Patreon Update (Blog Notes)

I just sent a "mass email" as a test to all the TOP supporters on Patreon, and I think I got the information wrong—I asked people to add my personal email address to their Contact books to avoid the Patreon emails being routed to their spam or trash folders. But apparently the email comes from Patreon, so that's the address you should add to your Contacts.

If you are a Patreon contributor to TOP, you might want to check that you got an email from me.

It's been a lot of fun watching the ranks of supporters swell this month, and I'd like to thank everyone. We're now only one person short of 400 supporters, which is within sight of half of the goal I set. That's after starting at 162 on February 8th. I never thought we'd get so far so fast. 

If you're wondering what this is about, a few weeks ago I asked people who are sending regular contributions through PayPal if, as a favor, they would please cancel their PayPal pledge and re-up through Patreon. Patreon allows me to keep track of people and pledges much more easily.

Naturally, anybody else who would like to contribute to TOP through Patreon is encouraged to do so as well! Just click here. And thanks again for your support.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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[Ger Lawlor]

For some reason, I went through it all last week, and then bang, at the very end it wouldn't take my money - I'll try again over the weekend. anyone else having problems with it?

[David Miller]

Good morning Mike,

As one of the supporters who switched from Paypal to Patreon —You're welcome!— I received your "mass email" today. When I linked through to Patreon, as invited, to read the message on their site I was required to log in to my non-existent Facebook account.

We may be the last one's in the sentient universe without an account, but as visual artists Cathryn and I have always steered clear of Facebook because of copyright issues. All of this is not a complaint, and your mass email came through just fine, however it might be worth noting that not all your faithful followers (in whose number I surely count myself) will see everything that is sent out via the Facebook route.

[Hi David, That's very curious, and I don't know what that's about. I sent the message from the Patreon site, which allows me to select which patrons I want to email...I just selected everyone. I don't know how it relates to Facebook.

FWIW, I don't use Facebook either, generally. I can never keep up with how it works. --Mike]

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I'm skeptical of the initial upwards segment of your value graph. It's most certainly not true of cars (which famously lose 10% or so of their value when first driven off the dealer's lot), and not true of books, cameras or computers in my experience. The price at introduction is, for most items, the highest price it will ever have; only the rare items that do ever become collectible will ever exceed that initial price.

In terms of preserving ones own work, being famous can help. Having your work relate to the famous may help even more; it's very likely that this is the photo of mine most likely to survive 100 years:

It's already the most common "late" photo of the science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, because there aren't many late ones floating around, and because I released it under a Creative Commons license, and because the photo isn't too bad. (It's mostly shown cropped to just Heinlein's head, which is what you'd expect to head a section Heinlein, but it does the photo no favors I think.)

(It's already 40 years old, so well on the way!)

[Richard Parkin]

The email works. There are links to Patreon's Facebook and Twitter accounts in the email which one could click accidentally, especially perhaps on a phone.

[Michel]

Mike, I believe I became your 400th Patreon supporter. Where should I send you my address so you know where to have the Mazda Miata delivered?

[Thanks very much Michel, but the Miata goes to the 1,000th supporter! --Mike]