So... I have this silly concept for my Patreon

[Zannen00]

WARNING: Very long read: Please be fully fed upon starting to read.

First, a little background story from my comic.

In IMAGICA=verse, since olden time earth is in a constant threat from monster, appearing from dark portals appearing anywhere at random. Even the world's strongest weapons cant harm them. But there's hope for humanity, as some girls are born, gifted with a mark : The Mark of Mana. These Blessed girls can utilise the mark to transform into Magical Girls and combat against the monsters.

Fast forward to present time: Thanks to advancement in technology, the goverment are able to detect and anticipate the appearance of the dark portals. Society has treat Monsters and Magic Girls as just a part of everyday occurence. Magic Girls, however, are revered as Idols. Especially the strong ones. Various business has seen a marketing potential in them, thus established "Studios." A company that recruits gifted girls and deals in brand products, media promotion as well as fighting lower class monsters outsourced from the goverment.

The Concept of my Patreon

The begining

IMAGICA Productions is a small, down on their luck, poor as heck Studio.With no Magic Girls under their staff. They are on the verge of bankruptcy, when they had one last hope: Crowdfunding.

How it goes

All money pledge will count towards a milestone,
And with every milestone reached, an event will occur. These events ranges from Recruiting a new Magic Girl, their everyday occurances and activities to renovating the studio into bigger until finally, they have become the biggest and succesful amongst the rest. All these events will be presented by a short comic.

What you get

At first, pledgers will get handrawn art each month. Be they character profile, illustrations of their activities or even a seasonal Calendar. As more people pledge we can move on to actual merchandise such as buttons, mugs, t-shirts.
If the reception is huge we can move onwards towards app, visual novel and the ultimate goal: ANIMATION!!
(But I'm getting ahead of myself. *cough *)

The Clincher

However, realistically speaking. They are 3 factors I can think of that may make this Concept fail.(Hard)

1. The characters are OC's

As far as I can see, people like what they already know. seeing these characters that nobody recognizes, as well as coming from a nobody artist like myself... well, what can I say?

2. The niche genre

Not unless you are in Japan. In the western side though... I dont really think most people will watch/read the genre, even IF they like the medium. And lets face it: The Manga style drawing narrows the appeal to a select few people.

3. The incentive

I GIVE PRETTY PICTURE. YOU GIVE MONEY. Not. I wonder if just giving pictures is enough for people to be interested and pledge.

There could be more factors involved, but these is what I can think of at the moment. Feel free to add!

Conclusion

And that about it for my belabored gist.

I know I'm going waayyy over my head since well, I cant even draw very well right now. Heck, this is like something thought up whilst daydreaming XD
But as the sayings goes: "Every dream can be a reality, so long as we take the steps towards it." (Whoa. Deep.)

Thanks for reading, If you have any opinion and thought, do feel free to talk about it.
I'm really looking for feedbacks to see if this could work... or not.

tl;dr : I WANT A TACO.

[donathinfrye]

@Zanny Absolutely. The first thing to know about crowdfunding is that it's important to be confident in your work and in your ideas. And if you're not confident (who is, all the time?) ... think of your public promotion persona as a character that you play. That character is a confident version of yourself. That character doesn't apologize for wanting to make money off of their art, nor should they! Artists should make money from their art, particularly if people enjoy their art.

I doubt that your ideas are silly, but I'd love to hear what you have in mind, and would be happy to give you feed back on them.

[AnnaLandin]

Go ahead!

Experiment with stuff - if something works, it works. If it doesn't, rethink and approach it from another angle. : )

[zetina]

no one's forced to sit and listen on a forum so i find it odd that you haven't just included specifically what you wanna discuss in the opening post <'D

[angelfire]

I want to hear this "silly idea". It may not be silly at all. Or it is and could work! Just remember, talking to people all around the world at once was once a silly idea.

