Patreon Basics: Who, What, When, Where, Why & How
Discover how Patreon is helping YouTubers, Writers, and Artists make monthly revenue from their subscribers & fans
What is Patreon?
Patreon is a way artists in the digital age can make money from their patrons, or followers. Think of it as a digital tip jar. Your patrons sign up to give you small payments for your work — either monthly or per project/post. In return for this payment, Artists provide rewards for their followers. They can give patrons early access to their work, downloadable links, and other perks for following.
For example, if you have a popular podcast, you can release podcasts a week early to your patrons. Or if you’re an illustrator, you can provide high resolution versions of your work for download. You can also release exclusive content to your followers so they’re the only ones that get it. The rewards are up to you!
Another important aspect of Patreon is setting up goals. Goals allow you to communicate with your patrons and explain what you want to do in the short-term and long-term. They’re milestones that help motivate you. Establishing goals set you on a path to success and allow your patrons to know what support they can provide to help you get to where you want to be.
When Was Patreon Founded, Who Started It, and Why?
A basement band, multi-instrumentalist dude named Jack Conte started Patreon with a friend named Sam Yam, in May 2013. The video below is a recent TEDTalk Conte gave in August of 2017. It explains his journey to launching this platform and really provides some context as far as why he started Patreon.
Where And How Can You Sign Up?
Signing up for Patreon is easy! Below you will see the sign-up page. Like most things, you can sign up with Facebook or email. Here’s a link!
Once you have created an account, you will need to confirm your email. Then you will be directed to your Patreon Profile. Below, you will see all the info you can add to your profile including links to your social media accounts.
You might have noticed the BECOME A CREATOR button. Click this if you want to publish content in addition to following and supporting others.
Once you click this, you will be directed to the creator’s page. I recommend reading the information on this page before signing up. It has some helpful information including the fees associated with your account and explains ownership of all of your content — see below for some of this information.
Okay, once you’re ready, click CREATE PAGE and get started. Patreon will walk you through setting up your page in just a few quick steps. Once you complete the process you will find a 54 second video of Jack Conte welcoming you to the platform which is a nice personal touch by the Patreon team.
Once you have created the page you will be directed to the page editor. Here you will be able to adjust your Settings, About Information, your Rewards, Goals, your Thanks message to patrons, as well as your Payment Tiers.
Next Up!
Now that we’ve covered the basics of what Patreon — the who, what, when, where, why and how — it’s time to go over best practices. In our next post we explain how to set up your creator page to get the most out of the platform. We cover everything you need to know about goals, rewards and payment tiers.
Click the post below & check it out!
