You can always find educational materials on patreon.com itself. Second, once you sign up for Patreon, you can join our creator community forum. It’s a place to share challenges and strategies, not just about using Patreon, but about thriving as an internet creator more broadly. And third, we’ve been doing something called Patreon on Tour. We go to different cities and host live events focused on helping creators succeed. But more importantly, we bring people together to foster community. We usually announce those events on Patreon’s Twitter account. Then there are grassroots events like the one you hosted. If you’re a creator and want to organize a meetup in your city, even if Patreon isn’t visiting there, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach out to our support team, and they’ll direct you to the right person. Links Creative Funding Show’s Patreon Affiliate Link  Patreon Community Forum About Bremner Bremner Morris is the Head of Patreon’s Creator Partnerships and Creator Success teams focused on helping creators develop their membership strategies. Bremner spends his days consulting with creators on their membership businesses as well as providing key insights from creators to Patreon’s leadership team. Before joining Patreon, Bremner lead Business Development, Partnerships and Operations at AppDirect, a technology company that provided the commerce infrastructure for software vendors to launch and scale their subscription business. Bremner brings similar consulting frameworks from AppDirect to the content and creator membership / subscription space. Bremner lives in San Francisco and is a cyclist, runner and mediocre drummer. The post 011 How to Avoid Newbie Patreon Mistakes with Bremner Morris   appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

This is the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love without selling out. I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr., and with me today is Bremner Morris. He’s the head of Patreon’s Creator Partnerships and Creator Success Teams. He helps creators join the platform and become more successful once they get on Patreon. What is Patreon? Bremner: Patreon is a membership platform for artists and creators to get paid by their most loyal fans. What I mean by that is artists and creators can use Patreon to engage with their audience on a monthly, recurring basis. They establish a membership fee with those fans by offering them something exclusive and unique as part of that membership campaign. Today, we have about 70,000 creators on the platform, processing about 150 million payments a year. To date, we’ve processed about 300 million payments back to creators. So it’s pretty exciting. Thomas: It’s very exciting, especially when you consider 150 million a year and 300 million total. That means the growth curve is up and to the right quite a bit. How many new creators are joining the platform on a given week? Bremner: We’re adding hundreds of creators per week. We have a lot of folks who join the platform just to test it out. But we also have many who join and see significant outcomes because they have a very established fan base. Patreon is really for folks who have an established fan base. They’re simply converting their most loyal audience into paying subscribers. Thomas: If no one knows who you are, Patreon is not going to help very much. Bremner: We have an internal term that says we’re not for the “zero to fan” problem, we’re for the “fan to member” problem. Thomas: I’ve noticed that many people are surprised by how much their most loyal fans are willing to give. There’s a curve, and at the top are a few fans who would happily give you hundreds of dollars a month, sometimes without even wanting the rewards. That’s the big surprise. You put together these amazing perks, yet some fans never even send you their mailing address. I’ve heard creators say, “Yeah, I reached out, and they replied, but they didn’t care about the rewards. They just wanted to support me.” Creators who aren’t using something like Patreon are leaving money on the table. If you’re an author just selling books, your most passionate fan and your most casual fan both pay the same $10. But that passionate fan wants more. They want a deeper connection with you, so you just have to give them the opportunity. Bremner: There are probably two motivations for a patron to sign up. One is a support motivation. Patrons really love what you do and want to continue supporting your craft so you can make it a sustainable lifestyle. The other side of the coin is a benefits-oriented patron. Patrons sign up because of the exclusive benefits they get for being a member. Interestingly, these motivations merge over time. We’ve seen that folks who sign up as support-oriented patrons tend to migrate toward being more benefits-oriented, and those who sign up for extra episodes or exclusive merchandise begin to feel great about supporting creators they love. The average patron spends about $12 on the platform, which is more than a typical subscription to a music or video service. Some creators offer benefit tiers in the thousands of dollars and have patrons converting at that rate. Thomas: It’s remarkable. You spend $10 for Spotify, and it’s split among tens of thousands of songs. Whereas if you’re spending $12 on Patreon, it’s probably split between five or six creators. That’s a much bigger piece of the pie. If I’m an artist on Spotify, any given listener may be giving me a few pennies. On Patreon, I could be getting a few dollars from that same listener. What’s the best way for a creator to speak to both motivations? Thomas: So what’s the best way for a creator to speak to both motivations? I often see creators who are really good at saying, “Help me do this,” and others who are great at saying, “Look at these amazing rewards.” What’s the best way to do both? Bremner: First, creators need to understand the motivations of their audience. Some audiences are really support-oriented, others are more benefits-oriented, and some are a mix. We advise creators to take a step back when launching their membership program and think about their audience’s motivation. If they’re unsure, they can ask their audience directly to understand what drives them. Thomas: A great way to do this is through a contest. Everyone enters the contest by giving you their email address, and the winners get to have a conversation with you. This builds your email list and gives you qualitative research as you chat with your fans. Bremner: We have a survey we’ve been sending to creators that they can use with their audience to understand those motivations. Right now, we’re just piloting it, but we hope to offer it publicly on our website soon. We’re revamping our education materials and investing more in a comprehensive guide to using Patreon. So stay tuned. How do you connect with reward-based supporters? Thomas: That’s how you connect with cause-based folks. What about for more reward-based folks? Bremner: Once you understand your audience’s motivations, the next step is to highlight the benefits of membership. For a support-oriented fan, focus on what their backing means to you. Explain how their participation helps you maintain a sustainable, independent creative career and how their ongoing support fuels your work. For a benefits-oriented fan, focus on what they get in return for their membership dollars, like exclusive merchandise, bonus episodes, or whatever fits your brand. Frame it as a value-for-value exchange by saying, “At this tier, you get X; at the next tier, you get X plus Y.” And rather than talking about Patreon directly, connect it to something they already know. Call it a membership, like a gym, or a subscription tied to their credit card. Thomas: It allows you to buy all the things that you buy. Bremner: Exactly. And credit cards have benefits. Most people understand, “Hey, I’m going to fork over $12 a month in exchange for something in return.” Creators must realize that what they’re offering is valuable. Many creators are uncomfortable “asking for money,” but really, they’re asking for fair value in exchange for what they contribute to the world. You’re assigning a dollar value to your work. That value should reflect both how much your fan base values it and how much time, energy, and emotion you’ve invested. Thomas: Your patrons are actually helping you create whatever it is you’re making. If you create an amazing animated video on YouTube, someone who donates gets to feel like, “I helped make that possible.” Maybe they can’t do what you do as the artist, but they can still feel a sense of ownership, and that’s powerful. One of my clients started creating a little wall with bricks on it, putting her patrons’ names on the bricks. It’s straight out of university fundraising, where they build a new library and put donors’ names on a brick for $1,000. People love that. They love knowing they contributed, even in a small way. Maybe it’s a million dollars to have the library named after you, but it’s only a few hundred to get a brick with your name. Why does recurring income matter for creators? Bremner: Having an ongoing, sustainable stream of income truly enables creative independence. Creators, whether musicians, authors, podcasters, or video creators,  have often had to pander to sponsors, ad dollars, or distribution platforms like YouTube or Spotify. That means tailoring their content to algorithms instead of focusing on creating meaningful, quality content for their loyal fans. The ongoing relationship with fans is key. First, it gives predictability for the creator. Second, it empowers independent creation that appeals to your most dedicated audience. Thomas: And it helps smooth out the lumpiness of income. I’m primarily from the author world, and authors experience the worst lumpy income. Even successful traditionally published authors might receive just three checks a year. Those checks can be large, but authors need discipline not to blow it all. I’ve talked to agents whose clients make plenty of money, but because it doesn’t come in consistently, they struggle with debt and need advances. That’s one reason I was excited about Patreon when I discovered it back in 2014. I’d seen Kickstarter in action. You might run a Kickstarter for season six of your podcast and get all your money at the beginning. But that means you’d better have done a great job budgeting. Patreon can provide a steadier income, plus you still get to keep those “lumps” from book sales. In fact, people who buy a book through Patreon are usually paying more for it because they’re not coming for a deal. If they wanted a bargain, they’d go to Spotify or YouTube. Patreon is for your most passionate fans. It reduces anxiety. Maybe you’re not making tons on Patreon, but just knowing the rent or mortgage is covered next month lets you take creative risks. Bremner: We see Patreon, or membership in general, as your core sustaining income stream. It doesn’t have to be Patreon, but a recurring membership is like a paycheck. Other opportunities, like book deals or sponsorships, are those bonus bumps. They’re wonderful, but inconsistent. The nice thing about Patreon is that we’re not an exclusive platform. We won’t prevent you from doing other things. Our mission is to help creators get paid, and we believe that starts with sustainable income so you can confidently pursue your craft. How is Patreon different from Kickstarter? Bremner: We don’t really see Kickstarter as a competitor. It’s an additive income stream for creators who need a single influx of cash. Kickstarter is built for one-time campaigns. Patreon is designed for ongoing support. With Kickstarter, your audience shows up for a single project, and then you have to re-engage them with a whole new campaign next time. That’s tough. We’ve seen creators run a Kickstarter for a big up-front project, then transition that audience into a membership model. Patreon is about forming a contract with your fans. Yes, it takes investment and responsibility, but it can be more fruitful long-term. It also allows you to offer more compelling rewards, because you’re thinking in terms of a lifetime value, not just a one-off transaction. Thomas: It doesn’t matter how high-quality your shirts are if people only buy them once. But if you want them to buy the 2018 and 2019 shirts, their experience has to be great. It’s easier to get people excited about a Kickstarter because it’s for a limited time, but it’s also exhausting. After a Kickstarter campaign, creators often need a whole month to recover. It’s so much energy packed into such a short window. It’s like harvesting crops before the rain. You don’t know when the rain will come, so you work like crazy. Patreon is more like a greenhouse. It’s a consistent, slower-paced effort over time and less pressure each month. Why is subscription the future of creative income? Bremner: If you think about how the world is moving, most services are becoming subscription-based. We believe that art and creativity will follow. Platforms like YouTube and podcasts are already serialized and recurring. Our membership model aligns well with how those creators release content. Other categories, like musicians, authors, and fine artists, tend to work toward single moments in time. But we’re seeing a shift. Many creators are transitioning their craft and fan engagement toward ongoing subscriptions. It’s not just happening in the creator economy. It’s everywhere. I now have a subscription to United Wi-Fi. Thomas: When I was a kid, I bought Photoshop. Now I subscribe to Photoshop. Bremner: Exactly. And the hope is that, for your fans, it’s a smaller amount of money each month but a more valuable ongoing relationship. Is Patreon reviving the short story? Thomas: I’ve noticed in the author space that Patreon is bringing back the short story. In the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, you had magazines full of short stories. Readers bought them, and writers got paid. Then the internet came along and basically killed the short story. You had the occasional anthology, but most writers couldn’t earn from short stories. As a craft, it really declined, which was sad, because the format allows for powerful storytelling. Sometimes the short film before a Pixar movie is just as moving as the full-length feature. You’re sitting there crying, thinking, “Why did you do this to me, Pixar?” My wife and I actually have a print of the volcano love story from one of those shorts hanging in our house. We both love it. It’s incredibly emotional, and it didn’t take an hour and a half to tell. That’s what’s so powerful about short-form storytelling. Lately, I’ve noticed more authors are looking for something they can offer their readers each month. While they’re working on their big epic fantasy novels, they’re also writing short stories along the way. It’s great for honing their craft, and thanks to subscriptions, they’re actually getting paid for those short stories. It’s a fantastic reward for both readers and writers. It’s interesting to see how trends come and go. Pulp fiction was huge in the 1920s when paperbacks made books cheap and accessible. Then it faded away. Now, with Kindle and digital publishing, pulp fiction is making a big comeback. There’s a whole movement of writing fast and publishing often. Some readers will devour 100 books a year and want to binge all 20 books in a series. It’s fun to watch that pendulum swing, and right now, Patreon seems to be in a good place within that cycle. How can creators engage fans beyond their core craft? Bremner: Your fan base is supporting you as an artist, and there are things you do beyond your specific craft that can be compelling to your audience. A great example is from the music world. Some musicians share behind-the-scenes content, whether it’s in the studio, on tour, or just hanging out with friends. That inside scoop on who they are as artists is really compelling to their most loyal fans. Another example is Mickey Kendall, a writer I spoke with. She started posting recipes for obscure dishes on Twitter. Her audience responded, saying they wanted more. It’s not directly related to her writing, but it excited and engaged her audience, and it’s become a significant driver of her ongoing connection with them. When we consult with creators, we help identify activities that may be slightly outside their core craft but still offer their fans new, compelling ways to engage. How is the Patreon relationship different from Kickstarter? Bremner: This goes back to the Kickstarter comparison. We see Patreon not just as a membership platform, but as a relationship between the creator and their fans that travels with them across the internet. That might mean offering a reward like a private page on your website, a chat server like Discord, or a livestream. These are digitally fulfilled rewards that deepen engagement. And they don’t necessarily have to happen on Patreon.com. These kinds of ongoing experiences wouldn’t really work through a one-time campaign like Kickstarter. You wouldn’t run a Kickstarter just to offer a single livestream, for example. Thomas: And then you’re stuck doing a lot of traffic copying, figuring out who paid and who didn’t. It’s a hassle. It’s the same problem coworking spaces have with day passes. They need someone to check at the door. YouTube is rolling out its own version of a subscription platform. How is that different from Patreon? How does Patreon compare to YouTube’s subscription