3 ms·

Oh boy, do I have good news for you! There are already many writers making thousands of dollars a month by publishing free serialized web novels, via Patreon.

Oh boy, do I have good news for you! There are already many writers making thousands of dollars a month by publishing free serialized web novels, via Patreon. Some are using their own websites, but most are on Royal Road (or scribblehub, webnovel, wattpad, AO3). A random example from Royal Road[1], the author makes $12065/month. Mind you, the text is not gated, it's free to read, the patreon only offers early access... [1] https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/63759/super-supportive https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/63759/super-supportive [2] https://www.patreon.com/Sleyca https://www.patreon.com/Sleyca

Name_Chawps 3y ago
Your "random" example is currently the #2 ongoing fiction on there, and was #1 until a couple days ago when the guy who wrote Mother of Learning released his new fiction.
- GeoAtreides 3y ago
  It was random in the sense I clicked on trending and then clicked on the first thing I saw. Sure, the amount is an outlier, but there are more that are making over 500 or 1000/month, that's not unusual. Most authors are not making any money, of course, just like in the current system.
edanm 3y ago
What do you think authors feel about this? Despite many people on this site thinking we're the first generation with new technology, the issue of copyright, and technolgie's impact on it, has been discussed for centuries. The "patronage" model is great (and I personally am a Patreon supporter of lots of creatives). But it also has a lot of flaws in it, both for the author and the public. Most authors will be happy to tell you both the good and bad of the model, in my experience. The biggest flaw for the public, btw, is that this model only supports art that "rich people" find worth supporting. This is bad, both because sometimes art isn't "deemed worthy" immediately, and because art for non-"rich" people is also very valuable.
- DennisP 3y ago
  Patronage was art for rich people in pre-internet days. Now we can make it easy for anyone to contribute a dollar to an artist they like. As for art that isn't "deemed worthy immediately," that doesn't immediately make money in today's system either. If the art can be freely distributed, it's more likely to find its audience.
  - edanm 3y ago
    Contributing a dollar to an artist they like is beyond the ability of many people in the world. Both in technical terms (actually being able to reliably send someone a dollar), and monetarily. And very few artists are out there surviving on patrons giving them a dollar a month, I imagine. Most of them survive on larger pledges, and as far as I know, very few of them reach anywhere near the amount of money traditionally-published authors can make. > As for art that isn't "deemed worthy immediately," that doesn't immediately make money in today's system either. If the art can be freely distributed, it's more likely to find its audience. Yes, it doesn't make money immediately in today's system. But many authors collect a back-catalogue of works, which might pay out only a bit of money at a time, but over a career can be enough. If I publish a novel every year for 20 years, even if every novel only brings in a sprinkling of money per year, by year 20 I'm getting 20 sprinkling of money, which could be enough to sustain me. Very few of these "middle of the road" authors are popular enough to survive on patronage alone, I believe. --- At the end of the day, you think that "the internet" somehow made possible something that wasn't technically possible before. I think that's mostly not true - the technology was never the problem. That's why copyright exists in the first place - to make sure that, despite books being almost-zero-cost to reproduce, we put an actual limit on it in order for more books to be published. If you want a different system, that's your prerogative. But you have to grapple with the tradeoffs here. If less money flows to authors - which would happen if you abandon copyright - then there will be less books. That's almost a law of economics. If you think that somehow you can make something like patreon scale up to the same amount of money that exists in "the system" today, then a) I disagree, and b) you'd still have to content with the issues I mentioned.
- didntcheck 3y ago
listenallyall 3y ago
> Oh boy, do I have good news for you! Is this some kind of pwn? Stephen King makes millions, JK Rowling likely a billionaire, Grisham, Patterson, Joan Collins, the list is endless. Didn't the 50 Shades of Grey author initially start with free fan fiction? Do you think these people are going to take a pay cut? And if your "random" author gets noticed by a publisher and is offered a book deal, do you think it will continue to be free?
- GeoAtreides 3y ago
  The point is that a system exists where books are freely available while the writers get compensation, quite serious compensation.
throw10920 3y ago
This model is clearly not viable for any sort of economy at scale. Far fewer people can make a living wage under patronage models than traditional models because people simply pay less (far less) for things where they're not compelled to than for things where they are. 420 thousand people work in the US film industry alone[1]. I doubt that there's that same number of people making ~living wage across every online patronage site in the United States (excluding advertisement-driven ventures, of course). [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/184412/employment-in-us-motion-picture-and-recording-industries-since-2001/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/184412/employment-in-us-...
squeaky-clean 3y ago
> the patreon only offers early access So it's still copyright, just without the 100 year protection. If you went around posting their early access posts to a free website do you think the authors wouldn't complain?

