Donations and Promotions

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

One thing I like about the site (WordPress) I have our story/stories on is that you can get a daily tracking stat and what is being read and where it is being linked. Admittedly we have only been 'live' for about six months. I know that many of you have been around much longer.

We are getting promoted here and there (Woot! Some search engines have picked us up!), but I noticed we were getting a lot of views of our donation page. We are also getting very few comments, which either means that the story is very entertaining or people don't think it is worth the effort to leave any kind of comment. *shrug*

So, in trying to think like a person who might enjoy the story, but is unsure why we have the brass to ask for donations, I wrote this about our our reasons for requesting donations for our work. And people are reading it. Hopefully they are also thinking about it. Or maybe even promoting the site in their own blogs.

So, what are you telling (theoretical) questioners about your reasons for requesting donations or payment for you work? Artists who put out tangible product have the physical object, but what about those of us who do intangible things like web-published stories and such? What kind of response do you get?

Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I don't really do a "broke, send money" section. I have a long detailed description of how the Poetry Fishbowl works, how people can support it and what they get if they do.
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/730515.html

Re: Hmm...

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

I guess I did (do?) sound like I'm doing a "Broke. Send money." spiel with that, which was not my intent.

Some of it is pure frustration at not even getting commentary. I think jolantru understands that aspect, as do others, I'm certain.

sordak and I won't stop putting up what each of us is writing, but I don't have any clue as to what people think of our stories. We enjoy writing them, but I get the impression that most people who swing by the site consider the stories not quite dreck, but maybe on a par with "See Dick Run. Run Dick, run!"

I know my perceptions are skewed. I would just like to know how badly without being flayed alive.

Re: Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I guess I did (do?) sound like I'm doing a "Broke. Send money." spiel with that, which was not my intent.<<

It's hard not to. People blame you for being broke, then attack you if you try to do something that will make you less broke. Right now, the Poetry Fishbowl is the only earned money regularly coming into our household.

>>I don't have any clue as to what people think of our stories.<<

Building audience interaction takes time and effort. Look in the Memories section for this community -- there is a post about how to make your audience more lively, or bigger.

Re: Hmm...

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

I'll check it out. Thanks.

Re: Hmm...

[jolantru.livejournal.com]

*nods* Yes, on the not getting commentary aspect. I think I am coming to terms regarding story feedback/commentary: people won't normally comment.

As for the donation part: well, I will keep on doing what I am doing, that is, to write and hone my craft.

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

I don't really tell my sponsors anything, now that I think about it. I do crowdfunded one card draws, and I did put up a post once explaining that I put up the donation button because I expend a great deal of energy. However, my explaination in my Draw post is, I think, one sentence saying, basically, 'donate if you can, and thanks.'

[ceciliatan.livejournal.com]

I think it's normal for people not to comment. I've been running a baseball blog for 10 years now and even though some posts get hundreds of hits, they don't get comments. Yet I know people are reading them and enjoying them. For the vast majority of people reading, they are lurkers. Even if they love the stuff, they may feel they don't know what to say, not realizing that just a "Hey, this was great" comment really encourages the writer. Sometimes I think the better writer you are, too, the fewer comments you get (whereas if you are obviously struggling with your style or the story... people are less intimidated to say something and also more likely to leave critique). People are weird.

If you expectations for the volume of comments are set by your experiences in LiveJournal, it's really different "out there" in the wider Internet. I'm doing a weekly m/m erotic fantasy serial, for example, and now after having run for close to a year, it is finally getting 2-4 comments per chapter. I"m not shocked at ALL that pretty much all of them are being left by people I know THROUGH fanfic communities in LiveJournal, so they are used to it. Also, I've been posting a teaser with fake-cut to each new chapter from my fic LJ, so it feels to some of those readers more like it's an extension of their LJ experience, perhaps.

On the baseball blog I started asking for donations many years ago, and although I never got much in the way of dollars it did get me some interesting items in the mail. People often sent me books, T-shirts, and other things. Once I got a case of beef jerky (since I had mentioned liking to eat it as a ballgame snack... and a guy who worked at the Oberto factory saw that.) I was not very aggressive about trying to get donations though.

With the crowdfunded fiction project I'm doing, Daron's Guitar Chronicles, I am probably going to be more aggressive with the donation button, but I'm not sure. I have friends who can make a decent amount busking on the street. They say for every 99 people who walk past, one gives something. Right now that serial doesn't even have 100 visitors a week, so I am not surprised no donations have come yet since November 1 when I launched. There have also been a total of maybe 5? 6? comments, on 30+ chapters so far? I know people are enjoying it--they sometimes even drop me email or Twitter notes to say so. But they don't comment on the site itself.

Last thing -- this comment got a lot longer than I thought... One thing I've always pointed out on my donation pages is that the relative cost of throwing in a few bucks is not that high. Some price points I sometimes bring up:

$2 daily New York Times
$3 Starbucks hot chocolate
$7 paperback novel
$10 admission to a movie
$30 hardcover book

It's totally normal for a guy standing on the street corner playing the guitar to get a dollar from passerby now and then -- why shouldn't I ask for the same? You're sharing your art with the world. The "secret" though is building up the traffic so that your street corner is very very busy. I'm working on that part now...