What is Patreon?
It's not like 'only fans' 😂. It's a membership site where you donate a small amount once a month to your chosen musician, artist, poet, writer... Taking the bollox out of it, It's primarily a financial support platform. In return, it's completely up to the creator what they offer you. You should get a sense of this from their signup page.
What's mine all about?
My Patreon group is little. There's 28 of us. 😁 It's like a combination of a friendly sounding board for music ideas, songs and artwork, an early birds club (videos, music, gigs) and whenever possible, I send free stuff or sometimes discount things I can't viably give away. You can choose what suits you, from £3 up - and change it or stop it at any point. I blog funny things that happen to me as a musician, event promoter and touring person. Stuff that's a bit too close to real life for global social media! I have found writing to a group of people that have a common interest really cathartic, when I just get an idea, or something curious (usually music related) just needs to be discussed!. There's also a 10 episode video blog of my August tour, including bleary morning eyes in Beer (town), backstage in The Acorn (Penzance), Inside the Golden Hinde! (London) 😎 You'll know from my social pages that filming myself is quite rare. I still don't find it easy in that wide public setting.
Tangible benefits? Joining at any tier gets you a freebie. Most take a CD. Most join at £3 or £4.50. I will send a welcome gift right away. Only 1 person has joined and then vanished before pay day 😂, so I'm going with good will. Have a look at the options. You can also follow for free, but I must confess I very rarely post for the free tier, as I generally give time spent on Patreon to donating members.
What led me to it?
I was very dubious, and a little bit embarrassed about Patreon when I first encountered it. I friend of mine, who is a much more established musician, suggested that I should drop my fears, and pride, and just give people an opportunity to help me out if they want to. And so I did. In 2020, Music income took a wobble, shall we say. The things I'd used to fund the band and my musical self had dropped to 10% of what it had been in 2019, so I wanted to find a solution to that. It's now on the most part improved, radio royalties came back, gigs started again. Though permanent damage was done, as many moved long term to online, couch music entertainment, and the shift towards streamed music and social media incomes, for which you need millions of viewers, has put me and my band in the same situation as many: Gigs usually bring income, but not regular enough to earn a living. Less are able to come out to gigs frequently due to the cost of living and the trend towards more pricy and less frequent nostalgia/legacy bands/tribute bands. Promoters are less interested as they know making decent money from an original band with a smaller following is unlikely. So I opened a Patreon page. And yes, it's been wonderful. I was wrong. And I got over it.
What do I do with the money?
Lots! Patrons are helping me directly as a songwriter and musician, in essence, to have time for it. Like many musos, I hover between zero hours/contract type jobs that come and go, gigs and occasional royalties, and CD/LP sales. It's my goal to keep it like that because when a gig comes along, I am free to take it, and free to keep building a music career without repeatedly letting an employer down. Patreon has become so important to me because it buys me time, time where I'm not thinking income and can focus on making music, writing, creating artwork, chasing gigs for the band, rehearsing and more ... What a gift!
Indirectly, it supports our band, Broken Windows, as in the last few years, started to book and promote gigs that involve both us and other bands too, so it's helping me with both the cash flow and the time to give something back to the grassroots music world.
I do get asked sometimes why I don't join a function band or get on the Edinburgh circuit of bars that pay for covers acts. With a bit of set list practice and drive, I could do this. But because I know a lot of friends who do, I see in a lot of cases it has drained their time and energy for their own music, so I made the choice to keep low key flexible day jobs, and all my energy for music remains funnelled into original work. I have a nice life, frugal, occasionally broke, but incredibly happy to de doing a lot of what I love.
Thank you for reading.
If you like the idea, it's a £3 gamble, for 1 month.
If my stuff isn't for you, there's LOTS of other creatives doing all sorts of things on Patreon, so have a look.
"None of these publications have noticed Liz Jones, sadly. I think the Guardian listed one of the gigs once..."
Señor Verdad
