Interview: Inside the World of Patreon with Neil Pearlman
Since lockdown started, you may have seen some musicians and bands starting accounts on Patreon, a membership platform that helps creators run a subscription content service. If you're not familiar with the service, or have heard of it but aren't sure how to use it (as a musician or a subscriber), then you've come to the right place. Below you'll find a conversation I had with Neil Pearlman, a brilliant pianist and the host of TradCafe (a podcast of conversations and collaborations with unique artists in traditional music), who walks us through the ins and outs of Patreon.
Q: Hi Neil, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to the Ministry about Patreon! Let’s start at the beginning… You’ve been on Patreon for a while now, what prompted you to start an account?
Well I had been working on my podcast TradCafe for about a year and building a pretty loyal following. It was quite an investment of time and energy and there were some overhead costs so I was trying to figure out a way to make the project financially sustainable without turning to the usual podcast model of selling ad space. Patreon seemed like an ideal way to do that-- instead of pushing away the community of listeners with annoying ads I created an opportunity to build more of a relationship between the show and the listeners. And frankly, selling ads for a podcast is similar to trying to make a living through Spotify as a musician, neither of them is possible without huge streaming numbers that aren't realistic for content out of the mainstream. In the traditional folk music world there is an amazingly supportive and dedicated community but the raw numbers aren't practical for the business models of these big corporations. Patreon offers another way to connect which is actually sustainable.
Q: I recently subscribed to my first Patreon account. I’m supporting my friend’s band for $5/month (shoutout Gnoss!) which doesn’t seem like that much money. What are the benefits of making this kind of sustained support, instead of donating a larger amount of money once?
It's true that $5 a month isn't that much, but it's so much more than that band would make from you streaming their music online, so already it makes a huge difference. I think the ongoing support provides more security and the ability to do long term projects. With a single influx of cash, say from a kickstarter campaign, a band can raise the money for a specific project like an album. But with smaller but ongoing levels of support they can count on a minimum budget to fund their work. A Patreon might not fund an album right away but it could fund the ongoing writing and recording of a couple songs a month. To me that's more exciting that funding a specific album. It's an investment in the continuous development of the artist or band.
Q: Can you also walk us through the different funding levels on your Patreon?
For my Patreon I'm trying to keep it focused on the mission of TradCafe and not get it too confused with my own creative work. I'm excited that the slow steady growth of my Patreon allows TradCafe to grow beyond the flagship podcast and start to use its budget for other programming-- I'm launching some streaming concerts and featured artist collaborations under the TradCafe name as well this month so I've actually just revamped the funding levels. Here's how I break it down:
$1/mo - Access to my Patreon-specific updates/check in videos and the opportunity to submit questions for upcoming podcast guests
$3/mo - mp3's of the musical collaborations from podcast episodes, occasional bonus music that didn't make it into the episode
$5/mo - Bonus content: Exclusive "Featured Artist" collaboration videos, access to archived videos of streaming concerts, etc.
$10/mo - Discounts on TradCafe Merchandise
$100/mo - Be listed as a sponsor or producer of the show. I put this in just in case someone wants to really sponsor the show in a bigger way. I didn't expect it but wanted to have the option up there. We actually did get a very generous donor in this category who wanted to remain anonymous. I think that's a good illustration that many people will support you on Patreon just because they want to support you, not because they're specifically interested in any extra "perks".
Q: How much content do you have to produce for patrons on the platform? Are we talking daily/weekly/monthly posts?
I think it really depends. For my Patreon I had been doing 2-4 posts a month but I'm upping that to something like 4-8 with the new content. However it really depends on what kind of expectation you set. If you're up front that you're funding a monthly EP of 3-4 songs and you just post that one EP each month I think your patrons will be fine with that because they know what they are signing up for and one EP a month is a decent amount of content. Whatever model makes sense to you and is providing your patrons with good value. Patreon also allows you to structure your page as a "per creation" funding model in which your patrons are charged their pledge amount each time you publish a new post. Obviously your whole model for post frequency and funding levels would be different if you took that route.
Q: Do you have any tips for what kinds of content musicians or bands can offer? So far I’ve seen exclusive music videos and tune-teaching videos. What else do people offer?
I think there's a lot of opportunity for creativity here but one rule of thumb is to be careful about making too much work for yourself. Be realistic about how much time you can put in and try to find ways to offer valuable content that doesn't force you to do a bunch of extra work. People respond to being able to connect to the artist in a deeper way and Patreon does offer the ability to do exclusive live streams, poll your patrons, answer their questions and more. There are a lot of suggestions on Patreon's site as well. If you give people the opportunity to see a little behind the scenes and connect, you don't need to sign yourself up for creating content that is very labor intensive unless that's the work you're trying to fund.
Q: What do you like most about the platform? Are there any challenging parts about it? What do you wish you could do on it?
I love the core idea of a crowdfunding website that is flexible and ongoing instead of focused on a short term project. I think that the website itself can be a little clunky sometimes and sometimes it isn't the most flexible or intuitive to structure. However I really appreciate that they seem committed to continually improve the site and I have seen a slow but steady improvement in most areas that frustrated me at first. I get the sense that they care about providing a high quality service and will respond in a timely manner to any inquiries I've made. I don't have specific things that come to mind that I wish I could do on the site, but I do feel sometimes like the way I can post my content isn't as flexible as I'd like and I have had to find workarounds for a few things.
Q: How should people think about publicizing their Patreon accounts? Any tips for linking up with other social media activities?
Patreon does not publicize your account on their site, like Kickstarter does. So you need to bring in all your patrons yourself. This means it can be helpful to start building an audience another way before getting your patreon going, unless you already have a fan base who can be mobilized. For example, my friend Baron Collins-Hill built a very successful Youtube channel of free mandolin lessons with a huge number of subscribers. Then he started a Patreon account and enough of his subscribers wanted to support him that he makes a sizeable portion of his income from Patreon now even though he's still putting out a lot of free content on the Youtube channel. I think it's very important to build a loyal fan base who want to support you and THEN show them that they can support you through Patreon. My podcast TradCafe is still free to listen to and a lot of my patrons are supporting me just because they want to help the podcast continue. The extra exclusive content is icing on the cake for many of them.
Q: Any other tips for a musician thinking about setting up a Patreon account?
Be patient! It can take a while to build up supporters and that means it's important not to sign yourself up for an amount of work that isn't sustainable if you have only 3 patrons. The important thing to remember is that people are signing up for ongoing support so even if you get one new patron a month that means each month you make more than the last one. I don't think Patreon is a way to get rich quick, it's more of a way to connect more with your fans and slowly build funding for ongoing work you want to do. Remember that primarily you should be doing the creative work because you want to and not because you're hoping it will make you a lot of money. That said, if you are patient and work hard on it you can definitely build it into a business. I know people who pay their rent with their Patreon and although I don't make enough for that I do have a nice reliable monthly budget to put towards TradCafe and my other musical projects.
Looking for more Neil Pearlman content?
You can support TradCafe’s Patreon account here for as little as $1/month, and stay up to date with Neil’s other musical projects here.
Don’t miss the concert series that Neil is hosting over Memorial Day Weekend (starting TODAY!), featuring some seriously amazing folk musicians like Alasdair Fraser, Wendy MacIssac, and Bruce Molsky!
You can get in touch with Neil on Ministry of Folk for a piano/accordion/mandolin/step-dancing lesson or to chat about music ideas!
