I’ve just completed my first year as a mature content creator on Patreon. My Patreon is called Bun in the Oven

So I thought I’d share my experience so others considering setting up a Patreon page or those who have recently started might find some helpful tips and ideas.

Patreon has definitely involved a lot more work than I expected and it’s become something of an obsession for me. Not quite every waking moment but a lot of time I’m thinking about it even if I’m not creating content for it.

Note: My Patreon is about Patreon exclusive content rather than a tip jar.

Getting Patreon patrons 

Patreon isn’t an easy place to find new fans. Its just not built with that in mind. It’s the place to direct your existing fans to. You need to grow your fan base through Deviant Art, Twitter or anywhere else that you post your art.

Particularly if your an artist, it helps if some of your existing fans are already paying for commissions as you know the quality of your work has already reached a level where people are happy to part with their money to get more of your art.

First month

I had a solid, if slightly unspectacular first month on Patreon. Finishing the month with 14 patrons. Most were fans I already knew from DA and some were existing commissioners of my art. They are probably the diehard fans of my art as most are still my patrons a year on.

They buy into me as an artist not just the art. For some they feel a certain pride in supporting a creator of art they enjoy.

Freetards Ahoy!

Early on a did have a few unpleasant experiences with a certain type of ‘fan’ of my art... I’ll call them Freetards!

A particular issue when I first joined Patreon is that patron pledges were not billed immediately but at the end of the month. It lead to some folks pledging to get access to my Patreon page, getting access to my art and then I deleting their pledge before being bill. Not very Sporting!

I think Patreon is moving more towards just billing immediately which does away with this problem to a large extent though a few freetards are bold enough to seek refunds.

My advice on this is to post a small selection of your art on Patreon and store the bulk of your art in folders on online storage like Google Drive, Mega or Dropbox.

Only send out links to patrons with pledges that have been paid. You can do this through the Patrons Manager page.

Don’t let your tiers end in tears!

So Patreon tiers? What are they? They’re different levels that you’re patrons can pledge at. You can offer different amounts or types of rewards for different amounts of money.

Some creators offer a single tier and I’ve seen some offer as many as 20.

I think it’s fine to start with just two or three tiers to gauge the level of interest in different aspects of your work.

The biggest mistakes I’ve seen other creators make are

1. giving too much content at the lowest tiers then not giving enough incentives to be on a higher tier.
2. Making the jump in price between tier levels too great. Going from a $5 tier  to a $8 tier might be ok but $10 to $50 is a huge jump unless the extra content/rewards justifies it.
3. Over valuing some less tangible rewards. Example: Giving more votes in a poll isn’t as good as more art.

I’ve experimented a bit with adding and removing tiers and also limiting the numbers of patrons signed up to some tiers. I’ve not experimented with the price of existing tiers.

Workload

 At one point my third tier was offering patrons a sketch request every month. It was limited to 5 patrons only. I found when I got to 3 patrons on this tier that I was maxed out on workload so reduced the maximum patrons on the tier to 3 then 2 and currently only 1.

This was an example where I misjudged the workload. I underestimated the amount of time spent researching and get reference material for a requested topic and also found that I wanted to execute several sketches per request - this wasn’t really necessary but self imposed so I’m my own worst enemy!

On the upside the sketches are shared with all patrons so it means I post more often that just when my two monthly art rewards are ready.

All told I think I spend about 8 days a month on Patreon art. A typical art reward pack taking 3 days - 1 day sketching and line art, 1 day colouring/painting art, 1 day creating the ‘remix’ variants of the art.

Taking on commissions outside of Patreon is now something I do rarely as there’s so little time left. So if you are considering becoming a Patreon Creator and already do lots of commissions then you might have to consider whether you can maintain that.

The importance of blog posts 

While I’ve warned about posting art to your Patreon blog that might get lifted by freetards, I do think regular posts are important.

Crucially, its important that some of these posts are public not just patron-only posts. I’ve seen far too many Patreon creator pages with a good or just ok page header and then every blog post locked to patrons-only giving me not much idea what I’ll see if I become a patron. I then rely on what I knew of their art elsewhere.