[Zannen00]

@donathinfrye @AnnaLandin @zetina @angelfire,
I have replace the opening post with details of the concept. Would love to hear what you guys think

The reason I didn't do it at first is because I'm too embarassed to talk about this...
and fear for the lack of interest of me rambling on about my concept lol.

But thank you guys for replying!

[zetina]

It sounds super cool on paper O:< i love it
but, yeah, i can see there being problems
i mean, there is a story before all this, right...? as you said, people like what they know... but that doesn't mean OCs are a no-go - you just have to introduce those OCs B) (like, i only care about ppl's OCs thru their comics.)
i can see the story being mainly about the non-magical girl studio employees, maybe even make it have a reality show aspect where they're, in a way, aware of the audience. so them doing well in-universe ends up equating doing well on patreon.
ORRRRRrrrr.... there's the patreon-funded studio in the background that's basically where extra stuff comes from.
just some thoughts i had;;;;;
i might have gotten confused somewhere... sorry if i misunderstood you at any point

[AnnaLandin]

As far as I can see, people like what they already know. seeing these characters that nobody recognizes, as well as coming from a nobody artist like myself... well, what can I say?

Well, original content is really the only thing you're supposed to use Patreon FOR. Using it to fund fanart of someone else's characters is, technically, illegal, unless you have permission from the owners of those characters.

Unless you're REALLY well known on the internet (and let's face it, few of us are), your Patreon is going to be off to a slow start - but then, so is everybody else's. Don't worry too much. People can't pitch in and help out if you don't give them a way to do so. Start your Patreon and see where it takes you - and be patient and work hard.

[donathinfrye]

I think that you're on the right track. The first thing to do is to begin publishing the comic and promoting it on Patreon. Patreon's not like Kickstarter -- it doesn't need to have a hard launch and a deadline for success. I silently launched my Patreon months ago. I didn't publicize its launch until a week ago. It's been a good first week, but part of that I attribute to me looking at what's working with other Patreons in terms of design and rewards, and me taking the time to build engagement with my audience here and on other sites.

Here's a link to my Patreon if you want to take a look. It's probably, by no means, the best example -- but it's at least an example of a new Patreon. You can see that almost all of my rewards are something that I can deliver digitally, through the Patreon platform. Anything that's more work (or cost) than that should be considered carefully and folded into higher reward tiers. Learn from others, and take the time to really figure out what will work for your schedule.

Finally, I wouldn't worry about the niche nature of Manga. It's not niche, especially for webcomics, even in the United States. It's extremely popular. In fact, I suspect that other than humor comics, it might be the most popular style of webcomic in the world.

Addendum: Finish your Patreon page, and then get someone that you trust is good at writing (and generally smart, a critical thinker), and ask them to help you polish it. Having a polished, well-written, attractive page is going to be paramount to your success.

Hope some of that helps!

[angelfire]

I think it's great as a patreon.
It's well thought out. I mean yeah there are some fallouts I can see, but without trying you can't really stay on the "what if"s.
I went through your comic (Loved it btw) and I think this could work. You don't have the best of artworks, BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT!! BUT, You're improving immensely through every page and a lot of people do stick around for that as well (at least I do). Your story is a good one as well. I can see this working as a patreon. So, let's break this down.

• The beginning:
  I like it. You make Imagica sound like an IRL business asking people to support it, or take stock in it ^^ in
  order to support it.

• How it Goes:
  Having the comic correspond to real life events. Kind of like a visual novel ^^ Very cool, I think. Suggestion here though, I think you should instead do "for every x amount of money, you'll do y"
  In keeping with the recruiting a magical girl as an example: For every 10 bucks, a new magical girl will be recruited.
  Instead of: after reaching $10, a new magical girl will be recruited. after reaching $20, a new magical girl will be recruited, etc.
  Does that make sense? It's the same thing, but worded a little differently so that in Patreon when you put the milestones you don't have to continuously repeat the same statement over and over again.
  Then in the milestones list that you create, bigger"can only happen once" events should be listed there.