offering? Bremner: We’re actually excited that YouTube is starting to think about how to help creators get paid. That’s part of our mission. We’ve influenced the market to recognize that subscription services have value. The key difference is that many creators don’t see themselves as “YouTubers.” They see themselves as creators who distribute through YouTube, alongside Twitch, blogs, Discord, and other platforms. YouTube’s subscription only works within its ecosystem. We believe your fan base should move with you across the internet. Creators want their fans to have one pass that works across all platforms. Also, many creators are hesitant about YouTube’s motives. They don’t necessarily want all engagement to be locked into one platform. Thomas: This isn’t YouTube’s first attempt. Remember the tip jar? Nobody used it. Tip jars online rarely work. We created a WordPress plugin with a free version and a premium upgrade. You could donate to support the free version, but in the plugin’s entire history, despite being used on thousands of websites, we’ve made about $5 in donations. That model just doesn’t work. I’m curious to see if YouTube’s new subscription button will take off. If people want to help creators, they should sign up for YouTube Red. A view from a YouTube Red subscriber is far more valuable than the fraction of a cent from an ad that gets skipped after 15 seconds. But people are still hesitant to pay $10 or $12 a month, even though it’s not that expensive. Bremner: The value proposition is muddled. It’s hard for fans to understand what they’re getting and how it supports the artist. Also, within YouTube, there’s a lack of clarity about whether subscriptions or ad revenue are the company’s priority. Thomas: Oh, it’s definitely advertising. YouTube is owned by Alphabet, which is basically Google. Their entire business model is built on dominating the ad market. And they’re really good at it. As a podcaster, I sometimes envy YouTube’s monetization system. In podcasting, you need a sponsor who inserts a static ad into your MP3. Everyone hears the same ad. On YouTube, though, it’s totally dynamic. Visit Casper’s website once, and for the next 30 days, you’ll see Casper ads everywhere, no matter what video you’re watching. Their ad tracking is powerful. Honestly, I don’t think anyone will ever beat Google at advertising. Maybe Facebook, but I’d bet on Google. Bremner: I was trying to be politically correct and give them the benefit of the doubt, that maybe they are investing in subscriptions. But that’s part of the problem. Subscriptions are an ancillary offering for them. They only started rolling this out because they saw a market need: creators want ongoing relationships with their fans. You’re right, YouTube does advertising well for itself. That’s why Patreon exists. Our CEO, Jack, was a YouTube creator. His videos had millions of views, but he only made a few hundred dollars in ad revenue. YouTube is great at serving up ads to viewers and making money for advertisers, but it’s not great at paying creators. We’ve seen a lot of creators move to Patreon because of demonetization. Some have 12 million YouTube subscribers and still can’t make ends meet. They used to earn $20,000 to $40,000 a month in ad revenue, but a change in the algorithm can flip that switch overnight. Patreon exists so creators don’t have to depend on an algorithm. We give them the infrastructure to engage with their fans on their own terms. How does Patreon handle political diversity and free expression? Thomas: That’s something a lot of people worry about, especially in the middle of the country. There’s this sense that tech companies on the coasts have very specific political views, and if you don’t share those views, they might cut off your income. That’s scary. You feel powerless when Facebook stops showing your posts or YouTube demonetizes you. How does Patreon navigate that? You’re based in San Francisco. I imagine there’s not a lot of political diversity there. Am I wrong? Bremner: Two things. First, our brand promise is that we will not come between creators and their fans. One of our core internal values is being creator-first. We build tools to help creators connect with their audience. From our perspective, creators can span the entire political spectrum. If they have an audience and want to use our infrastructure, more power to them, regardless of their political beliefs. Now, we do have content guidelines. We draw the line at hate speech and certain adult content. But overall, we’re an open platform. If fans want to support a creator, even if someone at Patreon disagrees with them, that doesn’t prevent them from using the platform. We have successful creators across the political spectrum. Unlike ad-based platforms, where advertisers dictate what is acceptable, our Patreon model empowers creators to thrive without compromising their voice to fit what’s “advertiser-friendly.” Why does creator-first policy matter in content moderation? Thomas: These big corporations can bully platforms into suppressing speech they don’t like. I remember a video that made fun of Vegemite, which is a popular food in Australia. It was an American guy tasting it, and he got super sick; it was hilarious. The video had millions of views, but it was terrible for the Vegemite brand, and eventually, the video was taken down. I don’t know if it’s back up, this was years ago, but I remember the takedown said it violated the terms of service. I thought, “What did this guy do wrong? Who owns the copyright?” It didn’t make sense. But from YouTube’s perspective, their relationship with Vegemite the corporation was more valuable than their relationship with some random creator making a funny video. That’s why I really appreciate the creator-first philosophy. Just because Patreon is based in San Francisco doesn’t mean everyone has to agree politically. Back in the day, Twitter called itself the “free speech wing of the free speech party.” The idea was to let speech happen, and the truth would rise to the top. That’s one thing I really like about Patreon. Now, to be fair, Kickstarter has gotten a lot better, but in the early days, I had some clients run into issues. For example, Mary DeMuth had her Kickstarter campaign rejected. It was a book about overcoming sexual assault and abuse. Kickstarter classified it as “self-help,” and that didn’t meet their artistic standards. They basically said, “This isn’t artistic enough,” which felt ridiculous. She ended up using Indiegogo instead, which was much more laid-back. Indiegogo felt more like Patreon, where people can support you if they want to. You’re not forcing anyone to buy something or support a creator they don’t like. It’s ultimately up to the patrons. Bremner: It’s important to realize that Patreon doesn’t invest in discoverability. We’re not pushing specific creators to fans based on who they already follow. Our platform is built around creators engaging directly with their fan base. In fact, 20-80% of fans join Patreon because a creator invited them. We don’t go out recruiting patrons on behalf of creators. We simply provide the infrastructure for creators to build those relationships themselves. That “creator-first” idea is central to our business. Patreon was founded by a creator who saw a problem in the market. He remains our chief creator and helps us build better tools and products that prioritize creators, not third parties or advertisers. Other platforms often end up beholden to different stakeholders. We don’t want to be in that position. What is Patreon building next? Thomas: He who pays the piper calls the tune, and when you’re the piper, you care a lot about who’s paying you. What is Patreon working on in 2018? Bremner: First, we know there’s a lot of cost and time involved in fulfilling membership benefits. We want to reduce that so creators can offer more compelling rewards to their fans. That includes building more advanced fulfillment tools like a better CRM so creators can track what’s owed to patrons on a recurring basis. That tool, called Fulfillment Manager, is currently in beta. It’s a robust CRM, and we hope to automate more of those functions to streamline delivery. Second, we’re focusing on merchandise. It’s one of the highest fulfillment costs for creators. We’re investing in ways to make merchandise more affordable to offer, and to allow time-based rewards, like staying for six months to get an exclusive T-shirt, or for two years to receive a custom CD. Those long-term benefits encourage retention. Third, we’re expanding our platform capabilities. About a year ago, we released a platform API, which allows Patreon to integrate with other platforms. There are now about 30 different apps built on top of our API, including livestream tools and Mailchimp. For example, you can build custom mailing lists based on patron data. Our goal is for Patreon to fade into the background and allow creators to manage their memberships wherever they engage fans. We also just launched a new video tool called Lens. It’s like a private Snapchat where creators can share short-term video content (available for 24 hours) with a specific segment of their audience. Finally, we’re investing in our infrastructure. We now process a huge volume of payments each year, so we’re hiring more engineers focused on billing, infrastructure, and system robustness. Scaling from zero to hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions gets complex fast. How is Patreon encouraging long-term support? Thomas: I’m really excited about those retention features. One challenge with rewards like Q&A episodes is that, over time, fans tend to ask the same questions again and again. So the perceived value of that benefit decreases. Having something like an exclusive T-shirt for patrons who stay a year is a great way to counterbalance that. Even if the Q&A becomes repetitive, new fans still want those answers, and you can continue engaging them. Meanwhile, long-term rewards keep veteran fans interested and rewarded. Bremner: At a high level, we’ve organized our product teams around three big questions: How do we help creators acquire patrons? How do we help them retain patrons? How do we help them increase subscription revenue through higher-tier benefits? We’re constantly studying what creators are doing well, so we can productize those successes. We’re also identifying areas where they struggle and working to reduce friction or cost in offering benefits. My team focuses on consulting and engaging with creators, learning what works, and then scaling that knowledge across our platform. We’re investing in creator success, marketing, webinars, tutorials, and everything needed to help creators succeed on Patreon. It might not all be product, but it’s all in service of helping creators grow and thrive. Links: Creative Funding Show’s Patreon Affiliate Link  About Bremner Bremner Morris is the Head of Patreon’s Creator Partnerships and Creator Success teams focused on helping creators develop their membership strategies. Bremner spends his days consulting with creators on their membership businesses as well as providing key insights from creators to Patreon’s leadership team. Before joining Patreon, Bremner lead Business Development, Partnerships and Operations at AppDirect, a technology company that provided the commerce infrastructure for software vendors to launch and scale their subscription business. Bremner brings similar consulting frameworks from AppDirect to the content and creator membership/subscription space. Bremner lives in San Francisco and is a cyclist, runner and mediocre drummer. The post 010 Introduction to Patreon With Bremner Morris appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

This is the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love without selling out. I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr., and with me today is Jacqueline Isaacs. She is the strategic director of Bellwether Communications, where she crafts measurable, well-researched content strategies for clients. She is also co-author of the book Call to Freedom: Why You Can Be a Christian and a Libertarian, which I’m sure is not controversial at all. It successfully raised $8,000 through Indiegogo in the summer of 2016. Where did the idea for Call to Freedom come from? Jacqueline: The idea dates back to around 2012. The six of us who went on to write the book, our editor, Elise Daniels, and five chapter contributors, met in a book club in Washington, DC. The club was sponsored by a Christian nonprofit and gave young Christian professionals a place to talk about faith, culture, and how to live out our beliefs in the highly political environment of DC. Most of us leaned toward the free market side, from conservative to libertarian. A conference called the International Students for Liberty Conference needed to fill some panel slots. They reached out to members of our group, and the six of us proposed a panel titled something like, “Is Christianity Coercive?” In libertarian circles, coercion and the proper use of force are important issues. Thomas: Libertarians are not big fans of the use of force. Jacqueline: Right, especially not from government or authorities. That’s where tension often arises between faith and libertarianism, since being a Christian means accepting authority from God, the Bible, and the church. Some libertarians resist that idea. Our panel explored this question. It was at 9:00 a.m. against other interesting panels, so we didn’t expect a large turnout, but we packed the room. Students asked thoughtful questions. Some were from Christian campuses where being libertarian caused conflict; others were from secular campuses where being libertarian was fine but being Christian was the source of tension. A recurring request from these students was for a resource they could take back to campus to explain how they could be both Christian and libertarian. We could recommend books on economics or faith and culture by great scholars, but there was no single book tailored to young adults who wanted to articulate both their faith and libertarian political philosophy. How did you turn the panel into a book? Thomas: You had this successful panel and realized the book you wanted to recommend didn’t exist. You decided to create it. What did you do next? Jacqueline: It took us about a year to craft our proposal and pitch it to traditional publishers. We didn’t immediately consider self-publishing because there were six of us, all with full-time jobs, and no one volunteered to take on the logistics. Eventually, we were picked up by a publisher specializing in academic publishing, which was more focused on textbooks and classroom resources. They liked that we were targeting college students, but they didn’t offer much support for promoting or marketing the book. Why did you use crowdfunding? Thomas: Basically, they would make the book exist but wouldn’t sell copies. What was your plan to get the books into students’ hands? Jacqueline: That’s when we decided to crowdfund. I had studied crowdfunding academically, and 2016 was when crowdfunding surpassed traditional venture capital in funding volume. We wanted to raise money to market the book and connect with our audience before release. Crowdfunding let us generate preorders and build buzz ahead of the launch. Thomas: Crowdfunding creates urgency with a definite end date. It triggers scarcity and popularity cues, turning a launch into an event. You were going to publish anyway, but crowdfunding made it easier to get attention. Jacqueline: Exactly. An unexpected benefit was that we were promoted from our publisher’s academic imprint to their main brand because of the campaign’s success. Why did you choose Indiegogo over Kickstarter? Thomas: You went from the minor leagues to the major leagues, so to speak. Why Indiegogo? Jacqueline: We chose Indiegogo for a few reasons. At the time, Kickstarter seemed more focused on tech projects, video, and gaming. Books tended to do better on Indiegogo. Also, because our topic involved faith and politics, Indiegogo was more open to potentially controversial subjects. Finally, with six team members, some weren’t comfortable with Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing model. Indiegogo let us keep what we raised, even if we didn’t meet our $8,000 goal, which made everyone more comfortable. Thomas: That’s the biggest difference between the two. Kickstarter has broadened politically a bit, but it’s still narrower than Indiegogo, which is more laid-back. What’s the downside of partial funding? Jacqueline: Indiegogo takes a higher cut if you do partial funding. It also lacks the built-in urgency of all-or-nothing funding. We played down that feature and marketed it as though it were all-or-nothing to keep the sense of urgency. Thomas: That makes sense. Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing model creates real consequences if backers don’t act, which motivates them to spread the word. That can lead to both positive and awkward situations, like strangers spamming on your behalf to unlock stretch goals. How did you decide on rewards? Thomas: What rewards did you set up? Jacqueline: The rewards were interesting. We researched other successful book projects on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, looking at popular options like ebooks, physical copies, signed copies, book bundles and how they were priced. From there, we projected how much we could make from each category and then set our overall goal of $8,000. We worked backward from that projection. Thomas: I think that’s the better way to do it. Some campaigns are set up to fail because their rewards are too limited, making it impossible to reach their goal. You have to ask, “How many people do we realistically need?” If your goal is $10,000 and your main reward is $10, you need 1,000 backers, which is more than most people can find. But if your main reward is $100, you only need 100 people. Starting with rewards and estimating from there makes sense. How close to your goal did you land? Jacqueline: We ended at $8,025 on our $8,000 goal. None of us made that final donation to push it over. It was genuine. Thomas: That extra $25 probably saved you a few hundred dollars in Indiegogo fees since their percentage is higher if you don’t meet your goal. Jacqueline: Yes. Our rewards ranged from a thank-you at the lowest level to early bird discounts on ebooks and paperbacks for the first 25 buyers. One of our most successful options was a signed copy for $35 compared to $20 for the regular paperback. Just for signing our names, we earned an extra $15 per book, which gave us great margins.  If I could redo it, I’d look for more ways to add value like that without increasing costs. Do early bird rewards work? Thomas: You need those big margins to cover fixed costs like cover design and editing. Early bird offers make sense if you don’t already have a large platform. If you launch a board game that funds in eight hours and early birds sell out in 30 minutes, that’s frustrating for latecomers. But early birds help you reach 60% funding faster, and campaigns that hit 60% almost always reach 100%. If you have weeks for people to grab early bird rewards, it works. But if you already have thousands of eager backers, early birds aren’t necessary and can alienate people who discover your campaign later. Most of the opposition to early birds comes from the board game space, where campaigns often fund very quickly. How did you create your campaign video? Thomas: You had a great campaign video, and I remember asking about it, expecting you’d used expensive software. How did you edit it? Jacqueline: We filmed in our editor’s backyard and in front of her church. It looked like we had a professional setup, but she edited it on a $5 iPhone app. Thomas: Do you remember the name of the app? Jacqueline: I don’t. I should have asked her. Thomas: This is a good reminder that you don’t need expensive software. Phones can be more powerful than older laptops, and mobile editing apps can be very capable. Jacqueline: She finished the edit in about a week, working in her spare time. We filmed extra footage of several of us saying almost all the lines in the script at different locations, so she had plenty to work with. Thomas: That’s the way to do it. More footage gives the editor better options. What was the hardest part of the campaign? Thomas: What was the hardest thing about running your Indiegogo campaign? Jacqueline: Fulfillment. Everything was fun until the books arrived. I enjoyed communicating with supporters and promoting the campaign, but when my living room was overflowing with piles of books, the reality set in. My co-authors offered to help, but I told them I’d handle it myself. Thomas: Just pour a glass of wine, spend 30 minutes, slap some labels on, and you’re done, right? Jacqueline: Not even close. We had factored in the costs, but there’s more to it than shipping. You need bubble mailers, labels, and time. Thomas: When I did fulfillment for my book, I found the best prices for mailers and labels at Sam’s Club. They were cheaper than Amazon. Ideally, your publisher should ship directly, which saves money by avoiding double shipping, but some publishers won’t do that. Jacqueline: Ours didn’t. One thing I did was take a single book in a bubble mailer to the post office and have them price it with Media Mail before buying postage. That way I didn’t overpay, and when you’re shipping hundreds of books, that makes a big difference. Thomas: Media Mail in the U.S. applies to books, CDs, and DVDs. It’s very slow but very inexpensive. What would you do differently? Thomas: If you could do the campaign over again, what would you do differently? How would you structure it or promote it? Jacqueline: Finding additional ways to add value that didn’t cost us anything would have been helpful. We were limited because the manuscript had already been sent to the publisher, so we couldn’t add people’s names in the back as a thank-you, which is a popular option. Another change would be timing. I ran the campaign in the summer because I was a college instructor and had more time then. But fundraising professionals will tell you summer is a dry season for giving. People are more generous at the end of the year with Christmas and end-of-year giving, and also early in the year when they set new goals. By summer, those resolutions have faded, and people aren’t yet thinking about holiday giving. They’re on vacation, kids are out of school, and it’s harder to get their attention. If I did it again, I’d run it in the fall up to the end of the year. Thomas: That’s especially true if your target audience is students. The last thing they want to think about in the summer is another book to read. Games and entertainment products may do better in summer, but you have to think about your specific audience. If you have a lot of student email addresses, they may not even check those accounts over the summer. Knowing your audience and timing your campaign accordingly is key for any crowdfunding, whether Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or Patreon. How do you choose between Indiegogo and Kickstarter? Thomas: What advice would you give someone who’s deciding between Indiegogo and Kickstarter for their book launch? Jacqueline: With either platform, have a support system in place. Some campaigns get a huge PR push and meet their goal in eight hours, but that’s rare unless it’s your full-time focus. A support network of friends and family can help you get early momentum. Getting to 60% funding is key. It triggers algorithms, boosts search rankings, and gets your project recommended to others. It also builds the perception that your project will succeed. Thomas: Football stadiums for winning teams have more people than those for losing teams. People want to be on the winning team. Jacqueline: Exactly. We had six authors—two married to each other, and the rest married to other people—so ten people counting our spouses. Each of us had friends, family, coworkers, and church connections. That’s the basis of networking. There’s a TED Talk and a book called Friend of a Friend that explains networking as connecting through people you already know rather than meeting strangers at an event. Crowdfunding works the same way. Someone is more likely to support your campaign if a friend or family member has already done so. Having that support in place before you launch is critical. Thomas: Don’t underestimate the power of the personal ask. Call someone and ask if they’ll back the project. Early on, that’s more sales than marketing. Close friends might give $10 or $20, sometimes more, knowing they can reduce it later. Kickstarter makes this easier than Indiegogo, because on Kickstarter you can pledge a larger amount and adjust it later. Some campaigns use this to help hit milestones. Supporters pledge high amounts early to get the campaign to 60% or 90%, then lower them later. But remember, if you barely make your goal, Kickstarter will still take the full amount, so don’t pledge more than you’re comfortable giving. What final advice do you have for creators? Thomas: Any final advice for creators wanting to fund their art? Jacqueline: Don’t be afraid to ask. Creators often discount the value they provide, assuming backers are just doing them a favor. In reality, the books, podcasts, and other creative work add real value to people’s lives. When you ask for support, you’re inviting people to partake in that value and become part of the vision. There’s an essay by Henri Nouwen called The Spirituality of Fundraising that says asking for money is casting a vision for how the world could be different or better, whether through more beautiful through art or a new program. You’re inviting people to join that vision. People are looking for opportunities to make the world a better place, and you’re giving them one. It’s not just a charity case. What you’re doing matters, and that should be celebrated. Connect with Jaqueline BellweatherComs.com Jaqueline on LinkedIn Jaqueline on X Jacqueline Isaacs is the strategic director for Bellwether Communications, where she crafts measurable, well-researched content strategies for clients to achieve their goals. She also serves as the firm’s managing partner in Nashville, TN. She co-authored the book, Called to Freedom: Why You Can Be Christian and Libertarian (Affiliate Link), which successfully raised $8k through an Indiegogo campaign in the summer of 2016. Jacqueline Isaacs Indiegogo Campaign Linkedin Twitter Instagram Bellwether Communications Other Links Called to Freedom Facebook Page Called to Freedom Instagram David Burkus Tedx Talk Friend of a Friend by David Burkus (Affiliate Link) A Spirituality of Fundraising by Henri Nouwen (Affiliate Link) iPhone Movie Editing App The post 009 Launching a Controversial Book on Indiegogo with Jacqueline Isaacs appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Rachael Herron is the bestselling author of the novel The Ones Who Matter Most (Affiliate Link) (named an Editor’s Pick by Library Journal), as well as more than twenty other novels and memoirs. Her latest non-fiction is Fast-Draft Your Memoir: Write Your Life Story in 45 Hours (Affiliate Link). She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland and she teaches writing in the extension programs at both UC Berkeley and Stanford. She’s proud to be a New Zealander as well as a US citizen, though her Kiwi accent only comes out when she’s very tired. She’s also a member of the NaNoWriMo Writers Board. Rachel Haron: Website Patreon Twitter Links: Remind.com Questions: How did you get started writing? What kind of books do you write? Why did you decide to start using Patreon? Tell us about setting up your Patreon page. How did that process go? How did you promote it? Walk us through your rewards. What are they and why did you pick them? Walk us through your goals. What was it like to pass your first goal? What advice do you have for people thinking about launching a Patreon campaign? Other than Patreon, how do you fund your writing? Where can people find you online? The post 008 From Hobby Writer to Full Time Author with Rachael Herron appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Joanna Penn is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers under J.F.Penn and also writes non-fiction for authors. She’s an award-winning creative entrepreneur, podcaster, and YouTuber. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com has been voted in the Top 100 sites for writers by Writer’s Digest. Joanna Penn Links: Website Patreon JF Penn Website Facebook Twitter Other Links: Society6 ACX.com Questions What do you write and how did you get started writing? What was it like writing in the early days of the indie revolution? Why is it important for creators to have multiple sources of income? What does it mean for an author to “go wide”? Why would an author go wide? You are more than just a writer, though. As a creator, where does your money come from? Tell us about your podcast. Why start a podcast for writers? How do you monetize your podcast? (Sponsorship, Patreon, Cross Promotion) Walk us through your Patreon Rewards: $1 Silver $3 Gold $5 Platinum Why a per episode rather than per month model? In closing, what advice do you have for starving creators? The post 007 Diversifying Your Income as a Creator With Joanna Penn appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

This is the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love without selling out. I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr., and with me is Mary DeMuth, an international speaker, podcaster, novelist, nonfiction author, and more. She lives in Texas with her husband of 28 years and is the mom of three adult children.  How did you get started writing? Thomas: So how did you get started writing? Mary: I’ve always been writing, but as a career, it started after I had my first child. I felt a strong need to be published, not to validate myself, but because I had so much inside me I wanted to share, especially to help people heal from trauma. I spent about 10 years in the ’90s writing for myself. In the mid-2000s, I landed an agent, had a newspaper column, and kept working on my craft. Since about 2005, I’ve been writing three books a year for 13 years now. What is your favorite book you’ve written? Thomas: You started off the traditional way. Of your traditionally published books, my favorite is Thin Places. Tell us about it. Mary: That’s my favorite, too. It’s my memoir, and it was hard to write. It tells the story of my upbringing, and when family members are still alive, writing a memoir is not easy. I knew there was power in telling the story so others could say, “I’m not alone.” I wanted to speak to those neglected, abused, or dealing with loss, divorce, or addiction in the home, which were things I experienced as a child. What was the reaction from readers? Thomas: You wrote about surviving sexual abuse and your healing journey. I’ll admit, I cried while reading it. It’s powerful. Did readers ask for a follow-up? Mary: Yes, but they wanted more of the process. Thin Places (affiliate link) was simply storytelling. People wanted to know, “How do I heal from sexual abuse? What does that process look like?” I also wrote a viral post called “I’m Sick of Hearing About Your Smoking Hot Wife.” It expressed my frustration at hearing messages that wives should always be sexually available, knowing many women in the room had been sexually abused. For them, there are huge hurdles. That shame was hurting victims, and I wanted to address it. From that, I decided to write Not Marked, which began my crowdfunding journey. Why didn’t you publish traditionally? Thomas: You were successfully traditionally published, had an agent, and wrote a viral blog post. I bet publishers were eager to take this book. Mary: Maybe in the #MeToo era, but not then. I pitched it to several publishers, and all of them said no. One even told me, “We don’t believe there’s an audience for this book.” I thought, “Almost half the world has experienced this, and you think there’s no market? Fine. I’ll do it myself.” How did crowdfunding become the plan? Thomas: Twenty years ago, that would’ve been the end of the story. But that’s not what happened. What happened next? Mary: You’d done crowdfunding and suggested I try it. We’re both in a mastermind group, and together we figured out that crowdfunding was the way to go. I didn’t want to ask for money, but you convinced me. We set a $10,000 goal to cover editing, the cover, and a 5,000-copy print run. Thomas: And we put it on Kickstarter because that’s what I recommended. But Kickstarter rejected you. Mary: Yes. At the time, they didn’t allow self-help books, and mine qualified. So we switched to Indiegogo. I moved all the content over, and we did a do-or-die campaign. If it didn’t fund in a month, it wouldn’t happen. That urgency was important. Thomas: Indiegogo is like Kickstarter’s laidback older brother. You launched the campaign and we worked out the rewards. What happened in the first week? Mary: Besides a nervous breakdown, it went very well. Within a few days, it funded to $10,000.  Thomas: Take that, publishers! Proof there’s an audience for this book. Mary: Exactly. We had stretch goals ready. At $25,000, we’d produce an audiobook, which is expensive. In the end, we raised just over $25,000. I poured all of it back into the project and took no personal income, but that’s fine.  