So, it's obvious my old methods of earning a living are completely broken

[james_davis_nicoll]

But I am so stressed out I can't feel my fingertips and I can't see a way out of the corner I am boxed into:

A: Work has dramatically slowed down in the last year.

B: For reasons I am going assume for the moment are not due to deliberate choice on the part of the companies I freelance for, none of checks I've expected this month have materialized (if I am not stress-confused, I think at this point the most recent invoice that has been paid is about 2 months old); when companies were actually issuing checks they were irregular and unpredictable. This isn't specific to one company: nobody is paying me. Nobody. And even if all the money I am owed showed up today, I'd just be treading water.

UPDATE IN MID POST: in fact I just got email assuring me at least one check will definitely not be showing up for at least a week thanks to the new system (another company told me privately my checks might be cut in a week and then sent out a public email telling freelancers to expect the delay to be a month). I'd walk away from book reviewing at this point if there was anywhere to walk to.

Actually, the above is not quite true: while Romantic Times pays very, very little they have never promised to pay any more than that and they do pay on time. So kudos to them; they are the one bright spot.

[I spend a lot of my time telling myself that this is not a repeat of what Guardians of Order did to me, even though a lot of the same notes are in this tune]

C: There are bills I have been deferring for as long as I can and expenses I have cut to the bone as far as I can but I'm pretty sure all the plates I have in the air are about to come crashing down.

D: Can't afford to create the Millennium Reviews book and frankly I don't understand a lot of what people are telling me how to create it.

(That said, editing all the reviews and adding new commentary for all 35 essays would take me two weeks to a month)

E: Review site ditto: I know how to create content for it but I can't see how to create it and the advice I am seeing doesn't mean anything to me.

Open to suggestions here.

Comments

[andrew barton (from livejournal.com)]

Have you considered starting a Patreon? Early-access reviews/directors'-cut commentary for subscribers, maybe...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Yes, but my methodology is

1: I should create a Patreon

2: Run in circles, crash into tree, bleed from ears

3: Profit!

which is flawed

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/5020827.html

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

I recommend the whole car-crash thing, you live outside my jurisdiction.

Patreon sounds the best of the lot.

The fact that reviewers are expected to have another job is distressing. They don't consider the profession to be worth the money.

Like being an adjunct-professor or an EMT.

On the whole adjunct professor thing: Have you considered looking at an adjunct professor class on writing Sci-Fi? It's in your field, and you can teach aspiring authors what not to do.

[beatrice_otter]

Problem: when you consider all the work adjunct professors are required to do, and the going rates for paying them, I'm told that many of them actually make less than minimum wage.

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

Agreed, but having a regular income beats having no income, even if it's less, while he pursues his usual vocation.

It also gives him some prestige as a professor, when he does do a review, perhaps?

--Hawk

[andrew barton (from livejournal.com)]

Hey, the amount of MPRs you provide which I can then use to make my friends suffer is worth at LEAST a few bucks a month.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

So, should i set Patreon up as a monthly or per review? I can't guarantee I won't inadvertently post more than two reviews a week so it seems fairer to go for monthly.

Plus the edited Millennial Reviews with new commentary as a plus for subscribers?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

And do I aim people here or do I create a brand new site? This one is at least established.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I don't know what's involved in creating a site (I had a friend do mine) but if you (or a web-savvy volunteer, who is not I) created a even single page with info on the kinds of reviews you were doing and what they cost and how to pay and Patreon (or whatever you choose to do), I'd be happy to signal-boost the hell out of it.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Clarification: I think there's nothing wrong with continuing to post reviewstuff/content here, but it might be worth having a separate webpage with things-that-you-do for easy reference, as opposed to something buried in an LJ post. At least, I had remembered that you did reviews for $ but wasn't sure where to find it, since I suck at bookmarking/memory-ing. But I don't know what's the best solution for you and doubtless others will have more useful input.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

If you can set up Patreon account that allows a small donation monthly I would do so; I feel I owe you back wages for many years' worth of education and entertainment. It would only be a little bit, but I'm sure there are quite a few others who feel the same and "quite a few" time "a little bit" may end up being a useful amount.

You can do both a monthly and a per-review Patreon, though. Their FAQ says:

"I am a creator of multiple types of content, what do you recommend I do?
You have two options. You can do a monthly campaign where your patrons will support you for each month of all types of content you release. Or, you can create two separate Patreon accounts and pages."

It looks as if Patreon supports distribution of paid content as well. So you could consider uploading reviews there for distribution. But I'm not certain how this works.

I strongly suggest you immediately set up a Patreon for monthly payments simply for your LiveJournal content, and mention it here. That's the simplest to do and the least commitment, and gives you a chance to start working on a more complicated approach, per review or whatever.