• What You Get:
  Those are pretty standard for artists to give, though usually buttons, mugs, and t-shirts are sold in a separate online store so that everyone gets a chance to buy them instead of just exclusively being for Patreon supporters. Although it would be nice for Patreons to get "free" merchandise for their support.

• Clincher: OC's
  No. You are going to create love for your OCs because guess what, who are those people that'll take a glance at your patreon? cough cough it's the people from your comic. They already love your characters. Drawings of them ARE what they want. Random people who don't know anything about you or your work are NOT going to be looking at your patreon. People who fell in love with your work and characters will be coming to your patreon.

• Clincher: Niche Genre
  Uhhh...yeah okay. I'm kinda in that boat where I don't look at a comic (usually) if it's a black and white manga with traditional manga drawing styles THAT'S NOT TO SAY I DISREGARD IT ENTIRELY. but Manga is difficult for me to read. I have subscribed to a few but not many here on Tapastic. That being said, there are plenty of people who like it. So take a gander.

• Clincher: The Incentive
  This...is standard...Take a look at what other successful Patreon pages provide their supporters. Take some ideas, adapt and evolve them to fit your likings. You're already super creative with this, you'll do fine with what you think of. And ask your potential supporters (AKA your subscribers AKA the stockholders). They're the ones who're going to be supporting you.

Sorry for this being so long XD

Here's what I tell everyone who's on the fence on creating a patreon. It's not kickstarter where you really should have a large enough fanbase before going and asking for money. You can create a patreon secretly, edit it as many times as you want and keep it a secret until you're ready to tell people. And even if you are ready to tell people, do it, you can edit things later when you change your mind about something.

Look at my Patreon as an example.
I have around 60 subs for my comic. I know I'm not going to make any money for it. However, in the event that it does get to be that popular where there will be people who are willing to support my content, I have a page they can go to that I've perfected until that point. And even then, I can still edit it as people request for things.
This way if there are people who want to support you right now, they can. If people want to support you later, you'll be the first in their mind whereas when later comes and you still don't have a page they can't support you and have chosen another artist over you, and if people can't support you they can instead send you're link to people who can.

Sorry this is SUPER long, but I like your concept on this AND your comic ^^ All the best :3

[shazzbaa]

1. The characters are OC's
   As far as I can see, people like what they already know. seeing these characters that nobody recognizes, as well as coming from a nobody artist like myself... well, what can I say?

As others have said, this is the case with most webcomic patreons! The people who want to support you are gonna be the people who are already invested in your work and comic. They DO know your OCs. The question isn't "are these OCs" but instead -- are these random, extra characters in an extra story, or does this connect with the comic in a meaningful way? If I'm getting attached to your characters and care about them, that doesn't mean I automatically care about other characters you make in that world.

On the other hand, a little side-story that's only for patrons definitely can have an appeal, especially if it has a connection to your comic!
I think this idea is a cool idea!! The main thing is that it doesn't leave much space for patrons to become involved. Right now, what this basically is (if I'm understanding correctly), is an extra comic series with a paywall, where the plot moves forward when more people join in. Paywalls all by themselves don't do super well online, which might be what's making you nervous here; it's hard to make that work all by itself.

You could add some other rewards, as well, so that the whole patreon doesn't solely revolve around interest in this patron-exclusive story. Look at what other Patreons are offering and see if there are things that feel doable to you. If I'm a reader, I might not pledge for the patron-exclusive story by itself, but if you're also, say, taking sketch requests, or releasing pages early for patrons, or something that I want in on, that plus the being part of the extra magical girl story might win me over.

I think it could also be cool to look for ways to involve your patrons in that story -- if patrons got to suggest details of each milestone, like what kind of art/comic they want to see, or suggestions about the magical girls that get hired, for example. Stuff like this is SUPER up to you and what you feel comfortable with, but it's worth pondering; some people pledge to a patreon because they're really invested in the artist themselves, and ways to get involved and connect to that artist are cool!

