After more than two years of thinking about this, and now prompted by advice from Patreon themselves, I have decided that as of April 1st this year, the Lance Corporal rung at $1 will be retired and the $2.50 Sergeant will become the entry-level for new patrons.
I shall continue to take new patrons on board at the $1 until 31st March, and existing patrons at that level up to that point will not be affected and will continue to have access to all general patron-only material thereafter, such as blog posts and early access to the Battlechat podcasts. I occasionally send out more specific posts targeted at individual tiers or groups of tiers that only those patrons can access.
Also after 1st April, I shall no longer be offering discounts on Gladius Publications or other products to patrons at the $1 level.
The reason for this change will probably be obvious: the $1 tier is simply no longer cost-effective for me to administer. After Patreon and PayPal take their commissions, I am left with considerably less than the $1 contribution. Coupled with the volatility of exchange rates (I have to convert to £ Sterling on Patreon payday), this means that the bottom rung adds literally pence to my income.
Moreover, now I’ve been running this gig for a couple of years and have created a community of over 250 people here, I’m reassured that I’m pretty good at what I do and, in fact, put in so much effort that some patrons are warning me that I produce too much for them to keep up with! Simply put, my work here has real value to the community, but the $1 entry level undermines that and the turnover rates at that tier are disappointingly high. I also feel that one of the benefits of being a patron should be at least a modest sense of exclusivity, and the $1 entry level rather undermines that.*
I would of course encourage all $1 patrons to step up to the $2.50 or even $5 a month level – let’s face it, that’s the price of a cappuccino or a regular magazine. Besides, by upping your pledge, you will be able to participate fully in the regular Q&A sessions and other fun plans that I have in the pipeline.
To reiterate, any $1 patrons who sign up before 1st April will be able to do so and will retain their access to general patron-only content as now, but thereafter, no new patrons will gain entry below $2.50 a month.
Thank you for your understanding.
Henry
*Coupled with this, I am proposing that I increase the exclusive period for patrons’ access to material from one week to two. Now that I have a considerable stock of existing podcasts and posts, I am in a better position to be able to do this.
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