Why I'm using Patreon (and What I'm making)

October 9, 2018

In yesterday's post I introduced you to my Patreon. And like I mentioned I'm taking my time this week on the blog to explain what Patreon is, why and how I'm using it, and what you will get by becoming a Patron of my blog.

This week's Patreon annoucements posts are not my typical story posts or reflections on my life happenings. But I will return to those, promise.

Starting a Patreon is not changing how I blog, except hopefully in better ways. Its primary purpose is to expand and enhance my work as a communicator and provide me a platform to produce and deliver more resources, more content, and more community building connection with readers.

But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, because that's actually what I'm sharing in today's video clip.

If you're reading this in email you'll need to click over to my blog post to watch the video.

Why am I using Patreon?

I have 4 main reasons for using Patreon.

Patreon helps support my writing.

For years I've blogged freely and with very minimal advertising. Patreon gives you a way to support and show appreciation for my writing, it's a reader-supported way to generate a small amount of income from blogging. Something I’ve been trying to figure out for many years.

Patreon helps me create community around my writing.

I want to create a community, a landing place, an exploratory space, for people who resonate with the universal themes that are expressed in our individual stories and lives.

I want to create community around the idea that the intimate is the universal.

And I'm willing to share stories from my own life to make these connections and I hope to create a community with a variety of voices and experiences.

Patreon is a platform and sustainability model for creating new content. I have 2 types of content in mind as I start this new venture:

Podcasting: Patrons get a podcast.

I will produce a monthly podcast where I explore the ideas I write about on my blog but in the context of someone else's life. I want to explore the Big Ideas that are lived and expressed in other people's lives and find those connections to my own story and experience, to talk about those things.

Patreon enables me to deliver courses, workshops, and teaching to support you.

I want to create content that enhances what I'm already doing on my blog, in telling stories about my life, but I want to go deeper into supporting reader's specific needs.

So for example, I'd like to do more homeschool help for interest-led learning from preschool through high school and I envision using Patreon as the mechanism (the tool) to help me create community for that and deliver the content. Homeschooling is just one thing. There are other ideas I'd like to explore deeper and resources I want to offer, and I'm going to pursue that work using the Patreon platform.

That's it for today. Hop over Patreon, see what I've got going on. There's Patron-only content already there, including my first podcast interview with Karen Toews.

hiking this week in Nova Scotia with my three favorite women

I'll be back in my next post with how much it costs to be Patron and exactly what you get when you become a Patron. By the way, you can find this out whenever you want on my Patreon, but I'm taking it step-by-step on my blog this week to introduce it to everyone.

This post is available as an audio recording (like a blog podcast) on Patreon.