Patreon : Tips and Tatics

These are all really good tips!

One of the main things I think is important to keep backers to your Patreon is to be consistent on delivery. If your tiered rewards claim you're going to give your backers a thing, then give them that thing and in a timely manner. Don't make promises you can't keep. And as someone wise said, under-promise and over-deliver. Better set your aims a little low, and then exceed them - that will give your backers more than they were expecting, and boy, won't they be happy!

I think tiers are nice, but not super-important; I've got four tiers to my Patreon, but most of my backers are in the lower two - probably because the upper two are pretty much icing on the cake, instead of actual cake. I've decided that my second-lowest tier (the lowest one is $1, for those who just want to chip in and be nice; the second lowest is $3) is the most important, and so I loaded that one with the most important things - access to sketchposts, early updates, etc. I figure that a lot of people can afford $3, and so that would be the tier that most people go for.

Setting yourself ambitious, but reasonable goals is probably the best thing. Otherwise, Patreons can easily become giant time-sinks that take away your energy to work on your actual comic, and that would kind of defeat the point.

I actually had been wondering how to go about setting up my Patreon page. This is some pretty good advice here, especially finding your own voice or way to communicate with potential supporters. Now I'm a ways away from having enough fans to start having Patreons or Support pages etc., but that brings me to my next question. Would it be wise to have both a Patreon and have the Support feature here at Tapastic or do one or the other?

Love this thread! I think the "indirect outreach" is so important; it's easy to get desensitized to bland "support me on Patreon" links, and this is a good way to keep it new and fresh.

The hardest part of Patreon for me is thinking of fun rewards for backers. I do have a nice easy "I'll link to your site on my site" reward that people take me up on, and a "behind the scenes" blog, but I have trouble distinguishing what should be "secret" content and what should be my normal promotional content to attract new readers.

And I know they're popular, but I'm not actually a fan of "see tomorrow's page today!" reward tiers. Logistically, it's a nightmare because Patreon isn't built for comics right now. You can't queue updates like you'd be able to on your normal comic CMS, it doesn't work for RSS readers, the art gets compressed in the update email, and it's totally stripped of your branding. I think the best place to read your comic should always be your main website, where you have complete control over how it's displayed.

Milestones, though, I can get behind. I do updates twice a week, and after I'm done with my Kickstarter obligations, my goals are to do three updates a week and bonus stories if we hit certain milestones. That's always really compelling for me as a reader, and if I could pay a flatter, I think I could do it. Plus, I think it's important to have on-going incentives to keep contributing, as opposed to one-time commissions, which I think are better served by Kickstarter.

But like all webcomic advice, it's important to find out what resonates with your audience. Things that are wildly popular when another artist offers them do not work for me sometimes, and vice versa. Refresh and re-evaluate your promotion plans on a regular basis, listen to your audience, and don't be afraid to drop something that's too much work.

This has a lot of good advice. Though I haven't launched my Patreon yet, we're doing it this week (so excited!) so I'm glad I read through this to take it into consideration.

I've run a successful Kickstarter, so that's helped me in setting it up smartly, but I'm sure I'll still have hiccups along the way. One of my BIGGEST pieces of advice (That I haven't seen mentioned here) is concerning your video.

Don't talk about yourself. Or if you do, don't lead with it and don't ramble. The number one thing that makes me stop a video early or tune it out is someone going on about how comics are their passion, how they've had this idea since high school, or any form of "this story is my baby". I mean, I empathize, I do--but those motivations are a dime in a dozen. Anyone that is keeping up with producing a comic has passion. So it isn't what makes you unique and it's not what's going to make me want to read your comic.

Tell me what the comic is about, first and foremost. Story tropes are a dime in a dozen too, so how did you make the concept yours? What makes it worth reading? If you're ambitious, get a voice actor to narrate a trailer for you. This is your chance to combine visuals, music, and narration to hook someone into wanting to put their hard earned money on an untested product. It's not something to be taken lightly!

P.S. I would also steer away from comedy unless your comic IS a comedy. It's hard to pull off at the best of times and can easily be hit or miss.

