interaction-enabling publishers

[Quantum]

i'm interested in hearing your thoughts on what i call "interaction-enabling publishers" as part of an overall business plan. for example, patreon.com, kickstarter, gumroad.com ($10/mo + 3.5% & $.0.30/tx; doesn't seem to have any discovery mechanism like patreon), (inkitt.com is kind of one but does not provide a way to make income by self-publishing but instead provides its own indy publishing arm and can even serve as a literary agent).

basically, interaction-enabling publishers promote (that is, attempt to find and connect) and enable direct interactions b/w the writer and his/her readers.

from a casual perusal of the income made for writing, i don't see it as the only source of income but just one of several.

https://www.patreon.com/kameronhurley...
https://www.patreon.com/clarkesworld?...
https://www.patreon.com/stantlitore?ty=h
https://www.patreon.com/silviamg?ty=h

notably, a few well-known SF&F online magazines (for example, clarkesworld) are testing out patreon.

i'm going to give it a go.

[Nik]

I think there is no argument that these things work. As always - not for all. I haven't looked too deeply into the biz scheme, but sounds well worth a try and I think we'd all appreciate your own updates on how it goes. And good luck, of course!
Kameron Hurley's increasing pledge levels (with post cards from Helsinki even), choosing characters and universes option made me think that for a 3 grand pledge being a personal chronicler can be on the offer -:) But why not, basically

[Quantum]

another example:

https://www.patreon.com/nkjemisin?ty=h

amazingly, she just launched her patreon page yesterday (20 May, Friday).

of course, it helps to be quite well-known in her genre of choice.

[Nik]

Alex G wrote: "another example:

https://www.patreon.com/nkjemisin?ty=h

amazingly, she just launched her patreon page yesterday (20 May, Friday).

of course, it helps to be quite well-known in her genre of choice."

Really amazing. She'll reach her target in just 3 days. However, you are right, being a big or semi big name makes it a bit easier to sell or recruit patrons in any venue. Well done anyway

[Quantum]

and another datapoint for comparison.

https://www.patreon.com/sakimichan?ty=h

what we--in this case, mostly us men\boys--are willing to pay for boggles the mind.

ever since the injection of arts into the commercial arena, the visual, musical and performing arts have always been privileged over the word--even though the word was first. film is a prime example of this hierarchy. we'll pay $10-$12/2 hrs of film entertainment and yet balk at that price for 6+ hours of reading pleasure. yet, many films are adaptations of the written word.

i'm guilty here. i pay $7/mo for my anime addiction and yet have not once reached my $10/mo kindle budget yet since beginning it in January.

[Nik]

Yep the difference is drastic.
We can argue whether it's good or bad, but the visual holds a clear advantage over the word these days. The millennials read considerably less than earlier generations and I think the size of an entire reading community shall shrink and shrink and shrink -:( That is unless we run out of some ingredients to produce that many broadcasting gadgets.
Maybe it's time we try ourselves in cinematography? -:)

Don't think you should feel ashamed for spending or not spending money on books. You find legit ways to procure books and read a lot and you don't owe anyone anything, no matter how much we want to sell books -:)
Maybe your monthly budget shall come handy for beers or book awards' fund, if you have it allocated anyway -:)
It's like J.J. says (in the context of governmental authorities) - it's a bad taste not to spend the budget and ask for more -:)