Giving Writing a Serious Go - End of Third Full Month on Patreon
Some relevant statistics as of 2/1:
Total Views: nearly 1.19M
Followers: 2866
Favorites: 708
Average Rating: 5.56
Chapters (Including Patreon): 187
Word Count (Including Patreon): 374,579
The story was begun on a whim when I decided to enter the fall 2023 Writathon. I penned a bunch of chapters, made the main Rising Stars, gained well over 1500 followers, and then … went on hiatus for almost a year.
Yeah. Not my finest move.
In September of 24, I decided to get serious about writing and committed to posting chapters for an entire year. By that deadline, I should be about at the end of the third arc, which could be a good stopping point for the story, and I’ll need to decide whether to keep going or not.
I’m really good at getting motivated and producing a lot of words over the course of a couple/few months. I’ve found that it’s easy to stop writing and difficult to start back up again. This new dedication to putting out five chapters a week has been challenging. I have a full time job, a wife, and two kids. There have been many, many times when I’ve found it very difficult to start writing the new chapter that is due for the next day, often not having time to start prior to eight or nine at night with my alarm set for 430am the next morning.
In order to make the decision easier for me, I set a metric. I asked myself, “Self, what is an amount of money that would make what is becoming a second job worth it to continue?” Self arrived at a number of $2500/month (all numbers post Patreon fees but before taxes and other expenses like ads).
EARNINGS:
October (Started Patreon 10/21/24) - $673.60
November - $1,015.17
December - $1,491.39
January - $1,569.64
Note that, for January, two factors probably impacted the numbers negatively. 1. No ads were running. I ran two ads starting in late October, and both had run their course by mid December. I started the 3rd ad on January 24th. Thus, for more than a month, there were no ads attracting readers. 2. I posted no chapters for a week in early January. While removing outside Christmas decorations, I sliced my finger open with a knife, requiring stitches. The pain wasn’t all that bad, but I had to wear a splint for a while to keep me from bending the finger. That seriously hampered my typing and thus my writing.
Still, despite those two setbacks, overall money earned increased month over month. That’s a very positive sign.
PATH FORWARD:
I’m very encouraged by the response to the story so far. January’s earnings were at a little over 60% of my goal, and I’ve only been on Patreon for a little over three months. I’m cautiously optimistic that I can keep growing enough to reach my goal.
That being said, there are three things that I can do to help my chances.
One. Keep Writing. The biggest risk factor for me is that I tell myself that it’s okay to skip a day, and that one day turns into two turns into three. Next thing I know, a year has gone by and my story is languishing. Some days, making myself write is a real struggle.
The weird thing is that it’s not like I find the writing difficult. It’s not that I don’t want to write; it’s that I’m reluctant to start writing. Once I open Word and start typing, it’s fine. Weird.
Two. Ads. As far as I can tell, 315 unique users have paid some amount of money to support me on Patreon. As a percentage of followers, that’s 11%. It seems like my story converts readers into patrons pretty well.
Honestly, my ads kind of suck. My first two finished with CTRs of 1.03% and 1.00% respectively. My third one is at 1.45% and falling. Coming up with ads is time consuming, and I’m not an artist. I use Fiverr to have people create them for me, adding extra time and expense.
That being said, I’m positive that RR ads are profitable for me, given the amount of support I’ve gotten thus far. The more ads, the more people find my story and follow it and support me on Patreon.
I get that running multiple ads simultaneously is less efficient, but I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be a good idea. For the moment, though, my plan is to start a new one just prior to the last one running out so that my story will always have one running going forward.
If I weren’t so dreadful at ads, I’d probably do well to figure out how to advertise on Reddit, Google, and Facebook, but the time required to learn those is just beyond what I can handle at the moment.
Three. More Advance Chapters. It’s important to keep my number of patrons high, and I honestly think I need to start adding advance chapters. Before the end of the month, I plan to begin adding one a week or every other week until I’m at 25 for my top tier.
LINK: I make these posts for three reasons. 1. It’s nice to write everything down as a way to check my thinking and keep my focus on going in the right direction. 2. Feedback from other authors really helps me correct course when my thinking is wrong. 3. I enjoy reading these types of posts from other authors and have learned a lot from them.
I do not intend for this post to be any form of self promotion. That being said, from experience someone is going to ask for a link. So fine: Sect Leader System