Why choose offset printing over print on demand? Thomas: You went with offset printing instead of print on demand. What’s the difference, and why? Mary: If I had used CreateSpace, my cost per copy would have been $6–$7. Donating books to ministries would be costly. With a print run, it dropped to $1 per copy. I have a friend with a warehouse who handles shipping, so donating 500 books costs $500 plus shipping, instead of six times that. Thomas: So sending books to a women’s shelter isn’t bank-breaking. Mary: I just sent two cases to a church where I spoke. My heart for this book is to let people know they’re not alone and to help them heal. My husband also wrote part of it, sharing his perspective on living with and supporting a sexual abuse survivor. It’s also a good resource for anyone helping a friend through this journey. What are you creating now? Thomas: Let’s talk about what happened after that. Once you got a taste of crowdfunding, maybe traditional publishing didn’t seem as great as everyone says it is. What are you creating currently? Mary: Right now, I’m creating art. This came about because of my audience. During the Lent season, I created art every day for four or five years. People kept asking if I would sell my art online. I thought it was silly, but this year I finally listened and started selling on Etsy. It’s another creative income stream; it’s not the same as crowdfunding, but it’s still valuable. The takeaway is to listen to your audience. If they want something from you, give it to them. It was the same with Not Marked (affiliate link). My audience wanted that book, so I wrote it. How do you choose rewards your audience wants? Thomas: That’s a powerful principle. When you’re putting together rewards for Indiegogo or Patreon, the best ones are what your audience is already asking for. Sometimes we think of something complicated, but they don’t care about it. Then there’s something easy for us that makes them say, “Give me more.” The curse of knowledge makes it hard to see what others don’t know or value, like the math teacher who forgets how confusing math can be for a freshman. It can be the same with our backers. Mary: True. To answer your question more fully, I’m also podcasting. I hosted The Restory Show for several years, interviewing people about the difficult stories in their lives and the turning points that brought change. That show is winding down. Now, I’m doing Pray Every Day, where I walk through a book or chapter of the Bible verse by verse and then pray for listeners for five minutes. I fund the editing through Patreon, at least partially. Patreon is new for me, so I’m surprised and grateful that people are backing it. What rewards do you offer patrons? Thomas: Walk us through your Patreon rewards. Mary: I wasn’t sure what to give people at first, but it connected with my art. If you support me at $5 or more, I send you an original piece of digital art each month. At $20, you get a monthly audio from me that’s not available anywhere else. I’m also considering a $10 level where your name appears on every Pray Every Day blog post 365 days of the year. Thomas: That’s an easy reward for you and exciting for supporters. Universities have done this for centuries: give us a large donation, we’ll name a building after you; a smaller one, we’ll engrave your name on a brick. Everything is named and sponsored. How do patrons respond to changes? Thomas: You’ve pivoted from one podcast to another. Have you gotten any pushback? Mary: None at all. I updated the page and made a new video, and more people joined. I mention Patreon on the podcast every 7–10 episodes since it’s a daily show. I had an idea to create a brick graphic for each post with patrons’ names on it. When someone joins at the $10 level, I’ll add their name to a brick and upload it to the page. Thomas: That’s great. People back your art, but more than that, they back you. Changing your creative work doesn’t necessarily mean losing supporters, especially if the new work is consistent with your brand. Many creators fear that changing direction will make them start over, but that’s not always true. Mary: Exactly. You also need to follow your joy. I loved The Restory Show for years, but recently the joy drained away, and it became a chore. I can’t fully explain it, but when I started Pray Every Day, I thought, “This is what I need to be doing.” It’s fun again. The patronage feels different too. For Restory, it was about sharing people’s stories. For Pray Every Day, it’s about getting these prayers to the world. That’s why we used funds to add the show to Alexa Skills for the Amazon Echo, which has been a major source of traffic. Thomas: The Echo platform is growing faster than smartphones did. If you create content, think about how it can work on an Echo. Buy an inexpensive Echo Dot so you understand the platform.  Why should creators consider crowdfunding? Thomas: Now, what advice would you give to someone thinking about writing a book but unsure where the funding will come from? They’re considering Kickstarter, Patreon, or Indiegogo. Mary: For a book, I recommend a larger platform like Indiegogo or Kickstarter. It’s one and done: raise the money, make the book. My friend Erin Kincaid is currently funding a children’s book with amazing illustrations for $5,000, and I know it will succeed. For ongoing creative work like a podcast, use Patreon. Sponsor a few people yourself to experience the process. Look at many campaigns to see what works. Thomas: The best way to learn is to spend a little supporting other campaigns. On Kickstarter, you can pledge as little as $1 and get no reward, just the updates. That lets you watch the process from start to finish and see how creators adapt. There’s a strong correlation between backing campaigns and running successful ones. Creators who have backed over 50 Kickstarter projects have a 60% success rate, compared to 16% for those who’ve backed only one. Mary: And if you don’t have the time to learn, hire someone who understands it. I came into crowdfunding naive, and his help made our campaign very successful. If you can’t pay cash up front, offer a percentage of what comes in. That way, you get expert guidance without the initial expense. Connect with Mary DeMuth MaryDeMuth.com Pray Every Day Patreon About Mary Mary DeMuth is an international speaker and podcaster, and she’s the novelist and nonfiction author of over thirty-five books, including the latest: The Seven Deadly Friendships (Harvest House Publishers 2018). She loves to help people re-story their lives. She lives in Texas with her husband of 28 years and is the mom to three adult children. Find out more at marydemuth.com. Links: Restory Show  Pray Every Day Podcast Mary’s Website Mary’s Patreon Campaign The post 006 How Mary DeMuth Went From Rejected Author to Crowdfunding Success appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Shemer Kuznits is a LitRPG author who is using Patreon to fund his writing. He was recently able to move from working 5 days a week to 4 days a week giving him another day dedicated to writing.  Links Shemer’s Website Shemer’s Patreon Page Shemer’s Facebook Questions: What kind of writing do you do? What kind of books do you write? What is LitRPG? Why did you decide to start using Patreon? Tell us about setting up the Patreon page. How did that process go? How did you promote it? Walk us through your rewards. What are they and why did you pick them? What advice do you have for people thinking about launching a Patreon campaign? Maintain a email list Wix Email. Other than Patreon, how do you fund your writing? Where can people find you online?     The post 005 Funding Publishing on Patreon with Shemer Kuznits appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Tom Boruta is a Software Engineer who created Graphtreon because he wanted to follow the progress of Patreon creators. In this episode, we talk about how to use Graphtreon to track your Patreon’s progress.  Links: Graphtreon Website Graphtreon Patreon Graphtreon Twitter   Questions What is Graphtreon.com? Why did you start Graphtreon? What are some interesting things you’ve seen in the data? What advice do you have for someone considering Patreon? What advice do you have for someone who is wanting to get more patrons? How much money does the Median Patreon page make per month? A lot of your audience doesn’t know what Patreon is, Tell us about the Graphtreon Patreon Page. Why create a Patreon account for your site? Walk us through your rewards. What are they and why did you pick them?   Transcript Transcription generated algorithmically by Sonix (Affiliate Link) Intro: [00:00:03] This is the creative fun show podcast for YouTube podcasters who want to fund the work they love. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:00:13] So we now welcome to the creative funding show. Today we’re joined by Tom Baruta who is a software engineer who created Graefe Triano because he wanted to follow the progress of patriotic creators. So Tom welcome to the show. Tom Boruta: [00:00:29] Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here. Yes. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:00:31] Tell us a little bit about Graphtreon. What is it. Tom Boruta: [00:00:33] Sure it’s a Web site that just clicks daily statistics on all the playground campaigns. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:00:39] So in some ways it’s kind of like kicktrack but for patriotic to kicktraq is a third party service for Kickstarter that has all this really cool analytics that tells you how many backers and it even has some projections on how you’re going to do. And when I stumbled across Graphtreon I was like Oh my goodness this is perfect. I’m so glad this exists. So but why did you create Graphtreon. Why. Why you and why this. Tom Boruta: [00:01:05] Yeah I was actually funding some people on Patreon in late 2014 early 2015. And I literally would go to all their pages every single day to see how they were doing. And since I’m a software engineer I was. I was like well this is dumb. I should just build something that tracks this stuff for me and that I’m sure other people would want to see that. So I made it a public website and that’s where it started and I really love graphs so I made them all on the graphs. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:01:35] So a lot of people think oh the only kind of person who’d use a service like graphtreon to see charts and graphs and progress of a page rampage would be the patreon on page creator. And what you don’t realize is that there are super backers out there super patrons who are just as passionate about your success as you are and who would actually build a software program to just track how well you’re doing. Tom Boruta: [00:01:56] Oh yeah for sure. And so me. I keep trying to tell that to the creators I talk to is your patrons want to know that stuff your patrons would love to see this kind of stuff. And some of them had to take my advice and share their Graphtreon pages with their patrons and some of them don’t think their patrons want to see it. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:02:15] Yes. Walk us through what sorts of things are tracked by graphtreon. Tom Boruta: [00:02:18] Sure the number of patron patrons your campaign has and if your earnings are public the earnings they have and it’s every day I collect that data every day. And also if they the creator links their YouTube channel for their Facebook page or their Twitter profile I track. The followers and likes to all those pages as well. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:02:44] Yeah and it’s really cool because you can see like how many Facebook fans somebody has. Do you see a correlation between like how popular somebody is on Facebook Twitter YouTube with how much money they bring in. Actually I get that question a lot and no there is very little if any correlation Tom Boruta: [00:03:02] Between like the success of a patreon page and the quote unquote success of a social media profile. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:03:08] See this is what I’ve been saying for a long time. On my other show the novel marketing podcast. Social media is not this powerful tool for marketing that a lot of people think that it is. It’s a good place to go and have a good time but it’s not going to drive money like you would think so. So what does correlate of Twitter and Facebook don’t correlate with how many patrons somebody has. What does correlate that you’ve seen. Tom Boruta: [00:03:31] It’s pretty much the engagement with your patrons or your audience who can then become patrons. It seems like if you’re more personable you just talk directly to them using whatever means of conversation you want to use. A lot of people used to use Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or dischord. Tom Boruta: [00:03:54] You just need to keep an engagement with people and then ask them ask them for support. Ask them for to become patron and that helps more than anything I’ve ever seen. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:04:05] So it’s really about that human connection. Tom Boruta: [00:04:07] Yeah. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:04:08] So you’re saying that the solution to a technology problem is actually a human one. Tom Boruta: [00:04:14] Kind of yeah I guess it is. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:04:16] If a software engineer is saying it folks it must be true. So that’s awesome. So what other sorts of things just does graftreon track. Tom Boruta: [00:04:25] We just have top lists of like all the different categories. Actually it is not easy or super possible to get patriarchies categories Intergraph trans so I didn’t come up with a method of trying to determine what a category a patreon campaign is in and that I put them into those categories and rank them based on the number of patrons and I do it by number of patrons. For a variety of reasons mostly because a lot of creators hide their earnings nowadays. So ranking them by earnings doesn’t really work that well anymore. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:05:00] That’s right. And patrons are the most certain thing. And it does correlate the number of patrons you have correlates pretty strongly with how much money you have. It’s not a one to one correlation but it has a strong correlation. What advice do you have for somebody who’s thinking about starting pitcher think you’re like the king of data. You get all the data and you’re a little like magical castle of data. What’s the advice that you give somebody who’s thinking about getting started on Patreon. Tom Boruta: [00:05:25] Sure. Well first a lot of people just make a patriotic campaign when they’re starting out just starting creating. That’s OK but you’re not going to get any payments for a while. You should have an audience. And you should make something that people want and people want to. Quote unquote pay for. They think it’s your patrons should hire your audience should think it’s something worthwhile to pay you to continue to create. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:05:54] And what about for somebody who’s who’s already being tracked by you. They’ve been using pitch around for six months or so and they’re wanting to grow their page what sorts of things do you see works well at building that revenue. Tom Boruta: [00:06:06] Engagement with your audience. Like I said earlier also a lot of creators you just need to ask most of your audience might not even know you have a Patreon on page. They might not know what Patreon is. So like if you make videos you should ask either at the beginning or the end of all your videos links in your scripts and let your audience know because I think its creators will be surprised at how many people don’t know that they have a page rampage. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:06:38] It’s the grandma test. If you going see your grandma she doesn’t know what something is. There’s a good chance probably half the population is more like your grandma than like you. And a lot of people don’t know what Patreon is and they hear it. What’s sad is that you often hear it at the end of YouTube videos like go back me on Patreon on you know and they hear that over and over again but they never are curious enough to look into what that is and they don’t know. And so it’s up to you as a creator to do that education and get the word out because once someone backs one patron patreon page it’s a lot easier for them to back number two through infinity because they’re to have an account there to have a password they have their credit card information in there. If that first page. That’s such the challenge. And that’s your job as a creator is to get get the first ones. Tom Boruta: [00:07:23] Absolutely. Yeah. Getting people onboard is the hard part. But once they’re in their data shows that patrons start patronizing other creators quite quickly. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:07:37] Yeah. Yeah you do see that data specifically like how many how many how many people does the average backer back. Tom Boruta: [00:07:44] So I’m not able to get that specific sort of data. I get kinda know it anecdotally from talking to people from patreon. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:07:54] You can give us gossip that’s OK we accept gossip on the creative funny show yeah get OK. Tom Boruta: [00:07:59] Gossip is like the average patron pledges like five campaigns. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:08:05] Ok so that’s that’s not bad. And that’s. So one application of this is that if there are several other campaigns that are similar to yours already on Patreon there may be a base of support of folks who may be willing to throw you a buck or two. I feel like patron is now where Kickstarter was five or six years ago. Tom Boruta: [00:08:24] I agree. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:08:24] When I first got started with Kickstarter you know a campaign made twenty thousand dollars. It was this huge deal is like oh my gosh these people raise 20000 dollars on Kickstarter these people raised a 100 thousand dollars on Kickstarter and now no one blinks twice. Somebody is raising a million dollars or 5 million dollars for a project and I feel like the money the real money that’s going to be made with people using patreon hasn’t really been realized yet. And the top creators haven’t been realized like the top 10 are probably not going to be the top 10. A year from now and not because they are making less money it’s because new people have come in that are making even more money than that. Tom Boruta: [00:09:00] Yeah I’ve seen lots of creators that used to be in the top 10 are not in the top 10 anymore and not because like you said they’re not losing support. It’s just these other creators have even more support. