Here's what worked for me. 1. Make a thing and post it online for free with some degree of regularity. 2. Every post had a small link: "Pssst! Wanna help crow

Here's what worked for me. 1. Make a thing and post it online for free with some degree of regularity. 2. Every post had a small link: "Pssst! Wanna help crowdfund a pagerate for me? Support my comics on Patreon." 3. Every time I made a thing, I'd post it to Patreon; at the end of the month, my backers would get charged based on how many things I made. 4. Over the course of a year, my Patreon went from "paying for my drink at the weekly cartoonist meetup sometimes" to "paying most of my rent on a productive month". And I am doing this by drawing a complicated graphic novel about a lesbian robot with Philip K Dick problems. I make far more from Patreon than I ever did from ads, and I'm delighted to have been able to turn them off for good.