Self-publishing for fun and profit. And Patreon, Medium.com etc. - The Bear and Badger

JonB

So I've started to do a bit of freelance writing recently and have been thinking about setting up a profile on one or both of these sites.

Patreon basically involves people becoming your 'patron' for whatever you produce by paying you a small amount of money each month.

Medium.com is a site that's open for anyone to publish on and free to read, except for certain premium content, which is only viewable by those who pay a $5 a month membership fee. If you write something and choose to set it as premium, it earns money from each member who views it.

In each case the key factor is the same - your ability to attract an audience to your work, mainly through other forms of social media. The more you can publicise your work and drive people to the sites, the more likely you are to earn money from it.

One thing I'm interested in is whether anyone here has any experience of these sites, and if so what kind of experience it's been.

Another thing I'm interested in is the possibility of starting a 'publication' on Medium, which can be a way of pooling resources by linking a number of writers' work together. Basically, readers might read a certain article and see it's part of a publication, and then visit that publication's page, where they'll be introduced to the other writers within it.

So, if a group of people were to publish their work on the site in this way and promote each other's stuff on their social media pages, it would add up to more than just publishing separately. And the advantage over starting some big project is that you don't need your own site - you just design a logo and some introductory text - and you don't need to commit to a specific amount of output (although the more you do the larger it could grow). And, while you'd put a lot of smaller articles in the free to read section, longer, more serious pieces could go in the premium section. Plus you could also link your pieces back to Patreon to get monthly payments.

So if anyone here is interested in doing some writing, especially about games, then maybe this would be a thing we could start. It could be something you do occasionally just for fun or something to earn a few quid now and then (eventually). And if after a while it dies off it doesn't really matter - anyone who wants to continue will still have their writing there and any following they've accrued.

regmcfly

I would love to write regularly. I have done it for money on kotakuz and I have done it for free on my blog. I'm more interested in the business / monetary ends of industries both gaming and film and TV, but that's just my specialization. Would love to be involved.

Wookienopants

I’ve often toyed with the idea of writing, I used to write several articles on my views on various things in the Martial Arts world however everytime I think of something I’d like to write about I realise it’s already been done before and often by someone of more significance.

mistercrayon

You should just write it anyway because it’s a nice feeling to exorcise thoughts from your brain onto something real.

Facewon

I can't speak on the money making side of medium, but it's lovely to use if you just have occasional moments of wanting to write a blog/article.

I have a handful on it.

I think I got asked To have one of them as part of a publication or something but nothing seems to have happened because of that.

http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-meltdown-of-evan-williams-startup-medium-2017-2

That's the scary side. Read that last year because I like medium.

This was the big get for it,

And a loss.

http://awfulannouncing.com/ringer/bill-simmons-says-ringer-profitable-will-move-off-medium.html

My takeaways...

They make money on pod ads.

They used the site because it's clean and works. (grantland and the ringer don't want banner ads like crazy)

Anyhoo.

JonB

regmcfly wrote:

I would love to write regularly. I have done it for money on kotakuz and I have done it for free on my blog. I'm more interested in the business / monetary ends of industries both gaming and film and TV, but that's just my specialization. Would love to be involved.

I suppose it would make sense to start putting your blog stuff on Medium as well and seeing what kind of interest it can generate. I should do that too. If a number of us are interested in writing and did that then we could create a publication at any point to link it all together.

Obviously, the publication would have to cover a specific subject area, which could include films as well as games and maybe other media, but anyone could still write their own 'off topic' pieces separately outside the publication.

JonB

So I guess what I'm saying is, if you're interested just start doing it. Get a Medium account (no need to become a paying member) and put some stuff on it.

Anything you publish link to it in this thread and the rest of us can share it on our social media.

If we get to a point where we're producing a decent amount of content we can create the publication. If we don't, then nobody's lost anything, and anyone who wants can keep doing their own thing.

djchump

JonB wrote:

... One thing I'm interested in is whether anyone here has any experience of these sites, and if so what kind of experience it's been. ..

I can only speak as a punter, but I see Patreon links everywhere on the graphics tech videos and blogs I visit, and until now I had never realised that you could pay for content on Medium. Maybe the latter is a new thing, but I can't imagine it's got much market share. Patreon though does make you somewhat beholden to your patrons/fans and to keep people happy a lot of youtuber like Brackeys (Unity tutorials) include lists of patrons/donors at the end and have to upsell etc. - so with Patreon that aspect seems more pervasive into the project itself.

Which is all a moot point if money isn't the object of the exercise. The articles I've read on Medium itself were certainly nicely laid out and easy to access, so it's good in that respect. No doubt everyone writes in a scratchpad before uplaod, so even if the financials look a little rocky and worst comes to worst and Medium goes offline, you can rehost your work somewhere else.

JonB

On Patreon people tend to offer incentives for higher rates. So for $3 a month you might be just get access to otherwise locked content. At $5 they might offer you early access to content, or at $10 the chance to comment on work before it's published, or acknowledge you in their work, or send you a free copy of their book. And so on.

It's completely defined by the creator, so you don't have to offer these things. Although of course there is a certain pressure on you to produce regular content if someone's paying you monthly.

poprock

Yeah, I’ve never noticed that you could even do paid content on Medium. I guess I’ve never visited a page on there where someone wanted cash.

JonB

I guess it's a relatively new model.

Also, if you're not a paying member I think you can still view up to 3 premium articles a month.

Facewon

Yeah, medium change is recent. See above article.

Its fucking great to write in too. Looks as it appears in final basically the whole way through and pics, vids and links are all easy. Easy to share for feedback as well.

djchump

Is there an export option? Just so that you can keep a backup to hand.

Facewon

Pretty sure. Hang on.

poprock

You can always just copy & paste, whether there’s a backup button or not.

Facewon

Nope, doesn't appear so. Does let you import.

JonB

Seeing how Medium works now.

I found a publication that pays a bit for articles and have had a piece accepted by them. Just submitted it to the publication and now they can edit it before putting it on.

They have quite a slow turnaround though - it's not going to be up for a couple of weeks.

JonB

So this is the first thing I've published on Medium.com, through a publication called Zeal:

Choice, Guilt and Life Is Strange

Alll about Life Is Strange and neoliberalism.

Do read, share, applaud (on Medium) etc.

acemuzzy

Spoilers within? Just from the first game?

JonB

There is a spoiler warning. Major stuff from Season 1 only.

Roujin

I started reading on the train this morning. Really interesting article Jon! Going to finish on the way home but I like your take on what the game was trying to show with the kind of decisions it asks you to make and what it does with them in the end.

Tempy

Nice one Jon, Zeal is (or was? i think they shut down official stuff) real good

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