[Doctor Xaos] Patreon and blog launched

[Ron Edwards]

The "X" is a chi, so in English, the word is pronounced the same as you've always pronounced it.

Anyway, so here it goes ... If you want to comment at the blog, you'll have to pledge. One time only, though, I think.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Ah, I see I returned from this week's adventure just in time to see developments here. Some first impressions:

Is it intentional for the Patreon page to not explain what Doctor Xaos is at any length? I would expect some introduction for the project, the cultural mood of the thing, the artist guy, why you're funding the project in this manner, etc. This being a rolling process, you of course have plenty of time to build up the page as you go.

Is it intentional that the blog's first post is currently password-protected and therefore not publicly viewable? I confess that $10 is steep enough (even as a one-time payment, with the intent to dial it down later to a more manageable level) that I'd like to do my due diligence and see a few posts before putting it down. (As I mentioned before, the blog's the thing here as far as I'm concerned.)

I like the artist's portfolio, seems like an earnest sort of fellow with a style fit for superheroes. Mostly character portraits, which makes me think that the art for the project will be the sort you see in superhero games and Marvel superhero handbooks and such - lots of null-background character pieces that show off uniforms, less landscapes, situations and general graphics.

I'm torn on the patronage levels: on the one hand it's clear that everybody in the process should prefer larger contributions to minimize the handling charges, but on the other hand amounts like $10 and $20 are clearly no longer casual support when you're expecting to keep it up for a long time period, paying that same amount possibly several times per month. It'd be nice to see some sort of scheduling plans and such on when and how often you're hoping to hit the patrons for money; I believe that most will want to choose their support level with long-term sustainability in mind, rather than set it high and then stop contributing when it's evident that you're producing at a pace too rich for them.

Example questions about the scheduling and strategic details that might be of interest to the patrons: are you going to start producing bust pieces immediately once you hit a commitment of $25, or will you wait for a bit (like, a week or whatever) to see if you might commission the $50 pieces instead? Are these even either/or issues, or do you want both for the book? Once you start commissioning, how often will pieces be delivered for the patrons to pay for? If you get a higher pledge milestone, you'll break the money down as necessary to commission e.g. three busts instead a single scene illustration if that's what your layout needs, right?

[Ron Edwards]

That's funny, the first page should be visible. Dammit, now I'm pissed off - I didn't want to block people who looked at it!

The current page should always be visible, so let me fix it.

This always happens. There is no way for me to see the page the way others see it, so I can't tell whether it's working or not.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Try logging out of Wordpress when viewing the page. I've got a Wordpress.com blog (and I've done a few full custom jobs with it on independent sites, too), and while I haven't updated it in a while, I remember getting to see password-protected pages by doing that. While logged in I'd just see the pages, with no indication that I'd protected them.

Wordpress is a pretty solid technical choice here, by the way - I think that you won't have any major technical problems with the hosted Wordpress.com solution, it's pretty easy to use once you put a couple of hours into picking up the basic options and such; seems like you've already got a handle on it.

If you need any help with the technical stuff, one advantage of the general hosting is that it's easy to grant permissions for other people to mess about with it - I can help you if you need to set up something weird at the fringes of what Wordpress.com allows in its blogs (they allow a variety of HTML/CSS trickery, but not everything that the general Internet does).

[Ron Edwards]

"null backgrounds, portrait" NO. The whole point is get art that isn't like that. It's a lot of work, exponentially more, and that's why the Patreon exists. It frustrates me that you'd say that.

It also frustrates me that you assume I'd demand a $10 charge per month for the blog! NO. My God, NO. Who would do such a thing, or think I would? $10 once and then access forever.

Look, I'm panicking and aggravated because none of what I planned worked right on the day of the launch. It's a disaster, and I bet a thousand people out there are all assigning the worst possible meaning to everything I'm doing, just like you did.

I'll try salvaging it later.

[Eero Tuovinen]

It's not that bad - I did understand that $10 gets permanent blog access. The pondering upon the pricing is more about whether people want to keep paying $10 long-term, which would be ideal for you, of course.

I tried the comment function in the blog (a nice first post, I liked it), and it seems to be enabled. You can turn it off (and moderate comments) in the Wordpress control panel. If you want to, I think you can set it so only people you specifically allow get to post comments - or you could set it so every comment needs to be moderator-approved, which gives nuanced control in exchange for manual clickety-clicking.

This sort of thing doesn't move very fast, and unlike Kickstarter, Patreon isn't intended to be a quick fly-by-night anyway, so I think you'll have plenty of time to fiddle with the websites as you go along. Slow and steady growth, aiming at patrons who want to keep contributing indefinitely (until the end of the project, that is). Conventional wisdom has it that you'll want to have a couple blog posts up before we start spreading the word about it actively, anyway.

[Moreno R.]

I just tried to post a comment to the blog and it was accepted, even if I still have not pledged...  at this time the comments are open. (probably not a big problem at this moment, maybe it would even better to leave if open for the first few posts, to allow people to see what they are buying into)

I second what Eero was saying: with Patreon, you give someone the power to bill you at multiple times in the future.  It's very important to be very, very clear about the limits of these payments (for how much time, for what, what is the monthly limit, etc.)

[Ron Edwards]

I opened them for comment. The idea is that they're all open at first release, then I password-protect the old one as the new one comes along. That way a person doesn't have to pledge to participate at all, but if they want to follow up with older posts. I don't know if it's the ideal model, I'm really just throwing it out as a hybrid of some kind of minor monetizing with some kind of available logistics from the back end, at my skill level.

As for clarifying the art/release, I originally wanted to do it by project rather than by month, but given certain late-stage adjustments, that might be obsolete and the monthly model is the way to go. I'll talk it over with James as he's the one who should make that kind of final decision.