Opening a Patreon?

I have been thinking recently how to get more work out, or more importantly, having work seen by more people. One of the options I was looking at was Patreon.

For models, cosplayers, prop makers and the like I can see the enticement for people wanting to pay into it and it has become more and more popular as of late with content creators but what would I, as a photographer, produce for it?

I have been looking at other photographer Patreons (Is that the plural??) and they all seem to follow a similar pattern.

$1 – Thank you, give me your money

$5 – View my diary

$10 – Get a postcard

$20 – Get a bigger postcard

$50 – Get at large print

To me though, this doesn’t seem to be lot of money for what is being offered, especially for prints. Not that money is the be all and end all of everything. If I have created something that I would want selling as a print do the low cost tiers devalue that work (or any other work that is released outside Patreon) or because they are monthly it makes up for it in the long run?

If you have a lot of patrons on your Patreon, you could end up spending so much time printing and sending that the creative aspect gets lost? I do see regular complaints that the logistical side of sending out rewards can be very time consuming.

So do you just do digital images? Offer one off payments for prints? Or do you end up having Tier 3 and above Patreons choosing a print project for the month.

As for extra content, showing the behind the scenes view of the life of a photographer could be interesting to some but would it help get more work? How about tutorials, build logs and post production techniques? Would people pay for those from a photographer on a monthly basis?

Would I? I don’t think I would.

I think in the long run, it would just be as beneficial to keep posting the same content to this blog as I would post to Patreon. Having wallpapers on the site to give away, doing limited edition print runs, behind the scenes write ups and the pie in the sky ideas I have for video content.

I would be interested in hearing people’s views in the comments below.