Monica's (very subjective!) Ten Rules for Crowdfunding.

I've earned my living this way for eight years. Here are the lessons I've learned.

Photo: Me in 2019, hand-wax-stamping 300 golden envelopes for a Patreon pledge drive. I wore a cute dress for the photo because that's better for engagement.

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UBI is not on the horizon. It won’t be, as long as politicians rely on millionaires, who in turn rely on an impoverished precariat.

The vast majority of artists don’t come from wealth. So how can we survive? Especially as corporations are literally trying to replace us with AI?

I've been asked if crowdfunding is the answer. I’ve made the majority of my living through Patreon since 2016, and now I've added Substack and Fractured Atlas. As of this writing, my wonderful subscribers pay me a steady wage of about $3,500/month for everything I do--novel-writing, story-writing, playwriting, screenwriting, essay-writing, performance, organizing, activism, advocacy, music, art, saying things that make powerful people uncomfortable, all of it. In the United States, it’s a lower middle class income. In most of the rest of the world, it’s an excellent income. Given that it’s a livable salary for working on whatever I choose, it’s a goddamn miracle. (Honestly, I advocate so hard for paying artists directly because I just…want all other artists to have what I have? The backlash is confusing to me. But that’s a post for another time.)

A Patreon staffer once told me I had an unusually high retention rate. Many of my subscribers have been with me since 2015--and even before that, after I couldn't find a day job during the 2008 crash, and asked for donations through Fractured Atlas to start writing The Girl in the Road. (Every donor got a signed copy when it came out.) But to get to the level I am now, it took me eight years, many pledge drives, and many pivots.

So I’ve put together a list of lessons--not rules! I only said that because it sounds sexy and absolute!--that I've learned from my own experience. Here they are.

1. Treat crowdfunding itself as an act of creativity. If you regard it as dull and obligatory, that’ll come through. If you regard it as a fun opportunity to create within an interesting set of constraints, that’ll come through too. How will you name your tiers? How will you design your banner? What rewards will you promise? I’m currently brainstorming a new video, and it’s as much of a creative challenge as anything I’ve ever done.

2. Don’t promise anything you don’t want to do. If you really don’t want to meet subscribers for coffee or consult on their novel manuscripts, don’t promise that as a reward. Promise only things you want to do. In fact, I’d flip it and say: monetize everything you already want to do. Make a list of things you want to make (a new demo? a watercolor you could turn into a postcard? a personalized ringtone in a funny voice? a tongue-in-cheek certificate of participation? a silkscreened tee with your design or slogan on it?) and retro-engineer your tier rewards accordingly. Your subscribers will be much more excited to get merch you wanted to make, rather than what you think you should make. (This also applies to all of art, but I digress.)

3. Thank your subscribers. Early and often. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, wealth in the arts is horribly mis-distributed, and crowdfunding is a way of redistributing it. But. That’s a systemic issue. On the personal level, your subscribers are choosing to give you money when they could be giving it elsewhere. I always try to thank my subscribers, and in my intro note, I tell them what to expect. Speaking of which…

4. Set expectations! When I subscribed to Joe Sondow, who used to tweet under the handle “RikerGoogling," his autoreply said he doesn’t send anything to his patrons. We were just supporting the funny tweets. I happily stayed! I just wanted him to write more tweets. And he did! Which leads me to…

5. MEET expectations. If you say you’re going to do a thing, do that thing! And if you can’t do that thing, or decide not to do that thing…

6. Communicate changes. I’ve overhauled the mission for my Patreon several times. For example, when I decided to stop writing the column I started it for, and write short stories instead. Each time, I was afraid there’d be a mass cancellation. But each time, my patrons just said, “Thanks for communicating with us, we trust you, do what you need to do.” I try to deserve that trust every day.

7. Write posts that are clear, short, and focused. Okay, this is admittedly a personal preference. But if I sign up for a newsletter and get long, rambling posts about ten different things, I’m not going to read them. (There are exceptions. Rambling is Amanda Palmer’s signature style, and I like to skim her posts even if I don’t always read them closely. She says folks should engage with her posts however they want.) (Also, I DO write rambling posts once a month--here's the latest one--but they’re my end-of-month wrap-ups, and are labeled and numbered as such.) My favorite example of a short, focused writing style is Blair Braverman, a musher and author in Wisconsin. Her posts are a true joy to read--funny, insightful, sobering--and of course there are lots of pictures of dogs.

8. Set boundaries. For example, my subscribers know that when I want their opinion on something, I ask. But they don’t get editorial control, and they don’t get personal access on demand. I have had to kick people off before. I’ve kicked them off for (a) plagiarizing my work on their blog, (b) leaving fawning, overfamiliar comments on my social media posts even after I told them they made me uncomfortable, (c) taking inappropriate liberties like hitting on me, feeling entitled to seeing me in person, or in one case, telling me I was abdicating my duty as an artist if I didn’t go to Dachau (!). But this is rare. The vast majority of my subscribers are lovely, thoughtful, chill people, who just understand that things are really hard for artists, know the value of “artists who remember freedom,” and want me to be able to continue.

9. It’s not a silver bullet. Meaning, if you set up your platform and just expect everyone you know to flock to it automatically, that’s a recipe for disappointment (and resentment!). A lot of folks have faltered out of the gate because of that. If you’re not especially well known (say, not Nora K. Jemisin or Zach Braff), here’s four things I’d do:

• Make a STRONG CASE in your video and text for why you need the funds you’re asking for. How many hours a week do you work on your art? How have you shared that work in the past, and how would you like to share it in the future? What would be a living wage for that work? What is your monthly grocery bill? What is your monthly materials budget? Why are you choosing this route for funding?

• Set a modest initial goal--say, $50/mo or 10 subscribers (family and close friends count!)--and then work your way up, celebrating each milestone. Know it’ll probably take a long time to see significant gains.

• Subscribe to a few creators to see how they do it, and then borrow from them. I highly recommend Amanda and Blair on Patreon, and Kelly Hayes, Sarah Kendzior, and Alaya Dawn Johnson on Substack. and And then of course there’s me--I’d be delighted to have you!

• KEEP AT IT. Like I said, it took me eight years, multiple fund drives, tons of social media activity, and two crises (the loss of a Wired column and the initial rejection of The Actual Star) to get to the level of funding I’m at. It’s a commitment.

10. It’s not for everyone. And that doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you, or that you should never try again. Crowdfunding is a VERY vulnerable thing to do, no matter who you are, and that’s hard to deal with. Even if you know intellectually that that vulnerability is a learned response to capitalism, making us feel guilty for asking for money, making us feel ashamed that we don’t already earn a living wage for our labor. It’s not our fault! We know that! But it’s hard to re-condition the body to understand.

So those are my slapdash guidelines. The overarching themes are:

(a) Crowdfunding is an art form. The more you approach it like one, the happier you’ll be.

(b) Your relationship with your subscribers is a relationship, a long-term one, and needs to be nurtured and built as such. All the usual values apply: honesty, creativity, transparency, communication, and appreciation.

As for whether crowdfunding is the answer to solving the current crisis for artists, my answer is, no. UBI is. But we have to find ways to float, however we can.

Any other questions? Fire away! This post is public, so feel free to share, too.

Much love,

Monica