So what’s new this week? I finally started a Patreon. I actually set up a Patreon way back in 2014 (it’s October 2021 as I write this) but I never made it go live. Why did I never make it go live you ask? The easy answers is that I didn’t know what to do with it. I’ve been a person who has been very creative all my life and I have made a ton of art but I don’t have many fans. It’s tough to make any kind of mark in the world and, so far, I haven’t. Why start a Patreon if there is no one to support it? That’s the question I could never answer.
Of course the other big question was what to offer anyone on Patreon. I already have this blog and webcomic for free so what could my Patreon be about? What could I offer to patrons besides a peek behind the curtain of making art? This time around I decided to make a digital magazine of my art. It seems a good way to organize things. For six bucks a month you can get a digital magazine full of my art arranged in a way that makes things attractive and easy to digest. I have over 30 years of work to present so I’m not going to run out of material anytime soon.
I managed to get three 64 page issues of the magazine done before my launch. It’s called “Art From the Edge of the Dreamworld.” I wanted to get just one of them done and then launch but I put the launch off all summer and worked on some more issues. I wish I had a good reason to put the launch off but it was really just a fear of pointlessness. At least that’s what I’ve come to call my ambivalence about launching any big new artistic endeavor these days.
A lot of people suffer from a fear of failure and that stops them from doing stuff. I can understand that. Failure is painful. Failure is tough. You put your all into something and in the end it fails. You set out to climb a mountain but instead never get past base camp. That’s a legitimate fear. I think fear of pointlessness is a little bit different though.
I’m a doer. I can get things done. That I know. A fear of failure doesn’t stop me from doing things. I can accept failure in a larger sense as long as I get some satisfaction out of a creative endeavor. Yet fear of pointlessness can be a roadblock for me. It might not even be a fear but a reasonable calculation. I didn’t start this Patreon back in 2014 because I didn’t see the point of it. With no fans and no idea how to get them why have a platform that is only for my nonexistent fans? It seemed pointless. That’s what a fear of pointlessness is. Looking ahead and seeing no path to success. I think that’s different than a fear of failure.
So what has changed in my perception of Patreon and its pointlessness? Time and other people. I’ve been making videos on YouTube since about 2014. I make one or two videos a week. Not a ton of people watch them but about 100 do. It doesn’t make me money but I like doing it. It’s easy and I get to interact with people. My videos art mostly about comic books but they are sometimes about my art. I have a few fans there so that’s encouraging.
It was really watching other people’s videos that got me wanting to start my Patreon. Y’see, lots of people have Patreons these days. And a lot of those people have nothing to offer. Their videos are crap, they don’t have many fans, but they still have people supporting them on Patreon. Not many but some. So why was I letting things get in my way?
I think some of it was fear of pointlessness but some of it was also ego. Most creative things I do are not judged by how much money they make. A Patreon is. I’ve been writing this blog for 16 years and no one cares that it makes me no money but a Patreon is designed to make money for artists. That’s its whole point. So if I fail at that, as I probably will, isn’t that a public blow to my artistic ego? Here is this platform designed to do exactly what an artist needs it to do and if I can’t be successful at it what’s the point of anything I do?
But these little rinky-dink YouTubers don’t give a crap about any of that and just set up a Patreon so why don’t I? They inspired me to do it.
Now that I have my Patreon up and running I’m going to have to figure out how to promote both it and myself. That’s something I’ve never spent a lot of time doing. Doing artwork and being creative is hard. It takes up a lot of time. So doing that plus earning a living doesn’t leave a lot of time for self-promotion. That’s a whole other job and a whole other skill set. One I need to learn.
The only way for me to learn this new skill set is to cut back on making art. That’s why I’ve never bothered with it before. But since I launched a Patreon now is the time. I’ve been sitting around for a few days contemplating how to promote but I think it’s going to take a lot longer than that because I don’t have much so far. I just have other social media platforms that not many people pay attention to me on. No one said it would be easy.
I did finish my fifth canvas for the year and so have worked on a good many big projects in 2021. I think it’s time to work on some small ones to keep creative as I figure out how to promote. Over the last few days I’ve made some art card drawings on Magic the Gathering cards and made some Paste-Up Mash-Ups with some of those MTG cards and old comic books. Those are little somethings I can get done. And I still like getting things done.