I want your money. We want your money. Give us money.
I re-worked this post a dozen times before summarising it as the above. I guess I can add a little bit more…
Patreon. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. At least a couple of years. Then other beer websites did it and I didn’t want to seem like a copy cat, so I didn’t. Then someone said we should do one. And here we are.
We started the Patreon because the more we think about what we offer on Ale of a Time, the more we realise it’s unique. And with all the time I spend pitching and writing for other publications, it’s more time I’m not spending writing what are the most popular articles on this site… Things like this, or this, and even this aren’t pieces that many editors would touch in a million years, let alone pay for them. And that’s why Patreon seems like a good fit. I want to write more satire and sarcasm, as well as explore other topics unique to our site.
While I don’t love the idea of asking people for money, when there are so many other things you can support that are far more worthwhile, I also don’t want this site to be supported by advertisers (I tried to sell ads, I hated it) nor by an official partner. Not that either of things are bad, it’s just what we do on the site of podcast is often from the hip, critical and sometimes a little controversial. I would hate to temper that because I’m conscious of who is paying the bills*.
Ideally with this we could make enough to keep the site running, pay some contributors and pay some of bills. However we know that’s probably a pipe dream. A few dollars a month, maybe enough to upgrade our podcast equipment, would exceed expectations and go a long way to us getting better and more content out.
If you’re a regular reader, then thanks for reading. If you have a couple of bucks spare each month to throw our way then that would be amazing. If you don’t want to, that’s cool too. I still think you’re amazing.
More info and support structure can be found here.
https://www.patreon.com/Aleofatime
Disclaimer: We have since learned that Patreon fluctuates per the USD/AUD exchange rate. We have looked at alternatives and decided to go ahead with this as it provides the best platform and easiest way to manage perks. Please be aware of that before committing.
*That’s not saying we would never take them on the future given the right relationship, and we did run an ad for a long time which generated some money, but it was with a business we know supports us in everything we do.