News and Notes (Patreon)

A few thing to share and remind you all about this weekend:

I talked to Nicholas Barnette for a piece in the Desert Companion. The Desert Companion is a glossy Vegas monthly that mostly has ads for condos and restaurants, but is also affiliated with Nevada Public Radio, and the publication actually runs nicely written essays, often from folks out of UNLV's creative writing MFA program. Anyway, Nicholas wrote about his time trying to live car-free in Vegas, and he includes some of our conversation in the piece here: https://knpr.org/desert-companion/2023-11-27/going-bused

Merch! You all know about it already, but I'm told tomorrow (Sun 10 Dec) is the last day you can order and be assured of delivery by Dec 25. https://nerd4cities.myshopify.com/

I occasionally get questions on the difference between YouTube, Patreon, and Nebula. Here's a cliffs notes/refresher for anyone who wants my take:

- YouTube is my primary platform. It's where I release all my long-form (inasmuch as 15 minutes is "long") content. Anybody can watch for free, but there are ads before, during, and after the video. Or if you subscribe to YouTube Premium, you don't see the ads (but YouTube sends me a cut of the Premium revenue based on how many Premium subscribers watch my stuff). Also, the YouTube versions of my videos include occasional promotional content at the end of the video, generally the first Wednesday of the month when I'm promoting Nebula. (I don't often do spots on the other Wednesdays, but you will see a couple more this month because I got pitched a couple good ones, and they pay more in December!)

- Patreon is basically a donation platform. Most of my patrons...really just want to give financial support with no strings attached. But, I do provide a few perks. There's a patron-only Discord (let me know if I need to re-up more info on this, I can't tell how well this gets advertised on the user end). I do occasional Patron-only videos, which tend to be shorter. Those exist on YouTube as Unlisted videos. You can't access them unless you have the URL, and if you scroll back through my posts you can eventually find all of them -- they're all still up on YouTube. Maybe I can find a way to make these more easily accessible to new patrons. The other perk, I guess, is that I actually read what you all write in comment threads and private messages, and I respond (usually!), unlike the comments on my YouTube videos, which are far too much to deal with comprehensively.

-Nebula is a streaming platform like Netflix or Hulu. The content is generally from creators you can find on YouTube, and a lot of the content is actually the same as what gets uploaded to YouTube...except there are NO ADS, and also, the Nebula versions of the videos do not have promotional material. Nebula actually negotiates any sponsored content I do, and part of the agreement Nebula has with sponsors is that (1) the sponsor "read" goes at the end of the video, not in the middle (which is not ideal from the sponsor's perspective, but improves the integrity of the video itself, and Nebula is VERY invested in the integrity of its creators), and (2) the Nebula version of the video does not include the sponsor read in it at all. Also, some creators upload the Nebula version of a video, say, a week early (these are branded Nebula First, and I may start doing this early next year), and some do Originals or other exclusive content, which only lives on Nebula. A few creators have stopped posting to YouTube altogether and can now only be found on Nebula.

YouTube AND Nebula have apps for mobile, and also for most smart TVs.

Nebula Lifetime (likely available through Dec 31, but no guarantees): https://go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=citynerd

Nebula Gift Lifetime (also Dec 31, of course): https://go.nebula.tv/gift?ref=citynerd

Monthly and Annual options: https://go.nebula.tv/citynerd

Whew! That's it. Let me know if you have any questions!