Working a Enterprise as a Creator: four Issues I Discovered at PatreCon 2016

After I acquired to PatreCon—Patreon’s first annual convention for creators—I’d hit a wall in my profession. My novel trilogy had simply been rejected by publishers. Not as a result of it wasn’t good, however as a result of nearly nobody wished to commit till all three volumes had been completed. Which meant I’d simply spent three years writing totally free, and was taking a look at two extra years of doing the identical.

I arrived at PatreCon feeling fairly helpless.

The primary night time of the convention, we acquired a tour of Patreon headquarters. As quickly as we began strolling round, I felt higher, although I couldn’t say precisely why. I simply felt like I’d come to a protected house. My fellow creators had been heat, humorous, and whip-smart. Over wine, we tried to guess one another’s specialties (and failed miserably): there was a resplendent cosplayer, a world-traveling troubadour, and even a stop-motion filmmaker who knitted his characters out of yarn. The constructing itself resembled a palatial treehouse, with artwork on each wall. In a single mural, there was a cartoon fox lending an umbrella to a different cartoon fox with the caption: Put Creators First.

In speaking to different creators, I spotted that everybody had tales like mine. Everybody had hit a wall—realizing that even when they had been gifted, labored exhausting, and did all the pieces “proper,” the sport was rigged in opposition to them. In truth, that’s how musician Jack Conte got here up with Patreon within the first place: he’d as soon as spent $10,000 of his personal cash constructing a set for a music video, solely to see a meager $200 in advert income from YouTube.

My fellow creators had been wellsprings of concepts and experiences. And throughout the convention, by many a workshop, speak, and quiet dialog, I scribbled down 4 issues I needed to bear in mind.

…and I believed I knew this one already! However I spotted I’m barely getting began. There are such a lot of Advertising 101 techniques that I’d by no means even thought-about. Do you know that most individuals need to see one thing on social media six occasions earlier than they click on on it? I didn’t. Or that the stuff you will have mendacity round your studio are issues folks can pay for? I didn’t. Or that momentary promotions can drive enormous gross sales? I didn’t. And it’s humorous I didn’t, as a result of these methods are employed round me all day, each day—coupons on the grocery retailer, pledge drives on public radio, reductions at my favourite on-line gown store. Why did I believe they didn’t apply to me?

However I’ve internalized one in every of society’s core prejudices in opposition to artists: that we aren’t “actual”—and subsequently aren’t deserving of cash—except we’re backed by a Large Title (a label, writer, gallery, journal) that takes care of selling for us. Like so many artist myths, this one is deeply harmful, and I’ve to un-learn it.

How, why, and for whom the artwork will get made is inseparable from what will get made. My novel shall be essentially totally different now as a result of the writing of it’s funded by 400+ patrons as a substitute of by a Large Writer. I can’t say precisely how. However I can say that my patrons are with me as a result of they like my work precisely because it already is: daring, bizarre, experimental. In order that’s what it’ll proceed to be.

In truth, it means precisely the alternative: that you simply’re giving your self permission to be the precise artist you wish to be. Generally, after I inform fellow artists they’ve to consider themselves as businesspeople, they appear actually uncomfortable. And I get that. After I hear “enterprise,” I nonetheless consider a faceless particular person with a briefcase. However enterprise is simply one other car for creativity. And furthermore–

At PatreCon, I used to be surrounded by artists who had been self-made, self-driven, and couldn’t care much less whether or not a Large Title backed them except they might supply higher phrases than they had been already providing themselves. This was an enormous epiphany for me: that although I used to be “established,” I couldn’t depend upon companies working on antiquated fashions to pay my wage, and I couldn’t watch for alternatives to fall in my lap. I’d all the time need to make my very own wage. I’d all the time need to make my very own alternatives.

Leaving PatreCon, I had little question I had witnessed the way forward for artwork. However of extra speedy use to me personally—and, I hope, for all creators there—I spotted that I didn’t have to attend for anybody else to resolve my future. I acquired to resolve it, plan it, and do it. After I left PatreCon, I didn’t really feel helpless anymore. I felt fearless.

To be taught extra about PatreCon and keep up to date on our 2017 convention, head right here.