Sorry in advance for the overly long comment. It sounds as if you are offering a lot of value through Patreon. I personally think Equestrian and Patrician are great deals. I would keep doing them as you have been, but I think that you’re correct that you only really need one platform. If you like Patreon, then I wouldn’t bother with the others (although of course there’s always the possibility of Patreon deciding you’re “controversial” or something and kicking you off, that doesn’t seem like a likely issue right now). I think the biggest issue you might have in growing your Patreon further is that your primary presence online is on YouTube, and people don’t come to YouTube to read. It’s clearly not an issue of writing quality. Voices of the Void and Eyes in the Walls are excellent. I somewhat selfishly must admit I keep waiting for another DVS horror book. I am a little intimidated by your back catalogue of fantasy and don’t know quite where to start, though I have several of your fantasy ebooks ready to read. I read a lot of nonfiction, the occasional Stephen King book, and this year I got really into Robert E. Howard. I don’t know if this will help or mean much to you, but I think it’s noteworthy that there are platforms like Royal Road where the readers are used to leaving the site and going elsewhere, to the writer’s Patreon, to get early access to future chapters of a book. I have seen a variety of fantasy subgenres succeed there, not just litRPG (one of my favorite books on the site is Tenebroum, which is about the appearance of an evil presence in a fantasy land, a vengeful spirit that gradually develops into a lich and seeks to corrupt the world around it; no video game tropes or techniques involved whatsoever). It could also be an obstacle to your work getting a traditional publisher, but I know you’re not interested in that. Many people pull their works off Royal Road and put them on Amazon when they’re done. That said, the difficulty is that most readers there expect chapter releases two or three times per week. I can imagine that would not work with many people’s writing schedule, though you are quite prolific. As Thomas Sowell would say, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
1 year ago | 0
First. I think this is the longest post I've ever read. You could publish substack stuff here. I'm saddened that talented people have so much difficulty delivering to their customers and getting a return for their work. I keep saying, with Frodo "I wish this hadn't happened in my time". I wish I could help you with the input you're requesting, but when you're suffering depression and have a low down, you're functionally a boomer who doesn't understand tech. I'm also from a tightly run banana republic in the Caribbean, and sometimes the guvmnt just doesn't allow citizens to possess foreign currency legally, so even if I had to spare, I wouldn't be able to have a card in dollars. I'll keep buying books from Amazon as I'm able to, as I can do that through another route, but that's kind of it for/from me. If I had to be thankful to skin suit Lucasfilm for something, is that it allowed me to find your video about TFA's plot, and from there on, all the other NewPub folk. I'll keep y'all in my prayers.
1 year ago | 0
David Stewart
Hey Folks!
So, here’s what is going on when it comes to “everything that is not YouTube and books” for what I do. My goal is to simplify all the additional services I offer and keep my “monetization” in fewer places. This makes it easier to keep track of what I am doing and for whom, as well as making general accounting easier. I hope that reducing the friction required for me to deliver products and benefits to all my supporters will allow me to deliver more value for everyone, whether you are interested in giving additional support, getting extra stuff, or just like to watch videos.
With that in mind, here is what I am doing:
- I will stop offering monthly memberships on ko-fi and subscribe star because it is too difficult to give away the monthly books, etc. compared to Patreon, where people can get everything in one place and without having to go to another site like Bookfunnel if they don’t want to. If you want, you can still tip me on those sites or request video/article subjects if those are sites you like to use, but I won’t try to deliver the monthly books on them anymore. You have to come to Patreon if you want those benefits.
- YouTube memberships will stay enabled but won’t have any specific benefits other than the basic ones like emojis, etc. This is because, again, it is too hard delivering the membership benefits I want to (books, mainly, which means audiobooks on YouTube) and I have to be realistic with where my life is right now that I will not have the time or inclination to make enough additional video content for members for it to be at all worth it. It’s a voluntary thing if you like me. Send me an email if you want a book – I’d be excited to send you some. stu@dvspress.com
- I am of two minds with the discord channel. Most supporters are not interested in it; those that are not very active, but I do try to answer any and all questions on it. So, the question is whether to make it easier to access (like opening it to all free Patreon subs) or to shut it down. Right now, it’s in the burdensome “one more thing” category and I don’t much enjoy using discord, personally. I will accept that I probably don’t interact with it enough. I’m usually open and enjoy interacting with viewers and readers, so a walled garden for that purpose doesn’t make sense to me unless the input is truly overwhelming. It’s not like I don’t respond to questions in YouTube comments or on Twitter, when they pop up. Discord has the benefit of keeping a record, like a message board. Anyway, I’m open to feedback on it.
- I’ve also drastically simplified the membership benefits on Patreon. I’ve chosen to do this for several reasons, but the main one is that people were not taking advantage of most of the options and instead opting for the simple, higher-value options, which were also the cheaper options. Consumers generally prefer a few choices over many, and for higher-value services (like private lessons) I can always just negotiate that on a case-by-case basis (which I prefer anyway). I also ran into the problem where people were subscribed at a tier that gave them a physical product benefit but wouldn’t give me an address, meaning I could not give them their benefit, which doesn’t feel good for me. Digital products are much easier to distribute anyway.
- Patreon benefits will therefore be scrunched down into:
o Patrician (7 dollars), which gets you an extra free book every month in addition to all other things.
o Equestrian (3 dollars), which gets you Keys to Prolific Creativity, occasional extra free books, and copies of all the live writes.
o Plebeian (1 dollar), which gets you access to the live writes, plus discord and any other paid posts.
- Livewrites will continue to be published on Substack and Patreon. I may also publish them in discord, just so everything is in one place on one channel.
- Music is part of what I do but I’m not sure how to integrate it into the neo-patronage model. Maybe free audio files? I don’t know! I also get asked whether my music is on Spotify. It is as “Zul” or “David V. Stewart’s Zul.” I don’t upload every improvisation there. Should I? Let me know. I know some people have been enjoying the ambient music for writing.
With all that in mind, I have a few other thoughts.
First, the Patreon model is always hard for me to find value in as a consumer, which makes it hard for me to figure out value as a creator. I lost about 2 weeks of work because of a hurricane, but life is full of those little interruptions. Those aren’t a big deal on a longer time scale as books will eventually be finished and videos will eventually come out, but when you are operating a business that has a monthly subscription and you need to deliver that value every month, it becomes stressful to miss time and feel like you aren’t giving your patrons value. Focusing on delivering a defined monthly benefit (a book, for instance), makes that loss of time much less significant.
At the end of the day, neo-patronage is one option among many. I prefer to sell books directly and make videos according to what the market wants and what will likely get views, but I’m happy to do things another way, too, if it is valuable. If you want to tip me to make a video, great! A lot of times, I don’t make a video because it isn’t worth my time for views or ad money. That’s how it is working for the robot.
I’m still patiently working on other books, which I hope to deliver by the end of the year in addition to the book I have been writing live. This includes King Leper (all three books of which you can read in its pre-release version if you are in the appropriate Patreon tier), the third book in my mainline Eternal Dream high fantasy series. There are a few books languishing on Kindle Vella that should probably get a full release as well.
I frequently get asked when I am going to work on a visual novel/game, and I definitely still want to do that, but I also need to finish up and publish all the book projects piling up.
I appreciate you all!
1 year ago | [YT] | 91