Giving Patreon a try

So, I've decided to do this thing that a lot of the cool kids are doing and join Patreon.  My reasons for this are twofold:

1. I like being paid to write things.
2. I need more incentive to get over myself and just write without worrying about how it will be received. 

Hence, Patreon. It allows you to support me so that I can consistently bring you quality weirdness (and I think we'll all agree that the past few months I haven't been as religiously weird as could be) -- and by contributing, it gives you the ability to say "Write more of this" and "Write less of that."

For example, here are the unfinished projects I currently have on my plate:

• Curse/Or
• Pellatarrum
• The next iteration of Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome

And here are my regular features:

• Monday Gunday
• Palette's Product Reviews
• SHTFriday

So for example, if enough of you said "Write more articles on prepping and fewer articles on ponies!" then I would probably do that.  Which isn't to say that I would necessarily stop writing about ponies -- you're not the boss of me, neener neener, etc -- it would help me accurately gauge the interest of my audience, and your opinions would matter because you've actually got skin in the game. 

And now, some answers to a few questions I think you're likely to ask:

If I pay you a dollar per blog post and you write 5 times a week, does that mean I'm going to have twenty $1 charges on my statement?

No. Patreon waits until the end of the month and charges you all at once. 

I don't think I can afford to give more than a few bucks each month. What if you write more than that?

No worries, you can set a monthly maximum. 

Am I going to be charged for guest posts?

Absolutely not. I have ethics, after all. I'm only going to charge for posts made by me, and furthermore they have to be creative posts. In other words, this post right here wouldn't count. 

Well, what does count?

1. Anything creative:  short stories, my novel, role-playing game stuff. 
2. Anything instructional:  product reviews, geeking about guns, prepping stuff. 

Everything else -- funny videos, guest posts, me whining about my life, me trying to get you to donate to charity, cheap attempts at humor -- does not count.  Unless, I suppose, tons of people tell me I'm hilarious and need to write more humor things. Or something. 

What rewards are you offering?

Now that is where I'm drawing a blank. My biggest problem is that I don't have enough hours in the day to do what I want to do. Part of that is because I have responsibilities to my family which I must fulfill, and part of that is because I do sometimes get distracted by shiny nerdy things. While I can't do anything about the former, I can definitely do something about the latter -- and so this is me, doing something. 

So when someone says "rewards" my reaction is "How do I write things as a reward when I can't even meet my own writing quotas?"  Clearly, this is a problem.  I bring it up specifically because I am actively soliciting ideas for rewards.  Maybe you folks are smarter than I am in this situation and you can think of something that's both really cool and really do-able. 

Do you really have a head full of bees?