Who Has Time For Patreon? I Do?

Sometimes writing an entry helps you to talk through a problem.  So here's my original entry:

Anyway, I heard of Patreon a while back because people/brands like Rifftrax and Toy Galaxy use it.  Then I saw some other authors of gender swap stories use it too and so one night when I was bored, I decided I'd go there and see about setting up an account.

The thing is, I hadn't ever used Patreon before, so I had no idea at all what it actually does or how it works.  I thought it was sort of a Kickstarter thing where people give you money for projects and they maybe get some stuff in return.  For the right price maybe they even tell you what they want.  (I mean that is how it worked in the days of da Vinci and Mozart where a royal or rich guy--the patron--would "commission" an artist to do something.)  But it's not really like that.

Basically what you're supposed to do is set up rewards "tiers" for different prices.  Each tier gives the user something more.  Their suggestion for writers is that Tier 1 is an exclusive newsletter for $5/month.  And then Tier 2 is a Q&A and the newsletter for $9/month and Tier 3 is access to stories or notes or some shit along with the other two tiers for like $12/month.

My thought:  who in their right fucking mind would pay $5/month for a newsletter?  And what the fuck could I put in a newsletter every month that would make it worth $5?  I mean I'm a fiction writer, not a reporter; I don't have a lot of "news" except new releases and those go in my email newsletter and on my website.  Why would anyone pay for that?  And a Q&A?  Every month?  You'd probably get the same questions over and over and who would want that?

Yeah, so their suggestions are bullshit.  So I looked up some of the users I know of.  Rifftrax you can get increasing amounts of behind the scenes stuff and at the highest level a T-Shirt.  Toy Galaxy you can see episodes early and without ads and more behind the scenes type stuff.  Which doesn't really help me as an author because it's not like people want to watch me writing shit in my bedroom or car.

Looking up another author, what she does is have like exclusive stories and notes and stuff like that.  To which I'm thinking, "Shit, who has time for that?"  I mean I'm a pretty quick writer, especially compared to a snail like GRR Martin, but I generally do only 1-2 stories a month. If I do a thing like this other author I'd have to somehow churn out another 1-2 stories just for Patreon users.  It sounds exhausting just thinking about it.

For entertainment properties like Rifftrax and Toy Galaxy it seems easier, though still time-consuming.  It seems harder for authors like me because it's hard to do "behind-the scenes" stuff.  I don't do a lot of notes or outlining or second drafts so there's not a lot of bonus material.  

I was thinking of maybe letting people become part of the story, like one level you can name a character and another you can decide what kind of swap you want or something, but you couldn't really do that for hundreds of subscribers.  The thing with these Tiers is they have to be something universal or else you'd get overwhelmed.  It's hard enough to stay whelmed right now.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll poke around this a little more and maybe if I find more authors I can steal some good ideas that wouldn't take a ton of time to do.

After I wrote that, the old brain started thinking of things maybe I could do.  Like I said in the original entry, it has to be something pretty universal and not too time-consuming.  And then I got thinking that if I couldn't really let people suggest whole stories or whatever, I could maybe let them vote for things.  Like I could offer up a couple different story ideas and let people vote which one they want me to do next.  Or vote on whether it should end Happily Ever After or not.  I wouldn't want to do the whole thing by polls, but at least then people could feel like part of the process.  Maybe they'd want to pay a couple bucks a month for that.

I figure that would be the basic tier.  Then in a higher tier I could offer people the chance to get books early, in formats besides KDP and without that dreaded ad for the newsletter.  And maybe I could make like a "Welcome Kit" at the highest tier where they could choose a paperback to get autographed and maybe some other stuff like a bookmark or a print of another cover.

If I could figure out how to do these in more of a flash fiction style then I think that would be more plausible for one of the tiers.  I was thinking that another avenue would be to take old stories and do new endings as sort of a "What If" kind of thing.  Especially stories that I didn't end Happily Ever After, maybe I could find a way to write the ending that way.  Then I wouldn't have to do a whole book, just a couple of scenes.

What kind of rewards would you pay to get from an author on a monthly basis?  And how much would you be willing to pay?