I think we make a lot of work for ourselves that our followers don't care about, and we disperse this advice to a fault. Just imagine if your entire knowledge about how parties worked came from reading Martha Stewart. I'd be too nervous to throw a party too! What if the invitations weren't cute enough? What if I didn't have the right centerpiece? What if I work traditionally and don't have the equipment for live streamed art? What if I don't work far enough in advance to show page previews on a regular basis?

Just like you don't NEED to have a three-layer professionally decorated cake at a party if that's not your thing, you don't have to do any of that stuff on Patreon, either. If you're just starting out, you can let a lot of that stuff go and just throw some chips in a bowl and make a general announcement. The people that can make it, will make it! The people who can't, won't!

And I actually think you in particular have good options, Darwin. You post work in progress art all the time here and in Skype, and you could just throw stuff like that up when/if you have it. You release a new book at LEAST every three months; you could give a digital download tier for $10/month to get access to them all as you release them. (That's something I wanted to do, but I wasn't prolific enough for it.) If you think of something else that sounds fun and easy, try it for a couple weeks! But if you don't, that's okay too!

I think you've got some great thoughts on this Christina. Lately I've been focusing on two things more and more on Patreon:

1. Is it personal?
2. Is it sustainable? (IE is it easy for me to do regularly and do I like doing it?)

Admitting to myself that I hate art streams this week was big for me, because they were generating for me a lot of guilt and anxiety. Whereas making the weekly videos for me is easy, often very fun or valuable for me to do, and I've had a lot of people tell me they enjoy them or get something out of them.

I'm excited to try process videos and things like that for next year. This utilizes things I'm already doing. All I have to do is set up some lights and a camera, or record my screen. I can do that. I like doing that. If people like seeing the process of things, then that's good too. We'll see how it goes. Regardless, I want to focus on ways that I can incorporate Patreon into things I'm already doing, rather than adding things on to an already full workload.

@Darwin,
I'm with delphina.

If you don't think you will release many things (which it seems like you do release enough quantity here on the forums) you could just do the $ per thing, but I do think $ per month is better.
Your supporters are supporting you for the comic, yeah the extra stuff is a reward for them too, but that's why you could take it at time, whether it be from just previews to what you're working on, full on sketches, side doodles, stuff like that, but also updates, when I don't update my patreon often I just make a post about what's been going on, and some times I make a doodle to make it up to them.

Right now I'm thinking about going into speed painting again and uploading it for them a certain date so they can see it first, and then make it public a week or two later.

If you feel you don't have anything to offer then you could always do the $1 for support like everyone does.

When LP wasn't far into its story I made a patreon either way because if a person likes what you have so far and believes it could go further then they can still support you.
And I did end up getting a patron which was unexpected, and I didn't have much to offer, and my first patron was giving a pretty good quantity and they chose nothing as the reward x_x they just wanted to support! Which was really nice!

I don't think patrons really expect much, unless they KNOW you can offer a huge reward, just simple things can keep people entertained and staying for more.

i don't have a Patreon, but I have one reader who, regardless of my lack of updates, sends me a few dollars every month. I asked him if setting up a patreon would be better and he said, "honestly they just seem like a lot of extra work and I want to support your work, sending by Paypal is fine". If you're not a big name comic creator, I think it's okay to have some way of donating for the people who want to say thanks for your work.

But you don't have to have the same kind of committed x, y, x that a big name creator has.

I found myself thinking about making a Patreon for the resources I often make, though. I've made some waves with some of them, where I'm running into people all over the internet who are like 'oh are you the calthyechild who made those map brushes'? I dunno, would YOU pay a few dollars a month to have access to all my stock, texture and brush creations? I was thinking like some nominal fee to get access to all the things as I add them, and then a higher tier where you can make requests. I make a lot of resources, often just tiny one-off tutorials for one or two people who asked a question.

@Tiana
I think if you know that these ressources are more of a wave-thing, setting up a gumroad shop might be the better way to go. For once they wouldn't get buried in the patreon feed and depending on how you pack them together, you could also vary with prices. (In case you do both, Patreons could get a monthly password for reduced prices or a free pack.)

Ziggeraut Prime has a patreon that I manage. (I manage all our social media, advertising is how you get noticed so I put a lot of time and effort into it)

If anyone is wondering how it goes, You do your initial set up and them mostly leave it alone. If you make more than $600.00 a month you have tax forms to fill out but yea... Its easy!

As for rewards, they're not as daunting as they seem. Just make it worth it, I guess? So for 1$, typically web-comics offer a wallpaper a month or WIPS (something that wont take much time or you already have).
You don't have to offer beyond this but you can. I offer upcoming character designs for 5$, a full month of updates in advance for 10$ (my buffer), and a live stream of drawing once a month for 15$. So even for these I already have the art as part of my process, I just share it with supporters.

As prices go up it gets into support the ZP Tabletop Game. So things like Unit designs and gaming with the development team. (these require more effort but they are priced high for a reason)
So the secret to patreon rewards is to just share a little bit more of the behind the scenes with supporters. They want to support you, not make you do extra work

I think I'm in a mood and that usually means I need to stop typing on the internet and eat some damn breakfast, but I wish someone on my Patreon would SAY SOMETHING or give any indication that they care about what I'm posting. I just feel so frustrated when there are folks who would be actively interested in Sombulus world-building stuff, and I deny them more information so I can keep it "secret" for the two silent people on my behind-the-scenes tier who may not even see it. I already have trouble keeping up the mental partitions to deal with separating out my work, but even one person who responded to my work would make this better.

Does anyone else experience this?

I get this feeling sometimes too, Delphina. It's partly why most of my patreon rewards center around patrons getting to see things early, as opposed to exclusive content; if I'm going to make something and put it online, I want to feel like I'm sharing it with people who want to see it (as opposed to shouting into the void).

Backers do get to see my entire buffer in advance, though, which is sometimes a month or so ahead of the main site XD

I'm actually setting up my own patreon at the moment >>; it's kinda nerve-racking. I was wondering if anyone on skype would walk me through what I have?

Definitely. The only comment I've ever gotten on Patreon was my mom quoting a Bible passage or something that one of my posts reminded her of. >.<
I am very reliant on my husband telling me how cool the things I post are.
Though one of the people who regularly comments on the comic pages recently pledged, so I'm hopeful they will comment on Patreon posts too.

Heh... I get a sporadic comment now and again, but no dialogue as it were.

Though, there is little dialogue these days at all. Everything on TOHS seems to be spam anymore...

I get a rash of comments on Plague now and again, but nothing really steady!

I think I know what the problem is. Patrons get an email with the new post in it when it goes up, and it contains the whole image/post with just a button that says "Check it out!", but at that point they've seen the content and have no reason to go to the site, where the commenting system is.

I think I will send a message to the Patreon crew with this. I understand why the content is in the email, it's nice for the patrons, but maybe the "Check it out" could be replaced with something specifically inviting them to comment on the post.

I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. Or reduce the thumbnail to smaller proportions so the patron needs to go to the site to see the full sized image.

Guys, I'm so excited! I GOT A COMMENT TODAY ON A PATREON POST!

Hooray!!!!!! The rarest of commentators!