What Happens when You Lose Patrons? | Your Questions, Day 28 of 30

me, worrying.

I assume your patreon and Patronage supporters wax and wane. I know what happens (from your whole Patronage page) when we join. What happens when someone leaves?

To me? or to you?

To the person leaving, I send a quick email thanking him or her for the support and I ask if there’s anything I could have done differently. But you’re right: these things come and go and it’s not all that steady, so sometimes it’s just a function of “this was all I was prepared to do” and that’s totally fine. I try to make sure everyone feels comfortable. It can be an uncomfortable thing to do; I don’t want that.

The person leaving loses access to all the posts and special welcome kit goodies and other access (on the Discord, Twitter, etc.) once the current month runs out. That’s about it. There is no major consequence! No gulags here.

For ME, I usually go through some varying amount of mild panic because I am a truly anxious person. It doesn’t matter if I’ve lost a dollar or ten, I immediately launch my budgeting software and ATTEMPT TO FIX IT. There’s nothing to fix. I’m fine. It does feel like a personal loss, if I’m being entirely, painfully honest with you — like I’ve done something wrong. But my BRAIN knows that’s absolutely not the case, even if my ENTIRE BEING AND SOUL are like: well, you’re a failure. give up. you fool!

It usually evens out. MOST of the time, someone leaves, someone joins. It’s been a little dead this year, but I think that has more to do with ME than anything else. The Long Dig took a very long time and I haven’t had other projects ready to release (I shot something last October, but it’s not MINE to harangue the editor about). I also had a lot of auditions this year, which made making stuff more difficult.

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