Name_Chawps 3y ago

Your "random" example is currently the #2 ongoing fiction on there, and was #1 until a couple days ago when the guy who wrote Mother of Learning released his new fiction.

GeoAtreides 3y ago
It was random in the sense I clicked on trending and then clicked on the first thing I saw. Sure, the amount is an outlier, but there are more that are making over 500 or 1000/month, that's not unusual. Most authors are not making any money, of course, just like in the current system.

edanm 3y ago

What do you think authors feel about this? Despite many people on this site thinking we're the first generation with new technology, the issue of copyright, and technolgie's impact on it, has been discussed for centuries. The "patronage" model is great (and I personally am a Patreon supporter of lots of creatives). But it also has a lot of flaws in it, both for the author and the public. Most authors will be happy to tell you both the good and bad of the model, in my experience. The biggest flaw for the public, btw, is that this model only supports art that "rich people" find worth supporting. This is bad, both because sometimes art isn't "deemed worthy" immediately, and because art for non-"rich" people is also very valuable.

DennisP 3y ago
Patronage was art for rich people in pre-internet days. Now we can make it easy for anyone to contribute a dollar to an artist they like. As for art that isn't "deemed worthy immediately," that doesn't immediately make money in today's system either. If the art can be freely distributed, it's more likely to find its audience.
- edanm 3y ago
  Contributing a dollar to an artist they like is beyond the ability of many people in the world. Both in technical terms (actually being able to reliably send someone a dollar), and monetarily. And very few artists are out there surviving on patrons giving them a dollar a month, I imagine. Most of them survive on larger pledges, and as far as I know, very few of them reach anywhere near the amount of money traditionally-published authors can make. > As for art that isn't "deemed worthy immediately," that doesn't immediately make money in today's system either. If the art can be freely distributed, it's more likely to find its audience. Yes, it doesn't make money immediately in today's system. But many authors collect a back-catalogue of works, which might pay out only a bit of money at a time, but over a career can be enough. If I publish a novel every year for 20 years, even if every novel only brings in a sprinkling of money per year, by year 20 I'm getting 20 sprinkling of money, which could be enough to sustain me. Very few of these "middle of the road" authors are popular enough to survive on patronage alone, I believe. --- At the end of the day, you think that "the internet" somehow made possible something that wasn't technically possible before. I think that's mostly not true - the technology was never the problem. That's why copyright exists in the first place - to make sure that, despite books being almost-zero-cost to reproduce, we put an actual limit on it in order for more books to be published. If you want a different system, that's your prerogative. But you have to grapple with the tradeoffs here. If less money flows to authors - which would happen if you abandon copyright - then there will be less books. That's almost a law of economics. If you think that somehow you can make something like patreon scale up to the same amount of money that exists in "the system" today, then a) I disagree, and b) you'd still have to content with the issues I mentioned.
didntcheck 3y ago

listenallyall 3y ago

> Oh boy, do I have good news for you! Is this some kind of pwn? Stephen King makes millions, JK Rowling likely a billionaire, Grisham, Patterson, Joan Collins, the list is endless. Didn't the 50 Shades of Grey author initially start with free fan fiction? Do you think these people are going to take a pay cut? And if your "random" author gets noticed by a publisher and is offered a book deal, do you think it will continue to be free?

GeoAtreides 3y ago
The point is that a system exists where books are freely available while the writers get compensation, quite serious compensation.

throw10920 3y ago

This model is clearly not viable for any sort of economy at scale. Far fewer people can make a living wage under patronage models than traditional models because people simply pay less (far less) for things where they're not compelled to than for things where they are. 420 thousand people work in the US film industry alone[1]. I doubt that there's that same number of people making ~living wage across every online patronage site in the United States (excluding advertisement-driven ventures, of course). [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/184412/employment-in-us-motion-picture-and-recording-industries-since-2001/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/184412/employment-in-us-...

squeaky-clean 3y ago

> the patreon only offers early access So it's still copyright, just without the 100 year protection. If you went around posting their early access posts to a free website do you think the authors wouldn't complain?