Patreon is a new crowd funding site which I learned about from Jack Conte’s wonderful XOXO talk (below). Conte was an overnight YouTube sensation searching for a way to earn a living from delighting hundreds of thousands of followers.
Patreon is a bit different than project-based Kickstarter or the early Spot.us. Instead of funding a specific project, you’re funding ongoing works by creative artists of all kinds. For example, Conte earns $6,400+ from his Patreon supporters each time he releases a music video. Each patron can decide how much financial support to contribute for an artist’s new work e.g. from $1 upwards.
I’ve decided to experiment with Patreon for my technology tutorials and separately my essays on activism, culture and investigative reporting. You can see examples of my work promoting my Patreon pages here (a piece I wrote that was recently slashdotted) and here (my popular wordpress tutorial).
It’ll be interested to see if the web will support my kind of creative work.
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