Reprise: Why do you donate?

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Back in March 2011, aldersprig launched a discussion, "Why do you donate?"  Given our recent discussions about patrons, this seemed like a useful topic to revisit.  You can look at the previous post or just start fresh here.  If you're a patron, you can talk about your spending habits.  If you're both patron and creator, you might contrast your experiences across the two modes.  What makes you click that "donate" button?

Comments

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I'm a black female scifi/fantasy writer who favors characters of color and/or a cast consisting of mostly females. I have my niche market, I know they're out there and ready for it.<<

Okay, great.

>>I just need to figure out how to reach them without begging for money and give them a reason to give.<<

Try to think of something that you could afford to give away as a free sample. That's a widespread crowdfunding technique for hooking an audience. If they like what they see, some of them will probably give you money for the premium stuff.

Something you could do now would be to make an introductory post to the community, so more people will see it. Describe yourself, what you've sponsored, what you're thinking about writing. That will help other folks figure out how well they match your interests, which should give you more networking contacts.

I thought of a possible audience-contact idea, once you have your project going. Look for people who share something in common with you (female, black, F&SF writer, writing about a diverse or mostly female cast, etc.) and talk to them about cross-promotion. I'm pretty sure that my audience would be interested in the kind of thing you write, so if I posted about your work on my blog, some folks would probably go read you. If you returned the favor later, you'd probably send me some new traffic too. "Wonder City Stories" over on Dreamwidth is another very close match.

Mention this stuff in a post and you should turn up more -- pretty much anyone writing in these areas has heard readers grumbling that they want more female characters, more black characters, etc. and thus keep an eye out for such to recommend. The audience you're aiming for is already huddled around a handful of projects. Every time we connect those dots, we make the audience pool bigger and happier.

Re: Thoughts

[ribbon-scythe.livejournal.com]

This is all really good advice. I've got to pull my stuff together and get more of a direction. Thanks so much!

I've had my eye on "Wonder City Stories" since I came here, I want to sit down and give it a real read. I'm such a comic book nerd and it looks like something right up my alley.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service!

I describe "Wonder City Stories" as a comic book soap opera. It seems to specialize in doing the things that conventional comics hint at but stop short of. So we get to see the rest of the action.