If you don't want to delve into the whole IMAGICA Productions story until you know that you have people who are invested, you could always have the extra patron-exclusive magical girl story as a milestone -- "once we hit $X I'll start doing this every month for $2 backers!" or something. One thing I thought about when I started my patreon was: am I comfortable creating these rewards, for this much money, if only one person pledges? Or if only one person pledges, is it going to be frustrating to create a complete piece of artwork every month for one guy?

I think what everyone else is saying is true -- there's no big reason to not go ahead and start up a patreon, and I think you shouldn't feel bad if you don't get a strong response right away -- the people who pledge to patreon are gonna be a small percentage of the people who are already invested your work, so as you build your audience, that will grow!
Just also look at as many webcomic patreons as you can to get an idea of what works, and what doesn't, and to get ideas of what you can offer, and make sure you're realistic about what you can comfortably offer.

[Zannen00]

Whoa! So many replies!! Let's see...

@zetina

i can see the story being mainly about the non-magical girl studio employees, maybe even make it have a reality show aspect where they're, in a way, aware of the audience. so them doing well in-universe ends up equating doing well on patreon.

This is what I'm going for in the story. Except the main focus will be on the magic girls daily routine doing jobs and stuff X) I might focus on the employess if pledgers want to see bunch of old men doing spreadsheets Ahahah! XD

@AnnaLandin
Ah, I forgot to mention. There is something else people will go for that I noticed on Patreon: NSFW. Seems to me that people with always support artist that include Nudey/Sexualised content. Which is something I rather not do: Most of the magic girls are under-aged girls! My selling point for the girls is more on the Moe/Cool/Badass/Independent side. Your thoughts on this? =)

@donathinfrye
Wow! Your doing quite well on your patreon! Thats so awesome!

Finally, I wouldn't worry about the niche nature of Manga. It's not niche, especially for webcomics, even in the United States. It's extremely popular. In fact, I suspect that other than humor comics, it might be the most popular style of webcomic in the world.

It... It is? Wow... I never thought its so popular on the western side of the world!
Thank you sir for your advice! It DOES help! I need to start planning from now on. Looks like this might be doable after all
* fist pump * XD

@angelfire

You can create a patreon secretly

Hahaha! I was in the mindset of "Finalised Products" that I haven't even thought about creating one early!
Thank you so much for all your suggestion and thoughts! And Nope! I enjoy reading every bit of it!

@shazzbaa

are these random, extra characters in an extra story, or does this connect with the comic in a meaningful way?

Well, actually, I was planning this as an alternate retelling of my current comic. My story plan for the original is dark and darker, the "you against the whole world" fight. Whereas it is MUCH more lighthearted in the Patreon story.My 3 characters (Valencia, Isaac and Derek) will start the story, but from there on it diverge from the original plan, going the "carefree, lighthearted and happy" daily routine.

Paywalls all by themselves don't do super well online, which might be what's making you nervous here; it's hard to make that work all by itself.

Thats sooo true! Althought I'm still on the fence (Read: NO IDEA) of what method to use: Should I post the comic to the public, so potential people can read and (hopefully) pledge? OR Put the comic behind the paywall (along with other goodies) for interested people to pledge?

Thanks Shazz, you always replied to my thread with insightful tips and suggestions =D

[AnnaLandin]

Ah, I forgot to mention. There is something else people will go for that I noticed on Patreon: NSFW. Seems to me that people with always support artist that include Nudey/Sexualised content. Which is something I rather not do: Most of the magic girls are under-aged girls! My selling point for the girls is more on the Moe/Cool/Badass/Independent side. Your thoughts on this? =)

1.) Sex sells, I know. But like you, I don't make that kind of content either - it's just no the kind of theme I'm interested in. My Patreon seems to be doing alright anyway!

2.) Do whatever you want to do with your magical girls! : ) I'm not super well-versed in the genre myself, but I'm sure you are!

3.) One thought that DOES strike me is that it might be kind of fun to see what a magical girl who isn't underage would be like! A middle-school girl would have to deal with classes and parents and homework - but what would it be like to be a magical girl when you're 25?