What Is Patreon?
Patreon is a platform for creators which allows them to be paid for the work they do. Basically we are asking people to assist our creative work in a financial way.
The concept comes from the idea of patronage, a staple in old feudal societies. Artists would be supported by rich noblemen who wanted the prestige of supporting the arts while also benefiting from having direct access to some of the greatest minds of the time.
Jack Conte states that his idea behind Patreon is for creatives to get paid for the work they do. This is something which in the internet age is a bit of a problem. People are working long hours producing really amazing content and the only money they can make money is if they get enough people to click on ads sprinkled throughout the website or video.
What We Are Doing
We have been thinking about using Patreon for a little while now. The main reason is that we want to make our travels sustainable. Looking at all the literature out there it looks like Patreon can be a part of that, although by no means the entire pie. We will still need to figure out how to make money other ways.
The number one way it will work for us is to function as a platform for some of the services we want to offer. Basically we want a more efficient way to send our monthly postcards. This is the impetus behind our research into Patreon, however, it does have other applications we are exploring.
Our Tiers
At its core Patreon is a subscription type service. You sign up to pay monthly, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Based on the amount you assist us with you have access to different reward tiers or levels of service.
Our first tier is a simple $1 tier. It’s for someone who likes our content, wants to help us out a little and has a buck to spare. We don’t envision this being a super popular tier because of how Patreon structures their payment system, and also because we know people want to get more for their money. This is why we have an updated $2 tier.
At $2 you get access to our Patron only posts which include a lot more background information, as well as things that don’t quit fit into the mold of our Instagram account or our blog. We already have a few posts up which give you a taste of the direction we plan to go with this.
Our next tier is $6 which is the postcards. You also get access to the Patron only feed. We have had a little bit of a struggle doing the postcards just through posting about them on our Instagram because we had to collect addresses and handle payments on our own. This will systematize everything so that people will get a postcard every month. For those who want only one of the months you can just unsubscribe the next month.
Looking Forward
By no means do we think that Patreon is our be all end all for financing our travels. It is a great platform for some of the things we want to do and also a good outlet for some of our ideas.
In addition we have noticed that people don’t share all the nitty gritty details of what travel and travel blogging is really like. Especially statistics, like how much they charge per impression, how they got a certain gig, and so forth. We want to share that in a way that impacts people who see it. Not just for everyone, but for those who will value it.
As such we are thinking of adding another tier onto our Patreon where we share exactly how much money we have, spent, and made in addition to deeper stats on who we worked for and how much value they got from it versus us. That tier is still under development mostly because we want to take Patreon slowly and make sure we can deliver the value we promise before adding complexity to it.
Check out our Patreon and let us know what you think!
Sold already?
Become a Patron!
No Comments