I've done two Kickstarters (in the middle of fulfilling my second). I don't have much to show for hitting milestones on my Patreon yet, but I try to pay attention to other peoples' campaigns so that when I do have the bandwidth, I'll have a plan in place. So much I want to try!

Oooh, I like the hilariously bad idea direction. I have lots of those! Hmmmm...

Man, this is a very interesting topic

Running a Patreon is hard. How can you do your promotional thing without bothering everyone again and again ? I've been wondering this since quite a few times now.
Also, the idea of Patroen itself is something hard to get into people's mind ; I know a lot of people who just told me "you want money ? Go get a job, then. I'm not supposed to pay you for your webcomic" and it's quite harsh. Explaining the reasons to them isn't also enough ; they still think that if you want to get paid, you get a job that will allow you to do your webcomic.

Anyway, I digress.
For those who support me (there are really a few but I owe them a lot), I have high tier rewards with drawings (about what they want). And I think the least I can do is to really drawing it for them! I thought about giving the apges before, but as I'm not regular on my way of drawing, I give the inked versions ; at least, they see something.
Didn't tought of fancy things I must say...

And I agree @CyndiFoster ; the fact you can't schedule your updates is something really, really annoying. I'm also thinking about switching with Tapastic's Support System for all the reasons you told...

Status ! I perfectly see what you mean I also use some.
A friend also suggested me some fun comics for promoting, but I still haven't figured out a real good one.
to be fair I'm not really complaining either, I don't make a lot of promotion things, so it's quite hard to know that my Patreon exists

It's just sad when it comes from others artists. We're buddies, we shouldn't be that bitter to each other when it comes to Patreon. I just wanted to note this, because I know there are a lot of people who react like that. So I wanted to see how everyone "answer" to this, because I'm curious

Of course, they can read it for free. Patreon is just a plus if you want to help more and all ! I didn't mean to make think that I'm wanting everyone on a support system, or else I go make a kickstarter for a comicbook.
Plus, the support is also in the comments, the ad revenue system, and the big love people show to your comic.

I'm really sorry, I feel lacking of good words to fully explain myself, but it was mostly curiosity !

Sidenote :

The $$$ at the end just makes me imagine you with coins falling from the sky and you avatar with some black glasses under it.

Hi there!
I am trying to earn some money by opening up a patreon so I can pawn off my experience and provide tutorials/walkthroughs on how I do certain things. One of the key things I will be including is full resolution documents and pictures with layers intact.

But enough shameless advertisement. I would like to know who of you ave patreons, who is interested in doing one, who is a Patron, and what do you look for in one?

Thanks!

Here is mine for those interested :3
My Patreon16

I'm not very interested in the perks. The really good perks are typically too expensive for me... so my wallet only allows me to support creators whom I just want to cheer on without expecting anything in return. Anything other than the awesomeness of their work, anyway.

I do have a Patreon account, but it's not very well maintained (I need to do an overhaul soon). Like @joannekwan I am in the Tapastic support program, and I like staying here. The only reason I have a Patreon account at all is to support my favorite creator who's not on Tapastic (they don't even make comics!), and to give an option to my readers who don't have an account here. They may be few, but I'm still grateful to them, whether or not they can afford to pay. ^^

I just started a Patreon account as well. Patreon is a nice venue for those who don't use tap. I'm still considering about adding Tap as well. Not sure.

As for what I look in Patreons- like above I'm not VERY interested in perks. I'd be just glad to be able to support other creators and give back to the art community that has helped me out so much as an artist.

Oooh your page is already very good ! I liked your video!
I also like that you're keeping it simple and fresh.

I only have 1 patron so far cause I suck at promoting my work . But that Patron is now giving me work so I guess I was lucky!

I'm broke, but I'm following you! I hope you'll find Patrons soon! Keep fighting

I'm a patron, too. But I cannot offer big amounts of money and just want to support my favourit artists a little bit without much in return (my only demand: Don't stop doing what you already do!).