A question for Patrons

When I started the Patreon at the end of July, I had only one worry: that people wouldn't support it. I tried to be clear what I hoped I would achieve with the Patreon, and I offered only what I could - as myself - reasonably offer. But people didcome, and did support the Patreon. And I was relieved.

But a couple of people who've left have left exit survey comments, and I want to talk a bit about that. They felt I didn't interact enough.

Part of the reason I was worried in July was that I'm not hugely interactive. I don't consider myself inherently interesting; I consider the writing interesting and some of the process thoughts interesting. But me, not so much. I am not putting myself down here - it's a simple statement, an assessment. I understand why some people are inherently interesting and entertaining, and I don't feel that I fit those metrics.

The stress of being interesting or entertaining would pretty much eat up all my brain.

I therefore didn't offer special discord servers. I didn't offer on-line meet-ups or monthly zoom calls. I knew going forward I couldn't if I wanted to actually get writing done; if I was standing on the edge of a cliff, that would push me over.

But of course, because I have writer brain and the nefarious imposter syndrome that comes hand in hand with it, I've been continuously thinking about it.

From where I sit, I post far more here than I do on the main site. I talk more about process, and about other things that catch my interest. For me, I'm being far more social than I am anywhere else online.

But I'm also aware that I'm a dinosaur. There are things expected of authors now that were actually discouraged when I first started this long journey at Del Rey books. There's a level of social savvy and publicity that we're supposed to know.

And I'm wondering if maybe the expectation of interaction is generational (because I'm a dinosaur), or if I am somehow misusing the Patreon, or failing to use it to expected standards.

This is not, of course, a question. But the question is - and I will accept any answer without comment or annoyance - what do you expect from a Patreon? What did you hope for from this Patreon?

I am running to the bookstore today, but will check in on breaks, and when I get home.

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This post is mirrored from https://michellewest.ca/

I find it hard to have a conversation on Patreon, and have created a WordPress Patreon only blog to make it easier for me to find new comments and respond to them, sometimes at length.

This post is https://michellewest.ca/2022/01/10/a-question-for-patrons/; you should be able to hit Login with Patreon, and should be able to read posts there at the same levels you can read them here.

I'll answer comments here as well if this is your preferred format, but probably not as expansively (which might be a good thing!).