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:09:12] That’s right and that’s really good for the community because they’re bringing more users who have patriae on accounts. So that’s one of the big advantages now kickstarter is that a lot of people have a kickstarter account. Kickstarter has their credit card and it’s a lot easier to back a campaign than it used to be although it’s still probably 50 percent of the population doesn’t know what Kickstarter is so you forget what your grandparents know and people like your grandparents who love to give you money or to back something they just need to know how to do it. Tom Boruta: [00:09:39] Absolutely and I’ve actually done the Google Trends thing of comparing Kickstarter versus Patreon and actually Patreon is starting to pass Kickstarter on a regular basis for Google searches. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:09:52] I believe it and it has. You know people may mention their Kickstarter for a month or two or doing it right. Six months right five months leading up to the campaign than during the one huge blitz. But then they hardly ever mentioned it. Whereas if somebody is a blogger. They may be mentioning Patreon every day or every week for years because it’s this kind of constant rhythm. And I think that’s a much better model especially for people who are trying to make a living because you’re getting revenue in a much more even way. Speaking of which you have your own patreon paid for it supports Graphtreon. So tell us about that. Tom Boruta: [00:10:28] Sure. I collecting all this data. It gets quite expensive quite quickly. So I create a patreon campaign and I see I have like 120 patrons now supporting me and supporting the website and all the data I collect. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:10:48] That’s awesome. I’d like for you to walk us through your rewards. I feel like the biggest opportunity for learning is to see what other people are doing with their rewards. Because there’s a lot of ideas that we can get for our own patreon campaign. So what are your rewards and what are your most popular rewards. Tom Boruta: [00:11:03] Sure. I guess I’ll preface this saying like I’m a little bit I would think I’m a little bit of an outlier because I’m sort of a meta creator. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:11:11] There’s nothing wrong with meta creators my friends. Nothing wrong with that but I just want to leave that caveat in there. Tom Boruta: [00:11:18] I started my of my lowest year at two dollars just to support graftreon and to get access to I usually post like images or ideas of new features I’m going to create. I tried to pick reward levels where I thought it was worth it for the patron for the type of rewards I was giving out and then the next one is the names for draft five dollars and you get your name post on the website on this supporters page. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:11:51] And just just to jump in real quick. People love that. So as a creator often it’s easy to take for granted having your name on the internet or your face on the Internet in a public way. Right not just on social media but for normal people that’s really exciting to have them their face or their name featured on a website. And I find that this is a super common reward regardless of category is you know I will feature your name somewhere in the most popular shows like authors here. Like you get to be the name of a character who dies people love that. Tom Boruta: [00:12:25] Oh yeah I know it’s awesome I’ve seen a lot of creators use that really creatively like Peter Howland’s. I want to see like a year and a half ago. Did a campaign where he’s like everybody who is in my dollar above tier gets their name printed on the leaflet inside my CD. He got a huge surge of support just because your name is going to be permanently on the leaflet on all those CDs. However many he ends up selling like hundred thousand or whatever. And people love that stuff having their name at the end of YouTube videos all sorts of stuff like that. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:13:04] Yeah. All right so tell us about the ten dollar level sure that you get like a banner on the sports page. Usually at this point the people that want to pledge to me are other creators so we link to their patriotic page so hopefully they get some some pork from people perusing my site in this in a sense is using Patreon as an advertised advertising platform to sell advertising. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:13:30] So this is what historically to like buy a banner ad on my Web site and it’s really hard to get people to buy that but when you put it in the context of Hey you’re helping keep the site together. It’s a lot easier to do this. We actually have the same thing with Novel Marketing where people get to feature their book on the website. The link to Amazon is a very popular level. Tell us about the 25 dollar level. Tom Boruta: [00:13:50] So everybody in this group and the next group have their name on a banner and it rotates between all of them on all pages and graphtreon. So same thing sort of advertising and helping out graphtreon and now everybody is obviously going to go to the supporters page and see your name or your banner. So this is even more exposure. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:14:12] So the more you pay the more exposure. So twenty five dollars gets you on all the pages. Fifty dollars gets you on the home page and you have these limited. Is there a certain number that you’ll max out at or is that how many you can sell. Tom Boruta: [00:14:25] It’s how many I can sell at the moment. Yeah I have it set up so I should be able to handle as many as as many as I can get. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:14:35] All right. Very cool. Final question what do you have any trade secrets for our listeners have special tricks or tips that we haven’t asked you so far of ways to raise more money for their art. Tom Boruta: [00:14:50] Every creator seems to be different. And all the Creative solutions that get really big bumps are usually specific to what that creator is doing. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:15:03] I think that’s a powerful principle actually which is play to your strengths. Tom Boruta: [00:15:06] Yes Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:15:07] So there’s not one silver bullet. You know there’s things that everybody does together a lot of people do which is you know putting backers names places which is an inexpensive thing for you to do and has a lot of hope for the backer. But other than that you have to look at what you’re doing and how it connects with your audience which I realize is hard to be like oh here’s how to do it for a random person you have to look at what they’re doing specifically. Any cool trends that you’ve seen. What’s changed in those statistics from the beginning when you started and now have you seen anything change. Tom Boruta: [00:15:39] Not really just more and more people are jumping on the platform and ending up at different points on the top thousand list and stuff get lots of different like things I would never think of jumping of patreon like. It’s called Knitty Knitting Magazine magazine is quite popular. There’s a Nintendo magazine that’s quite popular. It just things I would never think of are popping up on there and finding success. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:16:11] It’s not being about popular generally. It’s about being very popular with a small motivated group of people. Tom Boruta: [00:16:17] Yep Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:16:17] And it’s you know you don’t have to be HBO you can be some creative access you know TV shows long a passionate audience. So Tom thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can our listeners find out more about you and about graphtreon. Tom Boruta: [00:16:31] Pretty much just go to Grasstree and calm. And I also post on Twitter at Grasstree on if there is a new feature to the website. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:16:40] All right we will have a link to Graphtreon and two digraph Tian Patreon on page in the show notes. If you are listening on a podcast app you can just swipe either up or to the side depending on the app in that link will be right there and go straight to those sites right there in your mobile device of use. I know most of you listen to iPhone’s but hopefully more of you will be listening on Androids in the future as Android embraces podcasting. Which is a conversation for another day. Tom thank you so much for joining us on the creative funding show. Tom Boruta: [00:17:10] Thanks for having me. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:17:12] Very happy to have Tom Baruta on the show and I know talking about graphs may not be that exciting but there is a really powerful principle that what gets measured gets managed and the better you understand how many subscribers you have how many patrons you have how quickly you’re adding them how much they’re backing at the better you have an understanding of those numbers the better you can adapt and tweak your patreon page to the backers that you have and to encourage more people to become your patron in the future. So I really do encourage you to go and check out graphtreon you can look up not just your own page your on page but any other picture on page you can look it up and see how they’re doing and compare and contrast and see what the best folks in the industry are doing and I will say I’m using graphtreon to find guests for the show to see who the top players are in various categories. Thomas Umstattd Jr.: [00:18:03] Thank you so much for listening today to the creative funding show you can find out more creative funding dot show. And as always please leave us a review on iTunes. We so appreciate your views on iTunes they are helping to spread the word about the Creative Funding Show. The post 004 Patreon Stats with Graphtreon Founder Tom Boruta appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

In this episode, I am going to sign up for a Patreon Account and share about the process and what I’ve learned along the way.  Links: Creative Funding Show Patreon Patreon Affiliate Link (we both each $50+ with this link) TLDR What is Patreon? Patreon is a rewards-based patronage platform where your fans can contribute to the creation of your future work. How do rewards work? Patrons back either monthly or per creation. The level of their patronage influences the level of the rewards they get. The more you back the creation, the more rewards. How do goals work? As the campaign raises more money overall, the individual rewards will get better and better. Transcript Transcription generated algorithmically by Sonix (Affiliate Link) [00:00:03] This is the Creative Funding Show, a podcast for YouTubers and podcasters who want the work they love without selling them to the creative funny show in this episode we’re going to talk about how to set up a patriotic page. [00:00:20] I’m of course Thomas Umstattd and this episode’s going to be a little bit different because I’m going to record it in stages as I go through the process of creating the Patreon page for [00:00:30] the Creative Funding Show. [00:00:31] I realize this is a bit meta but I’m going to go through this step myself and then rerecord on this track. What I’ve learned what my thoughts were what the process was like. So you can go along the journey with me as I create a Patreon page. Now I’ve kind of done this before when we did the novel Marketing Podcast. James Rhubart. My cohost did a lot of the set up I did some of the set up and so this will be my first time to create a Patreon page from scratch. So you’re going to get to go through that [00:01:00] process with me. So we’ll see how this goes. I hope it will be fun. I hope you enjoy it and I hope we all learn something. [00:01:08] All right this is Thomas from the future. I assume at this point when I first recorded it that you already have a patriotic account so I just go straight into editing my patron account. If you don’t have a patron account already and the first step is to go and create one which you can do. I actually have an affiliate link if you create an account through my link you’ll get some bonus [00:01:30] money so it’s creative funding that show forward slash Patreon on affiliate link I’ll have a link to it in the show notes in how this works. Is that based off how many patrons you get in the first 30 days. We both get a bonus. So it starts off fifty dollars. You get an extra 50 bucks. I get an extra 50 bucks and goes all the way up to 500 if you have a super successful show. So this is one of the ways that I’m funding this shows with affiliates one of which is with patriot and you can create that new account using [00:02:00] the affiliate link by going to creative funding show forward slash patreon affiliate link. [00:02:07] Okay. The first thing I did was I went to settings for my profile and changed my name so I’ve changed my name from Thomas Umstattd to Creative Funding Show and I’m on the settings page and so far it’s pretty straightforward. Uploaded my album artwork. I need to create a cover image of left that blank for now. I uploaded the Facebook URL and the Twitter handle in the [00:02:30] category of putting podcasting. It’s pretty straightforward and I’ve reserved patreon dot com slash creative funding show for the URL no adult content. And yes we’re going to have a custom RSS feed. So so far it’s pretty straightforward. It’s just kind of paint by numbers filling in the gaps. We’ll see if things get a little more complicated here in a second. [00:02:51] Alright I just finished the about section. This is probably the shortest page so far and remember correctly the paid period. But [00:03:00] that doesn’t make it easy since is where you describe your podcast or your project or whatever it is. And you know this is always so hard. You know how do you describe your own work and how do you do that efficiently. So I just put the creative funny show as a podcast for creators who want to make a living doing what they love using platforms like Patreon Kickstarter. This patreon page will be how we funded the show and it will also be where we experiment with ideas and suggestions of our guests. If you want to learn how to use patreon and better consider [00:03:30] backing this page. [00:03:31] Thank you so much. This isn’t great text that I just wrote. I’ll probably make it better. Moving forward and I think that’s an important point now with all of this I think it’s really easy for us to allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. And with a lot of the projects I’ve found it’s better to just launch with what you have and then improve it based off of feedback and analytics rather than keeping it to yourself. So to speak. [00:03:54] And then the second part and this again plays to probably my biggest weakness with this whole process [00:04:00] is the intro video. I’m very comfortable on audio I’ve done radio before. Video is not a strength for me so some of you listening are YouTube yours. You’ll be just the opposite. Right the video will be the easiest part of a patron because you’re on camera every day or or all the time. For me I’m not on camera that often. Mostly what I record are courses and so this is a little uncomfortable. I’ll play the audio from the video I kept it very short and you can listen to it but again I’m not seeing this video as something that I’m committed to I’m probably going to update it in [00:04:30] the future. You’ll notice I don’t really talk about the rewards all that carefully and that’s because 1 I want to be able to change the rewards as we experiment with stuff and 2 as I’m recording this I don’t know what the rewards are going to be. I’m a little vague on purpose so let’s roll the audio for the YouTube video. [00:04:49] I’m Thomas Umstattd that junior with the creative funding show and you have reached our patreon page. That’s right. The show about patreon has a page on patreon so we can prank it’s [00:05:00] what we preach. This page is where we’re going to give you some really cool rewards which you can see below but it’s also we’re we’re going to be experimenting with the ideas and suggestions from the guests who come on the show. This is our laboratory for excellent patreon and there’s one thing I’ve learned about experimentation is that some experiments fail. If you want to watch the adventure to see what works and what doesn’t work I encourage you to back this page and join us on the wild ride that is funding creativity. We’ll be doing it for our podcast helping you do [00:05:30] it for your YouTube channel your book or maybe a podcast of your own. Thank you so much for checking out this page for backing the show. [00:05:38] You’ll notice that that’s very similar to the text that I had on the page. I see these as being kind of the same message told different ways. Not everyone’s going to watch the video. Not everyone is going to read the text so I didn’t want to put any critical information in one that wasn’t also in the other. [00:05:55] So now I’m on the rewards tab. I had to make some decisions when it came [00:06:00] to rewards and this is really where I recommend that you don’t start to patreon with the start of your show. Normally how I would pick rewards is based off of listener feedback and what people like and you know we’d survey our listeners