Patreon

I recently launched my Patreon account, so I thought this would be a good time to explain and explore what Patreon is, what I plan to do with it, and how you can help.

What is Patreon?

Patreon is sort of a crowdfunding website where donors, or patrons, donate money monthly to artists like me so that we can keep on creating. It’s great for people whose work is on a project-by-project basis and where a traditional salary simply isn’t a thing. Let me tell you, it takes me on average about two years of solid work to write a book. If I charged minimum wage per hour I spent writing, no one would be able to afford one of my books, yet $2.99 per copy doesn’t seem quite right either, especially since I likely won’t make many sales in the early days. So this is a way of making some money to go toward my work, and then to supplement it afterwards.

So what will I do with these riches?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to take your hard-earned money and blow it all on booze and gambling. Y’all should know by now that I’m far too uncool for that.

What a girl like me needs money for is professional editing services, ISBN numbers, illustrators, and marketing. Your contributions would go toward helping make my books the best they can be and reach as many people as possible.

So what does this have to do with you? What’s in it for you, and why should you help?

Well because you get stuff! Genuinely, and sometimes physically.

Being a patron gives you access to patron-only content. That means patron-only blog posts (in addition to this blog), videos, sneak peaks, short stories and installments of longer stories that may never be published publicly, polls, downloads, adoptable characters that you can play in tabletop games or write into your own stories, early releases, actual physical gifts in the mail like historically accurate foods or one of the random crafts I do. At the upper echelons, you could even be written into a story or get a 30-minute Skype AMA (Ask Me Anything) per month.

And it doesn’t have to break the bank. The minimum donation is $1/month and that alone would go a long way to helping me out. And hey, you get stuff. Think of it like a subscription box that’s helping an up-and-coming author launch her career.

So if this sounds like something you are interested in and want to give the gift of a Christmas miracle, you can find me here.