How do you make your living on Patreon? (Patreon)

I received an email from someone asking a few questions about how I use Patreon, for a book they're writing about getting clients as an illustrator.

Since they didn't offer to pay, they insisted I could just give them one-word answers. Well, I'm not really a one-word answer kind of person, so... I wrote a lot of words.

I figured I'd just share them with you top-tier patrons, to make it worth the hour I spent, both for me and for you. I know some of you are artists and creators who are interested in making Patreon your full-time gig, so I hope this helps! 

If nothing else, it'll give you an idea of how I approach Patreon. If you read between the lines, this whole thing is just a huge THANK YOU to all of you. <3 

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1. At what stage in your career did you decide to launch your Patreon business?

My webcomic Girls With Slingshots had become pretty popular, and I'd been running it for several years and amassed a large following, before I decided to launch a Patreon page. Patreon isn't a good networking platform, so it's important to have established a following elsewhere - on social media or your own website - if you expect to make a decent amount of money with it.

2. What are the main attractions to running a successful Patreon?

Everyone approaches Patreon differently, but the way I use it - both as a creator and as a patron to other creators - is like a recurring tip jar. I support artists who are making work that's accessible to the public (on social media, their own websites, etc) because I want them to continue making what they love to make, and I want them to be able to share it with everyone, not just people who pay for it. I do spend a bit extra on my favorite Patreon creators if there's an additional perk attached to a certain tier, such as behind-the-scenes images and process shots that I might find inspiring or interesting. I consider it low-cost education. ;)

I like using Patreon this way as a creator, as well - most of my Patreon patrons want to support me financially because they like what I do, and want me to continue doing it. It feels very freeing to not have an agenda attached to each person's dollar. I'm truly free to create the work I want to create, and I feel secure that the people who support me financially want me to just keep doing what I'm doing. If they don't like the work I'm making enough to pay for it, they can cease paying for it and still continue to read it for free.

3. What are the greatest challenges of running your own business?

These are contradicting, but: being driven to work, and letting myself NOT work. If I'm not in a creative mood, it's virtually impossible for me to force myself to get into one. On the other hand, NOT creating something makes me feel guilty. Even taking off the amount of time most normal people take off - a few hours each day to myself, or two days off a week - feels selfish and indulgent unless I've worked super hard for days before that. I've been working for myself for 17 years now, and I still struggle with this balance!

4. What proportion of your income comes from commissioned work?

I assume by "commissioned" work you mean paid by a client, right? About 90-95% of my income comes from Patreon, and the other 5-10% is a mix of different things; ad income from the online reruns of Girls With Slingshots, teaching and lecturing gigs, the rare caricature gig, and occasional print or book sales. I'm not really making new work right now outside of my comic Elephant Town, and I don't have time to take commissioned artwork, so I'm mostly focusing on the comic, which is paid for entirely by my patrons on Patreon.

5. How do you promote your Patreon?

Right now, I don't promote it very much, because I'm not ready to promote Elephant Town. But I make sure that my Patreon URL is available on my social media accounts and in the signature section of my emails; right now the www.elephant.town URL forwards to my Patreon page. Once I have a dedicated website for Elephant Town, there will be a link to my Patreon in the menu (the chapters will be collected on the website every month or so for public consumption, but people will be able to read the comic early on Mondays - as they do now - via Patreon). 

I prefer to be passive with my promotion, because I feel comfortable with my income, and because I value having patrons who genuinely want to support the comic to keep it going. I don't want anyone to feel obligated to support me financially, but I want them to know it's an option and that it helps me continue creating the comic.

So, I'm not the best example of promotion right now, because I'm currently not in promotion mode, I'm in creation mode.

That said, the key to monetizing your art is to make it EASY for people to pay for it. You can have a Patreon account, but if you never let people know that you have it, or if it's not listed under a recognizable name, they can't find it. Being consistent with your branding (using the same spelling of your name or comic) is vital to connecting potential patrons to your page. I always say that you need to LET people pay you; if they want to pay you, you have to make it easy for them to do so.

6. What advice would you give an early career illustrator hoping to combine working with clients and running their own business?

I'm going to assume that by "running their own business" you mean Patreon, or something similar to Patreon, where you don't really have "clients," and you make the work you want to make (rather than being commissioned to make the work someone else wants you to make).

So there are a couple of things I'd advise, and this is just my approach to it: first and foremost is to create the work YOU want to create. Not the work you see others creating, not the work you think people want to see. Make what YOU want to see in the world, what YOU wish there was more of. That's step one.

Step two is to share it for free, and to trust that if your work is something people enjoy, it will pay for itself if you make it EASY for people to pay you for it. By sharing the work for free, you're doing two things: you're finding your audience and letting them fall in love with your work, and you're showing you respect them by letting them decide to help you continue creating your work (or to create more often, or even make it your full-time job) by supporting you financially.

Step three is to be consistent and to follow through with your promises. Set reasonable deadlines for yourself that allow for hiccups, and reach those deadlines. (I botched this years ago, but I've made up for it by being as consistent as I can since then.) If you can't hit a deadline that you've promised to your audience, don't make excuses for it; just briefly and honestly explain the situation, and try your best to hit the next deadline. As long as people can tell that you're trying, they'll probably keep supporting you.

There's a step zero that I missed, that needs to come before all of this, and needs to continue throughout the process: you have to go in expecting nothing, and always have a backup plan for your income. Accept that there's a possibility not enough people will connect with the work you create to make it a full-time job.

I started Girls With Slingshots with no expectations; I started the comic because I love making comics and I knew I'd only make them if I had people to share them with, and by setting deadlines for myself. I would have kept making GWS twice a week, even if I only had a few hundred readers. I didn't expect the strip to become my full-time job, but once I had enough readers and had tested out book sales to see if they would do well (they did), I quit taking commissioned work from clients, and started creating GWS comics five times a week and giving the strip my full attention.

I went into Elephant Town with the same feeling; if not enough people like the comic to support it financially, I can either reduce my output or cease the comic altogether, and take other jobs. (Luckily it's been well received so far!)

I think it's important to acknowledge, too, that your full-time job is not who you are as an artist; your full-time job is just the means by which you make enough money to trade for the cost of living. I tell my students that once they're out of college, they should just find a job that doesn't tax them emotionally/creatively, and gives them the flexibility to create their own work on the side until they feel confident to make it their full-time gig. I started GWS while I was working at the local newspaper, a job where the work was exciting & not draining, I had great coworkers and a boss who taught me most of the Photoshop tricks that I use to this day.

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As always, you're welcome to ask me more in-depth questions! After all, you've paid me a lot more than this author did. ;)