and give them more of that. Since I’m doing this before a single show is going live. I have no idea what you like and what you don’t like. So I’m doing this the hard way. But I have two levels to start off. One is watch the experience called Watch the experiment and it’s one dollar per creation. This [00:06:30] can be one dollar per episode or about four dollars a month for the text I have get the patron only updates and the patrons only Q&A episode. Now part of me wants to put the Q&A episode like that behind a goal. So like once we have a hundred dollars a month then we all mock the patrons only Q&A episode and the reason for that is if only 5 people back this or one person. Like if my mom my only backer I’m not going to have enough questions for Q&A episode. [00:06:57] That’s a lot of work for not a lot of reward. So I think [00:07:00] I’m going to retool this and add plus additional rewards to come. I realize that’s not a lot of incentive but our second level I think is a little more appealing and it’s the featured patron level and it’s everything in the 1 dollar level plus having your patreon page featured on the creative hunting show. So you’re wanting to get the word out about your patreon page. This is the way to do it. I’ve had this one limited so it’s limited to 16 patrons at this level. We had a level like this within Novel Marketing Podcast. It was a very popular [00:07:30] level and the way we’re doing it there and I’m doing the same way here is that it’s once per quarter we will have if you want your page featured and that’s 20 dollars and I think that will help us to get to our goal. One of the things I’ve learned about patreon is that often a lot of your money comes from a handful of people and so it’s important to have high level reward levels that encourage people to donate and you’ll have people donate beyond your highest level tier. So right now we are top patron at novel marketing and turned it over twice [00:08:00] what the highest tier currently available is. This is kind of a higher tier twenty dollars per podcast’s episode that’s going to be 80 dollars a month. That’s a lot of money but I’m hoping that some folks will want to look back at that to help make the podcast a reality. [00:08:13] Also patrons can limit the monthly amount so that’s 20 dollars per podcast’s they can limited say forty dollars a month and we’ll explore kind of how that works. That’s all I have for the rewards page. I’d love to have your ideas what kind of [00:08:30] rewards you’d love to see. This will be an iterative process but I’m kind of letting you peek under the hood of the very beginnings so you can learn with me. [00:08:40] So I’m on the next tab that says goals. This is where you set goals for the patreon. The closest thing to this in kickstarter world will be like a stretch goal so once we reach a certain earning level or a certain number of patrons everyone gets this special prize or gift or what have you. So I set [00:09:00] up three goals to start off the first ones a 100 dollar goal and it’s patrons only monthly Q&A episode so I rework that reward and I said plus the Q&A episode once it’s unlocked so this way we’ll have enough people to ask questions before we start doing the Q and A episode. The second goal is a 250 dollar goal and it’s a community Slack channel. So once we reach 250 dollars funding and I actually think about changing this from a earnings goal to a person goal in fact that many of us I’m going to say once [00:09:30] we get to 100 patrons create the slack channel. We have a handful of people who are donating a lot of money. [00:09:36] I don’t want to have a slack channel that will be an empty room so I’m making changes as I’m explaining it to you live on the air but the idea with slack you can talk with other patrons of the show you can ask questions you can get feedback on your patreon pages if you’re wanting to get feedback from the community. This will be a way to do that and that will unlock once we have 100 patrons and then I have a five hundred dollar a month goal [00:10:00] which is episode transcript so I’ve gone through this with many other podcasts transcripts or a bit of a pain. There’s two ways to do it. You can have a human do it or you can have a computer to it. When you have the computer do it you still have to have a human touch it and it’s work and it’s hassle so this one’s at five hundred dollars a month. The advantage of transcripts are not everyone likes to listen to podcasts. This is going to open up the show for them if they want to be able to glance through it. It also will make the show more findable on google and it will make it more searchable turn to look up the answer to a certain thing they heard a few episodes ago. Once [00:10:30] there’s transcripts it makes that easier. 500 dollars may be too much for this level. I may lower it but right now mostly focused on that 100 dollar level and 300 patron reward level and I will add more goals as I get feedback from you. [00:10:45] So again this is the initial launch early and iterate often model so I’m launching the thing mostly broken and as I get feedback from you I’m going to make it better. I realized this isn’t the best way to do it but it’s the most transparent way I can do [00:11:00] it and hopefully it’s helpful. [00:11:02] I just finished the thank you Page. At first I was thinking that I’d be like oh you have to back the Petreon on for a dollar to see the video or whatever but I’m not going to do that. I think that in the purpose of full disclosure I’ll go ahead and post the audio also the audio of the video here in a second. The idea with the thank you page is to give a heartfelt thank you to your patrons and typically patreon. Campaigns that I’ve backed in the past. This is not [00:11:30] a super polished video. So typically you get a little bit more of a behind the scenes view. So while the other videos I shot in my podcasting studio so to speak. This one I shot while I was going to get the mail with my wife trashed today while I’m recording this. Trash cans all over our neighborhoods it’s not super fancy but having my wife on the video is a big deal because she’s not typically one who likes to be on camera So that’s kind of like the special thank you for my patrons is that you get to see my wife and get a little glimpse behind the scenes. It’s [00:12:00] not amazing I realize but it’s where I’m starting. So let me roll the audio for that real quick. [00:12:09] Thomas Umstattd i’m walking to get the mail with my lovely wife is expecting our first baby I just wanted to say thank you so much for backing this patreon page. This is very scary to do especially since a lot of you are also patreon patron on in doing this and learning [00:12:30] in front of you and trying to be as transparent as possible. And I just want to say thank you from the bottom my heart for helping to make this possible and for joining us on this adventure and we’ll see you online. [00:12:41] So that was the video and I just shot that on my iPhone. I don’t have a fancy iPhone I’ve got a kind of an older iPhone but the video quality is great and I just had it held it while I was walking along the road. So it works. And another thing real quick is that you get to write some text here. I just put thank you. The creative [00:13:00] funding show would not be possible without you. You are an insider now and your voice is especially important in influencing where the show goes in the future. If you have a topic you’d like us to discuss. I guess you want us to interview or a question you want me to answer please let me know and then I sign it. Thomas and with all three of these videos or the intro video and the thank you video. Also while I was coding videos created a video for the website kind of introduced the show. Figured why not. They recorded them in Camtasia which is the same software that I use when I’m putting together a course [00:13:30] for Mac. I like it it’s pretty easy to use while being fairly powerful it’s not as powerful as like adobe premiere but I’m able to very very quickly make video recorder on my Web cam the video quality is meh those of you who are you tubers are going to cringe. I’m sorry but I invested in lightings at least the lightning is good and I’ve got a good microphone the focus goes in and out. [00:13:50] I’m not sure why but again it’s a starting point. And then what I do is I uploaded the videos to YouTube. Now the Thank You Video. I want to keep private. So it’s an unlisted YouTube video. So really the [00:14:00] only good way to get this video is to back the page you paste in the URL on the thank you page her on patreon. And then we are good to go. So that’s it. There’s just one more page the payments page and then it’s time to launch this thing. I’m still on the same day. I think I’ve spent maybe 30 minutes on them pages and probably an hour or so on the video so far so I’m still on day one here of launching this campaign. [00:14:28] All right. So the payments tab [00:14:30] and patreon creation process is actually pretty straightforward. So the first thing and ask is do I want to get paid monthly or per creation and I’m selecting the per creation here partly because I’m doing the Novel Marketing Podcast monthly and I want to do this one differently partly for the educations I’m doing it both ways and then it asks you to type in kind of per what you’re creating. So I just typed weekly podcast episode so charged my patrons only when I make a paid post per weekly podcast [00:15:00] episode. So create certain paid posts that I’ll have the podcast episode in them and that will trigger the payments and then the next question is earnings visibility so you can be transparent with how much money you are making or you can keep that private. [00:15:14] I’ve opted for public a lot of YouTubers do this certain really popular ones don’t. It can make sense in some cases to keep it private if you think that it will inspire envy in that it will cause people to hate you. I’m this is a no brainer for me because the whole [00:15:30] point of this process is to be super transparent with you as you know how patron works patreon works and how making money and how much money making so I’m selecting public event then this is an interesting change I don’t think this is the case. Last time I went through a patreon payment creation but it’s not asking me for my employee identification number or any the tax info as it just says we’ll ask you this information once you make some money which is really cool. [00:15:54] So now I’m going to go ahead and quick preview and launch. This [00:16:00] is really scary. In some ways it’s actually scary and a lot of ways because I know that you guys are wise in the ways of patreon and I’m opening myself up to a lot of criticism when I posted about this on the podcast or groups there like you know what do you know about patreon and doing it for a month. [00:16:17] I mean I’ve been backing patreon pages for almost as patron was created but I’ve only been a creator for a month on my other channel or at this point two months. That’s not a lot of history but you know I’m hoping it will be [00:16:30] nice to hope that this episode is interesting to you. I’m going to go ahead while we’re live and click go live. Quick yet give me a pop up if you want to leave the site leave. I don’t know why it asked me that it gave me a check box of what I’d done and what I had done. Most of the things were checked. [00:16:47] So now we’re live creative funding shows live on patriation so anyone can come in back now which is pretty crazy. I’m going to come back and start tweaking this almost immediately. But [00:17:00] you know I cannot create posts I can see a list of patrons. I’ve got a dashboard where I can see donations and what’s come in notifications messages and invite creators which is what gives me the affiliate link that I use on the show. So this is kind of a shorter show. I realize it’s a little weird. Normally this would be like screencast but I will say as a huge podcast listener I really love it when people create audio things that normally would be visual. [00:17:29] So I’ll see [00:17:30] you next episode thank you all so much for listening to the creative funding show and feel free to check out the patreon Page for creative funding show and you can see what it looks like and you can see what I look like. The post 003 How to Start a Patreon Page appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Merchandise is hard to get right, especially for podcasters. It is easy to waste a lot of money on boxes of shirts that collect dust in your garage. In this episode, I break down the recent fundraising episode from the Revolutions Podcast for takeaways for podcasters and YouTubers. Mike Duncan is one of the top history podcasters in the world and he knows how to do a good fundraising episode. Leave a Review on iTunes. Transcription Transcription generated algorithmically by Sonix (Affiliate Link) Intro: [00:00:03] This is the creative show podcast for Authors YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love without selling out. Thomas Umstattd: [00:00:15] I’m Thomas Umstattd Jr. The Patreon Patriot. Thank you for joining me today. We’re not going to be talking about Patreon though. We’re going to be talking about some other ways of fund raising. This episode of the creative funding show I would like to experiment with something a little [00:00:30] bit different. Thomas Umstattd: [00:00:31] The show is brand new and so we’re still looking for our format. And one of the things I like to experiment with is taking a really great example of somebody funding their creativity a creative use of creative funding and breaking it apart kind of blow by blow and giving it an evaluation or analysis and kind of taking away takeaways in the first show. I’d like to do this with the revolutions podcast. So for those who don’t know Mike Duncan [00:01:00] many years ago started the history of Rome podcast which is one of the first successful history podcasts and he went on to write a book about it which was very successful and now he’s doing the revolutions podcast where he takes different revolutions in history and tells those revolution’s stories and how he funds the podcast he is advertising in each episode. But another way that he funds the podcast is with a periodic fundraiser. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to play some snippets [00:01:30] from his show and then I will kind of jump in from time to time with commentary. Please let me know what you think of this show format if you hate this. This may be the only time I do it. And if you like it let me know because I want this show to be helpful to you. Also if you like it and you find somebody else doing something really creative please send me a link to that video on YouTube or that podcast recording and I may do a similar show like this in the future. So without any further ado let me roll the [00:02:00] first bit of Mike Dunkin’s revolutions podcast fundraiser episode. Hello and welcome to revolutions. 