Not seeing a selection of posts that are public can be an issue. I’ve become patron to a number of other creators and then been disappointed when I’ve found the quantity of art was low and the content was non-exclusive so could have been found elsewhere for no pledge. Potential patrons need a better idea of what’s on offer.

A wide range of patrons

After several months of being a Patreon creator I noticed a change in the types of patrons that the Bun in the Oven page was attracting.

Most of my early patrons were long time supporters, so supported straight away while others had waited a bit longer to be tempted in.

My newest patrons were less interested in supporting me as an artist as they had no history with me so were very much focus only on receiving art rewards. 

Despite having being a pregnant art specialist for a few years, I’d not previously appreciated or anticipated the wide range of reasons my patrons and potential patrons. Some of patrons tastes didn’t exactly align with mine.

I think for any artist working in a niche, particularly one with adult themes needs to strike a balance between creating work for their own satisfaction and personal enjoyment verses serving the needs of their audience. 

You want it to be a pleasure not a chore. This particular true of something you need to deliver every month without fail.

Managing expectations 

My initial approach to Patreon (as described above) has been to create content on a monthly basis that’s available just for paid pledges that month. If you’re not a patron during that month then you’ve missed it.

I’ve done this to gently encourage loyalty and not to give away cheaply past content to new patrons when loyal long term patrons have paid much more.

For the most part this has worked for me though occasionally there are new patrons disappointed or demanding they have access to past work.

I think ready access to past work only makes sense for serialised story content where you want your patrons to follow a story from it’s start.

Ultimately I’ve tried to address the issue of access to past content by introducing the Round Belly Rewind tier allowing patrons to select a past reward once a month.

I like this solution as I can get some income from past art and it benefits returning patrons and enthusiastic new patrons who don’t want to miss out because I’m a recent discovery to them.

Income

Much as I love the idea of doing pregnant art everyday, I do think earning enough from Patreon is a long way off (if ever) for me.

Principally its a secondary income stream. My day job, while well paid, isn’t likely to produce a pay rise in the foreseeable future and with rising living costs my salary is getting me less. My Patreon earnings help to combat this.

Unless you have very low living expenses very few Patreon creators are going turn this into the main income.

Future direction

I’ve started to explore the possibilities of animated, interactive and game content. Along with more explicit themes.

I’m trying to figure out whether this is something I alternate with the digital painting art rewards or whether animation/games content is only a couple of times a year. 

Maybe there’s some other direction to go that I’ve not discovered yet.

I’m excited for year 2 on Patreon!

I’m introducing a new reward tier on my Patreon called Round Belly Rewind 

For $8 a month you get the current month’s pregnant art rewards for the Round Belly tier plus you get to pick one past reward pack.

Round Belly Rewind is the ideal tier if you’re a new patron wanting to catch up on art rewards you’ve missed before joining or for returning patrons to catch up on the rewards that were out while they were away.

As a Round Belly Rewind tier patron you also get access to The Vault which contains all my past pregnant art I did before the Bun in the Oven Patreon. All that art in one place plus I’ll keep adding sketches and art for all my latest commissions.

PATREON:  www.patreon.com/bunintheoven 

I’ve been planning to launch my Preggo art Patreon for a while now. I knew from the outset that if I was going to do it then I wanted to make it very good and have it grow into something a bit special, with the kind of art that fans of my pregnant artwork will get really excited and support!

So today I’m launching ‘Bun in the Oven’ my Patreon for Pregnant Art.
www.patreon.com/bunintheoven

So what will you get if you support me as a patron?

Exclusive, Patreon-only Preggo art. 
I’m going to be producing at least 4 brand new pieces of art a month mostly in my colour drawing style like the examples below.

Mature Content

Mature Content

Mature Content

Mature Content

Keeping things simple, I am launching with just two tiers:

$3 - Tier 1- ‘Little Bump’ rewards

$5 - Tier 2 - ‘Round Belly’ rewards

Support me and help me hit my targets then I’ll beef up these two tiers with more content and introduce some Patreon-only rewards!

‘Preggo’ not your thing?

If the whole pregnant art side of my art isn’t your thing then don’t worry as I will continue to post my portrait and pin up art on Deviant Art and Instagram like I always have