There is no need at all to produce exclusive context for Patreon donors, as far as I know, but you could offer as a reward -- say, if you reach $500 or $100 a month or whatever -- to provide exclusive reviews or something. But I don't think you need to, or should, wait until you've figured that out. Set up something at once.

Edit to include Patreon's guidelines for rewards; note that they are fairly simple and non-elaborate:

We do not want fulfilling Patreon rewards to be a burden on our creators. We want you to have rewards that are scalable, cost effective, and easy to fulfill. NOTE: As a general rule, most pledges on Patreon are somewhere between $1 and $5. We recommend you focus heavily on your $1, $3, and $5 reward levels, making the $5 reward the most interactive of the bunch. Rewards might include:

Access to the Patron Activity feed
Social media connections
Live webcasts
Access to content EARLY
Behind the scenes photos
Producer or special thank you credit at the end of the video/piece
Anything else creative you can think of! Browse our creators in your category and grab whichever ideas you like!

[alienne.livejournal.com]

We can aim people at the new site which WILL BE SET UP THIS WEEKEND OR I WILL COMMIT SUICIDE PUBLICLY. And we can also redirect and/or crosspost to here, with helpful links and stuff.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I'd say put together a Wordpress site, but cross-post to both Dreamwidth and LiveJournal. That way, you may bring in new readers, but also make it easy for your current readers to continue to read you the way they prefer. My understanding is that Wordpress integrates pretty damn easily with both LJ and DW, so the cross-posting should (note "should") happen automatically.

[sesmo.livejournal.com]

I would use the method Ursula Vernon did: http://www.patreon.com/ursulav

She doesn't promise anything, because it stresses her out. She is still getting $347/month, having promised to do absolutely nothing extra.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Looking at Ursula Vernon's, I'd say just go for monthly, and don't make many promises.

You've ruled out cat pictures or videos, which of course makes the internet sad, but have you considered cat stories?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Can I set up patreon and then go back and change it?

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

A quick google search shows that you can, and quite a few people have.

But I haven't used Patreon at all, so I'd ask around.

(Have you been in contact with K.B. Spangler? She is also considering a Patreon, so odds are she's researched it far more than I have.)

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Yes, I vote for this.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

And how much per review do I put on the patreon site?

thinking out loud

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

ETA: I am not at all an expert in Patreon, so I second the recommendation to consult somebody who's done it before. That said, here's what makes sense to me.

If you do it by review, and charge $1 per, that's $2/week per subscriber, or $8/month (assuming this covers both your current review series). That's about in line with a monthly Spotify subscription, for instance (which is $10/month). If you get 100 subscribers, that's about $800/month. Price point is always tricky with these things; you want to make it low enough that lots of people are tempted, but high enough that it actually adds up to something.

Does Patreon support optional one-time donations? If so, that's how you could field review requests. Otherwise you could do it directly through Paypal.

If you do it by month, the tiers could be something like :

$3 - you get to read one set of reviews.
$5 - you get to read both.
$10 - extra content or the ability to nominate and vote on books to review, choose one.
$15 - extra content and the ability to nominate and vote on books to review.

I realize the second option depends on several unsolved technical issues. Maybe start with per-review, see how it goes, and then switch to the other?

ETA2: or you could just set a minimum, say $2/month, and promise little or nothing.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

It may sound momentarily amusing, but I don't think pay-per-Nicoll-event is a sustainable business model.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is I can think of at least one TV show with roughly that premise.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

In the movie Idiocracy it's titled Ow, My Crotch! and is a nationwide hit.

[katfeete.livejournal.com]

As someone who has a Patreon (albeit in a different vein) and has had it work out pretty well for her:

1) Screw the video, it was set up by people making a living on YouTube and they are biased. I didn't think it was worth my time and I've seen no evidence to the contrary.

2) Offer what you think you can, reasonably, do, not what you think a tier is "worth". The majority of the people who backed me, at least, paid what they thought they could afford, not based on reward levels at all. Do not stress that you're not doing enough for the money, because that's really not what Patreon is about.

3) Regardless of how you're charging (per creation or per month), Patreon pays out once a month, on the first. They're quite regular about it though. The fees amount to 8-10%.

4) If you decide to go per creation, realize that you MUST mark something as a creation to get paid for it, and the Patreon site can be a bit annoying about this. There are no takebacksies.

5) Expect attrition and have a plan to tempt new backers from time to time. I skimped on part two there and I'm not sure how to deal with it (blah).

Overall I am very happy with Patreon -- it's provided me with some very decent pocket money, which was all I expected from my audience size (tiny), with a minimum of trouble. The site interface could be better, but the payments are smooth as silk.

Hope that helps at least a bit....