2018 fundraiser announcement Mike Duncan: [00:02:24] Hello. This is your official 2018 fundraiser announcement. If you’ve been around [00:02:30] this is the third one of these fundraisers that we’ve done and it’s all going to be working exactly the same way if you’re new well you’ve probably heard me talking about it before and now is your chance to get in on the action this fundraiser will run from tonight. April the 29th to Sunday June the 9th. So for just about six weeks it’s going to close up on June 9th. So the phone lines are now open and man is that ever an anachronistic way to put it that the kids even know that phrase I don’t think they do. Thomas Umstattd: [00:03:00] All [00:03:00] right so the first thing I want to point out here is that he has this fundraiser for a limited period of time that may seem like a bad idea. You’re like well why wouldn’t he want this fundraiser to run all the time. Why not always be selling merchandising and things were going to be hearing about in just a second but running it for limited period of time just several really key things. One it allows him to focus his energy in dealing with fund raising related activities into a period of time and which when it’s done allows him then to focus [00:03:30] fully on his podcast. But the other and this is I think an even more important principle is that it creates urgency. It’s really easy with the podcast to say oh I’ll buy that T-shirt later I’ll buy that hat later. But when you’re like we know there’s a certain date and if you miss that date you will miss out. Suddenly you’re triggering FOMO. So not only does it help him with his creation. Also I think he’s going to ultimately help him sell more products and more merchandise. So that’s a really creative strategy that he’s [00:04:00] using. One more thing that he’s doing here that I think is really clever is that this is a standalone episode so it keeps all of this explanation from crowding his core episodes where he’s telling stories of various events in history which means for people who are kind of moderate to mediocre fans of his. It’s very easy for them to skip this entire episode. You know if somebody is a moderate fan they’re not going to buy a T-shirt from him anyway. So it allows him to keep his audience large which supports his advertising revenue [00:04:30] while the core fans are going to totally listen to the six minute dedicated fundraising episode. All right. Now let’s go to the next item. Mike Duncan: [00:04:37] This year we feature four unisex t shirts. We have two new additions to the family and two rereleases shirts that are back by popular demand. The two classics are the Livia did it shirt and the gentleman Johnny’s party train North American tour 1777 shirt. Now these guys are both printed on slightly different colors. This time around to distinguish [00:05:00] them from the original run but now is your chance to snap them up. And when I went on the book tour one of the most frequently asked questions was when and how can I get a Livia did a shirt or a gentleman Johnny shirt. Now is your chance. Now added to the lineup is two new shirts. The first is to the barricades. Because it’s not like there wasn’t going to be a shirt about the barricades. And then finally there is one that is drawn from the Cato the Elder quote that I use to open [00:05:30] chapter 1 of this storm before the storm. Thieves of private property passed their lives in chains. The use of public property in riches and luxury. Thomas Umstattd: [00:05:40] All right so you’ve probably noticed these are super inside references which is really smart. You don’t want it to be overly popular. The sort of thing anybody else would be doing because the whole point of this is that it allows insiders to proclaim that they are insiders so if you’ve been listening to the history of Rome in the Lydia did it [00:06:00] shirt or Livia didit shirt you know Livia is presumably poisoned like everyone in Rome when she was alive and it was kind of an ongoing joke. Every time somebody died of mysterious causes even hundreds of years later Mike Duncan was joking. Oh I think Livia did it because she was just such a prolific poisoner. That’s the sort of inside reference if you’re not listening to his podcast you wouldn’t get and that’s that’s good. And think about that when you’re creating merch for your own podcast her YouTube channel what are my inside jokes that [00:06:30] people would be want to proclaim that they’re on the inside of. Now one other thing that he’s doing here and this is a bit of a risk and will be interesting to see how this plays out. Thomas Umstattd: [00:06:38] When he did this fundraiser earlier he said this shirt is for a limited time and once you miss out you’ll miss out and it’s your only chance to get this shirt. That created a great sense of urgency and scarcity made the shirt into a collector’s item. But then people were like oh I still want to buy the shirt. So what he’s doing here is he’s rereleasing the shirt. But in a different color. So it’s still exclusive the old [00:07:00] way he did it. I suspect no one will get after him for it. But this is a risk right. Some of the people would like I wanted my shirt to be a collectible and now you’re devaluing it. It will be interesting to watch. I don’t know how that’s going to play out. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem because of changing the color but just keep in mind when you make a promise about something being limited you really have to fulfill that promise or people will get unhappy. Mike Duncan: [00:07:21] But getting back to the fundraiser each T-shirt is thirty five dollars. And please remember I will post one giant bulk order after [00:07:30] all the orders have been taken. So around the second week of June I will place the order and then they’ll start shipping after that. Thomas Umstattd: [00:07:37] All right. This is a brilliant way to do t shirts. So by doing one big bulk order Mike Duncan is doing two things that’s really smart. One is he will know how many smalls and how many women Smalls to order for each shirt so he can order exactly the right number of shirts maybe a few extra to give away at events. And secondly it’s going to allow him to get his cost per shirt really low. So let’s [00:08:00] say he’s able to get the shirts for five dollars. That means that he is making potential in twenty five dollars per sale which is the whole point. The point here is that he’s got to make some money. There’s got to be some profitability here in his backers know that. And so you may like 35 dollars for a shirt. That’s a ton of money. It is. But really you’re making up 35 35 dollar donation to a show that you like and in exchange you’re getting this shirt that proclaims your insider access. So now the temptation would be again [00:08:30] like oh you can buy the shirt any time it’s on CafePress and he’s making only five dollars a shirt. This is a much much shrewder way of doing it if you’re wanting to really fund your lifestyle with Merch. All right let’s see what else he has. Thomas Umstattd: [00:08:44] So in addition to the t shirts there is also now Appendix 2 of the history of Rome a collection of five new History of Rome episodes covering Roman adventures or more accurately misadventures in Hispania during the second century B.C.. These [00:09:00] episodes are doing double work for me because for one I was still in the relatively early days of the history of Rome when this time period came around and I moved pretty swiftly from the Second Punic War to the third Punic War to the Grocii brothers and then when I finished the history of Rome and looked back the Iberian wars were a rather gaping hole in the narrative. And I was reminded of this again when I started working on the storm before the storm because the Roman campaigns on the Iberian Peninsula had a lot [00:09:30] to do with setting up the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic. But when it came time to actually write the book all of that material I had researched had to get compressed into about 250 words in the prologue. So I am presenting it all to you. Now each episode is about twenty five minutes and you can either buy them individually for five dollars or get the whole set for twenty dollars which to be honest is what you should do. It’s about two total hours of new history of Rome material. It’s a steel. Thomas Umstattd: [00:09:59] Now [00:10:00] what he’s done is he’s transitioned from merchandise which is what a shirt is to creating a product. And the easiest simplest product to create is more of what you’ve been giving away for free people. Your fans are already in love with what you’re giving them away for free and so you’re giving them opportunity to buy some exclusive part of that podcast. This I find is a very common amongst history podcasters they’ll have the main part of the narrative. You know you get to that episode of The History podcast that’s free but [00:10:30] some special bonus content you pay for and that’s how they fund the whole thing. And again you may be like oh my gosh this is so boring. You’re not in the target audience right if you’re not a fan of history. The idea of getting two hours of what Rome was doing in Spain. Man that sounds really boring but for a fan of history like me I’m like man I’m really curious how Rome handled Spain. And so I’m in the target audience and I’m using an example of a podcast that I like but this is a really solid way and the benefit of this for Mike is that his cost [00:11:00] of delivering those two hours of audio is basically free it’s no more expensive than what he’s already doing through his podcast. And so all 20 dollars goes into his fundraising fund which is really smart. So the margins here are even better than on the T-shirt. So while he has good margins with the t shirts the margins on the products are even better. All right let’s get back to Mike. Mike Duncan: [00:11:22] Ok so the next thing is that if you listen to episode seven point thirty three already you know that Mrs. revolutions and I have embraced [00:11:30] the rather madcap scheme to move our family to Paris. This means moving into a very tiny apartment and we’re taking this opportunity to massively downsize and I’m moving on from most of my physical library books. So I thought that it would be cool if you wanted to own a piece of the show and support the show. I would do the same thing I did in the first fundraiser and put autographed copy of the books that I used to write the revolutions podcast up on the blocks so I have curated a collection of my favorite books [00:12:00] from each series and would be thrilled to move them onto a home where they would be loved instead of just having them wind up in some goodwill bargain bin. So it was a sort of bonus prize for donating at a hundred dollars. You get to pick out one of these books and it’s all yours. Thomas Umstattd: [00:12:15] This may not seem like a very reproducible strategy of giving away books but think about the ingredients that go into the creations that you do if you do sketch YouTube videos. Maybe some of the props that you use in those videos can be valuable and to give away to [00:12:30] patrons know at the top levels. This is very popular in Hollywood. Some of the artifacts used in popular movies and then sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. You may not be able to get a hundred thousand dollars for a prop that you use or some other ingredient into your creation but you may be able to get a few hundred dollars and you’re able to get your money back. Maybe on what you spent creating that prop. So just think about as you’re doing fundraisers. What do I have that to me is trash but to somebody else is a treasure. In a sense he’s using his podcast [00:13:00] listenership as hundreds of thousands of listeners to do a little bit of Craig’s listing and these products there are these books are far more valuable to his listeners than they will be to anybody else. His signature is only valuable to people who listen to him. But this is really clever. So think about some ways you can do this for your own. All right let’s get back to Mike. Mike Duncan: [00:13:19] So that’s the pitch for new shirts five new episodes of the history around to go along with the already existing five new episodes of The History of Rome. You can help support the move to Paris by buying up a piece [00:13:30] of my library and letting it go live in a better home and possibly win an autographed copy of the storm before the storm. Love you guys! Thomas Umstattd: [00:13:45] That’s the fundraising episode. I did a little trimming here and there but that’s the core essence of it. And it’s not very long episode in its entirety I think was six minutes and he just makes a direct pitch and it’s very unapologetic. Notice he’s not apologizing for [00:14:00] why he’s asking for money. He’s been doing good work and he’s expecting his superfans to help him out if they want to. It’s totally optional. He’s not holding anything for ransom so to speak are threatening to cancel the show and he’s being very transparent about what he’s needing the money for he explains in the main show that he’s writing his next book about Lafayette and he’s going to Paris to do the research. So you’re helping that book happen by funding his move to Paris so he’s not just going to Paris because he’s wanting to live the high life he’s connected. [00:14:30] His trip to Paris with his podcast and with his history work. He’s like No I need access to the archives there into the histories that are only available in French. And so he’s asking his backers to be a part of that journey. And I think this is a great example of doing a fund raising episode and we will see how it goes. And I do want to hear from you what you think of this episode. If this seems super boring you are like oh my gosh I don’t want this. Please let me know. Again this is the early days of the show and I’m wanting to make adaptations [00:15:00] based off of your feedback and one way you can get feedback is to leave a review on iTunes. This really helps. We’re really hoping to hit New and noteworthy and you can help spread the word about this show. All you have to do is leave a review or if you don’t want to leave or if you just leave a star rating between one and five stars I’m happy for any number of stars just give it a rating and I will continue to work to make this show more valuable for you. Thomas Umstattd: [00:15:25] Finding good examples of creators funding their art creatively. I’m Thomas Stan [00:15:30] Jr.. Thank you for listening. The post 002 How to Get Podcast Merch Right – Revolutions Podcast with Mike Duncan Deep Dive appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

In terms of creative funding, I see authors, YouTubers, and podcasters making money in 7 primary ways. This episode will be a broad overview. In the future, we will have deep dive episodes on each of these ways. In short, creators can make money with merch, products, affiliate revenue, advertising, sponsorship, crowdfunding, and patronage.  We will also have guests on who will share their stories of using one or more of these methods to fund their creativity. Don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes! #1 Merch Tangible Goods Like Hats & Shirts Merch allows members of your tribe to find each other in real life. This works best for YouTubers and Bloggers where they communicate visually. Philip Defranco’s “Why Be Informed When You Can Use Your Feelings as Your Facts” shirt is a great example of this. He has a fact-based news show, and this shirt resonates with his viewers. Also can work for podcasters with inside jokes. The History of Rome podcast has sold a lot of Livia did it t-shirts. If you print your shirts on demand the margins are low. In general, you need a fairly large audience before merch can become super profitable. If you can print them in mass, your cost per shirt is a lot lower, but you risk having hundreds of unsold wrong sized shirts in your garage. I plan to have creators who’ve made money with merch on the show to share what they have learned. #2 Products Can be intangible goods like courses and software. This is the primary way we funded the Novel Marketing podcast for the first several years. MyBookTable WordPress Plugin MyBookProgress WordPress Plugin 5 Year Plan to Become a Bestselling Author Can be tangible: CD or MP3 download of your bands music. Your book on Amazon #3 Affiliate Revenue This is where you recommend a product and if your fans click your link to buy it, you get a commission. The key here is to be very transparent about the affiliate links. If your fans love you, the transparency actually boost link clicks. This was scary for me, but I have started moving the affiliate disclosure away from the legalese in the privacy policy and started putting (affiliate link) right next to the link. Amazon has the most popular affiliate program, partly because they sell pretty much everything and the affiliate program is super easy to use. Making it easier for Authors to use Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the primary motivations behind our plugin MyBookTable. Amazon is not the only game in town. There are thousands of other affiliate programs out there. Some of which give 50% or more in commissions. #4 Advertising  This is YouTube’s monetization, Google’s Adsense, that sort of thing. Tends to be algorithmic. The creator does not have a relationship with the advertiser and the platform acts as the intermediary. With this monetization method, you are at the mercy of an algorithm that you don’t control or fully understand. YouTube giveth and YouTube taketh away. This is easy to setup once you meet the qualifications and easy to lose. Unless you are a big dog, it can be very hard to get a human to talk to you about why you’ve been demonetized. As a general rule, making money is all about how many views, or listens you get. This monetization method works best if you have a popular topic. This also works for bloggers. I learned this lesson the hard way with my first viral blog post. For podcasters, you typically have to be in a podcast network to get these kinds of 3rd party ads. #5 Sponsorship With sponsorship, the sponsor typically has a relationship with the creator and picked that creator specifically. The nice thing about sponsorship is that it can work well for creators who have a small focused group of subscribers, but those subscribers are very focused on a niche that is valuable to the sponsor. The HowIBuilt.it Podcast is a good example of this. The podcast is focused on WordPress developers and there are a lot of web hosts and software companies who are willing to pay to reach his focused audience WordPress developers. Of course, it doesn’t hurt if you are popular as well. If you have a million subscribers to your YouTube channel on makeup, there are a lot of makeup brands that will pay a lot of money to sponsor your show. #6 Crowdfunding The next monetization method is crowdfunding. The primary platforms for this are Kickstarter and Indiegogo. I’ve used both platforms. For most creatives, I like Kickstarter better. For technology products there are some good reasons to go with Indiegogo. The classic crowdfunding campaign is for an artists is an album. Musicians typically charge: $10 for digital copies, $20 for CDs a $30 for signed CDs. The goal is to make just enough to afford the studio time and production of the CDs. The funding is all or nothing. So if you need to raise $2500 for studio time and only raise $500, your backers are not charged and you don’t get any money. This keeps you from being on the hook for the remaining $2000. It also motivates your backers to spread the word. For authors it is almost the same: $10 for ebook copies, $20 for the ebook + the paper copy $30 for signed Copy of the book. Backers also like to get credit in the book or printed CD. I used a version of this for my Kicktarter campaign that raised $11,000 for my book Courtship in Crisis. You can see a link to that campaign in the show notes.    