The urgency problem
The looming deadline and goal is a key element of a Kickstarter campaign. It’s quite reminiscent of this magazine cover:
The countdown clock on the campaign provides urgency. Act now and get as many people as we can to help us! Save the dog! It’s no wonder that many projects are saved in the final hours. It plays us so well.
I’ve heard some people criticize Patreon for not having that sense of urgency. No ticking time bomb of doom. No dog with a gun to his head. I can always give later. They will still be there.
Yes, Patreon is a very different business model (one could say more responsible, but I don’t want to start that fight… today), but while urgency is not built-in, it doesn’t mean you can’t create it.
To that end, I’m running an experiment. When we created our Patreon account, I set a goal of $1000 to add an original story to each new issue. That still stands. What I’ve done is created two new time-sensitive goals:
$500 – New story in every other issue – Must be reached by 6/30/14
$750 – New story in three of every four issues – Must be reached by 8/31/14
Let’s see if urgency is as much a thing as people think. If so, maybe we can encourage them to include a ticking time-bomb of doom option for goals.
Our Patreon page is available at: http://patreon.com/clarkesworld
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FWIW, I have a subscription through Amazon Kindle and would be happy to pay more for mine. I had naively assumed my and others' subscription fees were reasonably covering the costs ... -$0.02
Kim wrote: "FWIW, I have a subscription through Amazon Kindle and would be happy to pay more for mine. I had naively assumed my and others' subscription fees were reasonably covering the costs ... -$0.02"Thanks for being a subscriber! Didn't mean to imply we were losing money. All of our authors and artists are paid, but the staff is making next to nothing. The goal is to fix that and expand the magazine.
Ya'll do wonderful work and deserve a good wage for it! I don't know if other subscribers agree, but if the Patreon model doesn't pan out, I'd be happy to pay more for my subscription. Glad you're trying to bridge the gap!
I had to double-check my subscription price on Amazon; I remember subscribing after WorldCon in Chicago and being awestruck at the low fee given the quality of so many of the new stories. It's currently set to $1.99/mo. Personally, I wouldn't bat an eye at $9.99/mo but I'm guessing there's a middle ground that would attract new readers while improving the monthly bottom line. Probably you guys have already had lengthy talks about this and it's a lot more complicated than ten seconds I've taken to think about it, but I figured I'd weigh in as an unsolicited opinion from the subscriber masses :)
The $1.99 price point was actually set by Amazon when we joined their subscription program. It made sense at the time, but our issues are more than double the size they were when we started with them. It will probably shift to $2.99 at some point, but they'll grandfather existing subscriptions at the original price. Judging by the current market, we'd probably see considerable dropoff at $3.99 or higher, so for now, people who'd like to pay more can drop in some extra amount at Patreon or PayPal. That way we don't lose subscribers and others can still do more if they like. Of course, people could shift subscriptions to Patreon and pay what they want, but you lose that convenient auto-delivery option. For now, it makes the most sense to make as many options available as possible and be greatful for what we get.