A lot more I could say about crowdfunding, but I will leave it there. #7 Patronage Patronage will be the primary focus of this show, because I think it has the most untapped potential.   The basic model is a PayPal or Facebook donate button. The person who is doing this the best is the podcaster Dan Carlin. He host one of the most popular single host podcasts and he funds nearly all of it with PayPal donations. The best way to do this is with a platform like Patreon.com. Patreon makes it easy to reward your backers based off of how much they donate. For example, Patreon creates a patrons only RSS feed so podcasters can create a patrons only podcast with special patrons only episodes. Or you can post videos that only backers see or that backers see first. So while on Kickstarter you might fund a podcast season or a band might fund an album you have to start over for the second season or album. Patreon, on the other hand, allows you to raise monthly donations song by song, episode by episode, or month by month. It is continual funding that is much less stressful. In general, this is a much healthier way to make money. Making all your money for the year in one month requires a lot of financial discipline not to blow your money in the first few months.   The patronage model also creates a better long-term relationship with your patrons and allows for more two way feedback. Full disclosure, I am an affiliate with Patreon and have my own Patreon page for this show. That said, to date, I have made a lot more money off of Kickstarter and Products than I have through patronage. I plan to talk about Kickstarter’s drip program, especially once they open it up to the public. Other Ways to Make Money: Getting paid for song plays on Spotify Being paid to go on TV to be in someone’s ad. Superchats Brave Browser And much more Conclusion I hope you see that there are a lot of ways you can fund your work. You don’t need to do all of these to make a living. The more you use, the more stable you will be financially. There is no reason to be a starving artist. If there is an audience that loves your work, you can make a living doing what you love.   If you are overwhelmed, stick around. We are going to break down each of these methods and answer your questions. You are not alone. We are here to help. We also need your help, if you are willing, we would really appreciate a review on iTunes. With your help, we can hit iTunes’ new and noteworthy list which will help us get amazing guests. The post 001 7 Ways Creators Can Make Money appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

In this episode, I introduce myself and the show. Thomas Umstattd is an author, speaker, and podcaster. The Creative Funding Show is a podcast where you will hear the stories of Authors, YouTubers, and Podcasters who are funding their creativity using platforms like Patreon, Kickstarter. You will also learn about making money with advertising, sponsorships, merch, and other creative ways to make a living as an artist. Links Leave a Review on iTunes Subscribe Ask Question Suggest a Guest Novel Marketing Podcast Transcription Transcription generated algorithmically by Sonix (Affiliate Link) [00:00:03] This is the creative funded show podcast for authors, YouTubers, and podcasters who want to fund the work they love without selling out. Welcome to the first ever creative funding show. So my name is Thomas Umstattd and in this episode 0, I’d like to introduce myself. So if you don’t care about me you’re welcome to skip this show. [00:00:32] But I just wanted to talk a little bit about my background and why I’m doing this show. So the creative funding shows a podcast for creators who want to make a living doing what they love using platforms like Patreon and Kickstarter sponsorships and more. And our goal is to be primarily an interview show talking with creators to learn how they fund their work. Talking with industry insiders about the tools that they’re making to make creators lives better and also doing deep dives individual episodes with me answering your questions about funding creating and thriving as a creator. So but in this episode, I’m going to talk about myself which is in general not a goal of the show. I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about me but I do want to kind of share my story of how I got to be talking into this microphone to you right now. So I’ve been buzzing on the outskirts of the creative community for a long time. The first video YouTube video of me went up in 2006. So as of this recording that was 12 years ago and I remember in 2006 being so surprised at YouTube as a platform and how seamless the experience was. I don’t know if any of you can remember before the days of YouTube we watched videos with real player and it was awful Real Player was the worst and the YouTube was 1 million times better. There’s a reason why you don’t install real player on your computer anymore it’s because everything has gotten better than that. [00:02:04] Since then I started my first podcast in 2007. It was about videogame addiction. It’s since Pod faded sadly. I don’t even know if I have the recording anymore but I had no idea what I was doing back then. But I did enjoy doing it. I’ve been listening to podcasts and I loved podcasting and I had fun buying my first equipment and I was doing the editing at garage band back garage band was actually good for podcasting. Those days were good. In 2013 I started my first Kickstarter campaign for a WordPress plugin that we were developing at the time called my book table. It’s a plugin that allows you to add a bookstore to your WordPress website if you’re an author. It’s very popular amongst authors in fact it’s still it’s tied for number one in the most popular bookstore plug in for authors and at the time we didn’t know if there was an audience for it. We’d been using a version of this plugin internally when we would build websites for authors. We used it to save ourselves time and we weren’t sure if there was a demand amongst authors generally for people who wanted to buy the plugin so we put it on Kickstarter. We had a goal of twenty five hundred dollars I believe and we ended up raising over twelve thousand dollars. So the answer to the question does the world want this plugin was a resounding yes. [00:03:20] Yes the world wants this plugin. So we launched my book table and it’s still an active plugin and active development for the last five years have gone through quite a few changes and improvements have added a lot of features and is now very robust and fairly mature software in 2013 also started the Novel Marketing Podcast with James L. Robart still an active podcast in fact this was the podcast that led to me embracing this show. More on that in a bit. In 2014 I crowdfunded a course on crowdfunding on Indiegogo. So after I did my book table on Kickstarter in rapid succession I did a bunch of other crowdfunding campaigns both with myself and with others all of which success succeeded at 100 percent success rate on Kickstarter and people kept asking me for advice on crowdfunding. And so in the end part to get them to shut up. I basically took everything I knew and put that into a course in 2014 and that course I didn’t realize at the time but many people had tried crowdfunding courses on crowdfunding and they had all failed. So I was trying to do something that no one to that point had succeeded in doing. And with the help of Mary DeMuth my code teacher in the course we successfully funded crowdfunded a course on crowdfunding which was very meta. It was we have lots of Inception jokes it was lots of fun and we’ve gotten some great feedback from that course and it’s been fun getting. [00:04:50] Occasionally somebody will send me a book that they crowdfunded on either on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. It was of course primarily for authors and in 2014 I joined Patreon on as a patron. So I’ve been a fan of Pomplamoose for years. Back when Jack Conte was just a musician. I remember being impressed with all of the different instruments he could play in his Pomplamoose songs and I loved their music. I would buy their songs on iTunes and so when they went on Patreon it was a no-brainer and I very impressed with Patreon as a platform. So I’m a kickstarter person originally. That’s my background. But when I looked at patron like I get it I see the appeal of getting a little bit of money every month rather than a huge lump sum of money only after you do this exhausting Kickstarter campaign. So part of the reason I backed Pomplamoose was because I was fans of them but to be honest have a bigger reason I backed them was because I just wanted to observe Patreon and wanted to watch how was you know growing as a platform how people were using it and I slowly started backing different campaigns and different creators on Patreon that kind of seeing what they were doing in 2015 I crowdfunded my first book I crowdfunded and other people’s books but I did my own book on dating and relationships. [00:06:12] It was based off of a viral blog post that I wrote and I didn’t really want to write the book it kind of did. I was like “Okay world if you want this book make the money happen” and the readers of my blog made the money happen. So I spent most of 2015 writing the book that they wanted me to write and researching it and recovering from writing and it was lots of drama and great fun and they raised eleven thousand dollars to make the book possible. And it was another learning curve. You know learning how to crowdfund. And you know it’s a different world. Crowdfunding in 2015 was different from what it was in 2013. And it’s different than it is now. Kickstarter is maturing as a platform and backers are getting more sophisticated in 2016 2017 I guess hosted a radio show from time to time and in the summer of 2017 actually quit my job and did radio full time for a while which was a great experience I got to see how the traditional side of the industry worked and I also got to see that I’m much happier in indie digital world. Even in traditional terrestrial world so much happier behind a podcasting microphone than I am behind a radio microphone. But I do love radio and to love talk radio and in 2017 we kept podcasting on the Novel Marketing Show and I started thinking about funding the show Patreon. [00:07:29] I talked with my cohost about it James Rhubart and I went to look for a podcast about Patreon on and I couldn’t find it. So there had been the Patreon podcast and it had faded. It only had one or two episodes that were downloadable and it hadn’t had any new episodes in years. And I was like there needs to be a podcast primarily for Patreon. I kind of you know early 2018 I was like somebody needs to make this. And so finally I was like maybe this should be me. In the meantime I launched the novel marketing Patreon campaign and we’re currently around 150 175 dollars a month on that. It’s a brand new campaign launched it this year without the help of a podcast about Patreon. So this in a sense this show is what I wish I’d had when I launched our first Patreon campaign for a novel marketing. So I realized that all of the marketing pages nothing spectacular. It’s a very niche podcast it’s a marketing podcast for authors and primarily for fiction authors. My hope is that this show will just appeal to authors but also to you tubers and podcasters. And my goal is not just to focus on Patreon but also Kickstarter and also sponsorships and also other ways of bringing in revenue. If you have a creative way of funding your art. Shoot me an email or reach out to me and CreativeFunding.show. We just might have you on the show to talk about how you are funding your art and that’s where we are now. [00:08:58] I am launching this podcast. I don’t know if it will take off I don’t know if you will like it and I don’t know what you’re looking for. This is a brand new project for me and I haven’t launched a brand new project like this in a very long time so I’m looking forward to it. I’m having fun making these episodes. I am hoping that this show will be a blessing to you and help to you as you fund your art. I really do hope that together we can end up starving artists or at least reduce how much artists starve and keep them from feeling like they have to sell out in order to make a living. Now to be perfectly transparent while I’ve been buzzing around the community for a long time I am not right now an expert it patriotic. I’ve been a patriot on page owner for two months a little over two months with the novel marketing show. I’ve been a patron for years but I’ve just been starting out as a creator on patrons so I’m going to be learning along with you and I’m asking questions. I’m asking questions and trying to have that beginner’s mind. And yes I’ve been crowdfunding for a long time but patron is a different animal and I’m learning that I’m going to be learning alongside of you in terms of show format. [00:10:12] The goal is to shoot for between 20 and 30 minutes per show I want this to be the kind of show you can listen to while you’re working out at the gym or driving to work. And if you know someone using your honor Kickstarter. I really need help here at the beginning getting guests the longer the show goes and the more famous it becomes the easier. Guests can be defined in the early days. This is where you come in to be particularly helpful and I plan to interview both creators like you and industry professionals. So people who work at Patreon on our YouTube graph Triano really any tool that makes creating easier makes raising money easier. I’d love to talk to those industry professionals but I don’t want to just talk to them. I want to hear stories from creators and from stories from all kinds of creators so I don’t just want to talk to veterans who are making you know 10000 dollars a month I also want to talk to people who are just getting started and are making fifty dollars a month. You know they just got their first 20 backers and hearing their story. Hearing what they’re going through what their challenges are in the goal is to be encouraging would encourage you show you just how easy it is to start increasing your revenue on platforms like Pierron and Kickstarter and other ways of making money. So don’t think that this is just the patriae on show it’s going to be primarily the patrons show but it’s not going to only be about patriarchy. [00:11:34] There are other shows about Kickstarter and they are good. So I feel like there’s less need for me to talk about Kickstarter as Kickstarter rolls out its drip platform which is their direct competitor to Petrine we’ll be talking about that specifically. But right now there’s no one in the podcast potest fear that I can find he’s talking about patrons that’s going to be our primary emphasis at least in these early days. But the show’s going to evolve based off of your feedback and to kick things off a plane to do some introductory solo episodes. As I find guests I’ll be filling the backlog with shows that are just me but I plan to put into practice what I’m learning on the show. So in general you don’t necessarily want to launch a patriae on campaign right at the beginning of a new project when you have no audience. You need the crowd before you can fund. But I’m going to break that rule and launch this podcast along with a patriotic campaign partly so that those of you who are with me from the beginning can watch the process. So the early days were not going to have a lot but as we talked to people and as I learn I’ll be putting that advice directly into a patron campaign that will be like our testbed our guinea pig. And I think that’ll be fun. [00:12:46] I think it also helped fund this show. I think it’s important for the creative funding show to be funded itself. So we’ll talk more about that patriae on page in a future episode. I’m actually thinking about doing the show and creating the page and recording myself as I do adding giving my thoughts and feedback as I create a patron page from scratch. So listen for that in a future episode and just finally we’re going to be on social media. The page has a Facebook page and a Twitter page that will have those links in the show notes who you just scroll down you can find a link in the show notes or to the side. My goal is to have any link that we mention on this show. You don’t have to remember how to spell it. The link will be in the show notes which if you’re listening on an app on your phone you can just press with your finger and if you’re listening on the website you can just click the link so I’m hoping to make life easier for you in that way. And one final way that you can help. This show is asking questions on creative funding dot show and leaving a review on iTunes. I can’t tell you how helpful that is in the early days of a podcast if you have any hope of getting to new and noteworthy. You need reviews if you’re willing to leave a review can be positive it can be negative. [00:13:59] Feel free to give me feedback through the reviews on iTunes. And yeah. Thank you so much for listening. [00:14:05] I really appreciate what you do to make the world a better place with art that to connect with me go to create a funny show. Doc thanks for listening.   The post 000 Introducing the Creative Funding Show and Thomas Umstattd Jr. appeared first on Creative Funding Show.