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UPDATE 2019: Patreon has changed SO MUCH since I first shared this way back in 2014 😂. I would now recommend checking out this helpful post by Patreon to learn how to support the creators you love. Thank you for being amazing, us creators need people like you 💗

 

 

I am so grateful to ‘Listen For The Reverb’ for writing this incredible ‘how-to’ for potential patrons. She has allowed me to repost it here, so go check her out and give her much praise for being awesome :D!

What follows is Vick’s post, edited here and there so it fits what I’m doing: 

Patreon is now my main landing page and the heart of the community that I am building as an independent professional musician.

It’s easy to become a patron – whether you are able to pledge a little or a lot. You do not need to pay to join Patreon but you do need to join if you want to become a paying supporter. And it’s really important to remember that even a little support is such a huge boost to a creator. We love knowing that you want us to keep working!

I wanted to make sure that no one was intimidated by signing up to Patreon and joining in. This is a VERY detailed look at signing up and making a pledge. I’ve broken it into three sections. #1 Signing Up; #2 Customising your profile (which can be skipped!) and #3 Making a Pledge.

STAGE ONE – SIGNING UP

When you go to http://www.patreon.com/This is what you will see:

Home

The little pink arrow shows you where to click to sign up as a patron (or also a creator!)

Once you do that you see this:

FB

Type in your full name, your email address and a password. Your email address needs to be one that you can access because as soon as you click “Sign Up” you get sent an email to confirm your registration.  But first you’ll see this…

Welcome

Close the window by clicking on the yellow button and then check your emails. You’ll need to open that email from Patreon (Their address is [email protected] if you need to save it to get around strong spam filters) and click the link they send.

Before you open it your home page on Patreon shows a warning red sign to let you know that you need to confirm your registration.

Red Email

Afterwards you can see a little green confirmation that it’s all worked okay and you’re ready to go.

Green Email

Now. That is ALL you need to do to set up your profile. If you want to skip the customising your profile steps then head on down to Stage Three. If you’d like to make your pages more personal then follow through Stage Two. You can always come back and do this later if you want!

STAGE TWO – CUSTOMISE YOUR PROFILE

Now you can go in and edit your account.

URL Profile

You can add as much or as little detail as you like. There’s no need for a photo, or a Twitter username. You can leave the location blank or have it as ambiguous as you like (anything from England to Indiana works). The same goes for the ‘About Me’ biography section. Leave it blank, add just a few words about your hobbies or why you’re on Patreon, or tell people all about you. Obviously just make sure you are keeping yourself private enough to be secure online. Safety first!

The little yellow arrow shows an extra feature. You can choose your own URL. You could use a name, a nickname or your handle from other sites. It’ll tell you straight-away if it has already been taken or if it’s still available.

There’s a little more when you scroll-down.

Profile Changes

You can add links to social media as well as controlling your emails and don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” buttons to make sure it’s all updated.

Hide Profile

If you don’t want anyone to be able to see your profile page then click on the little green tick and it will change to a red cross. If you make your profile private then no one will be able to see who you are supporting.

STAGE THREE – BECOME A PATRON!

The great thing about Patreon from the point of view of wanting to support and engage with the creators you love is that it’s entirely up to you how you do it. $1 a month upwards you can set exactly how much you want to pay. For pay-per-creation accounts you can set a monthly limit so you always know how much you’re paying. Again, it’s really important to remember that even a little support is such a huge boost to a creator. We love knowing that you want us to keep working!

We’re going to go back and add card details now.

Card or Paypal

Let’s see what the card does first.

Add Card No

You need to have your credit/debit card number to hand. You fill in your card number, the expiry date and the 3-digit CVC code on the back (or front if it’s AmEx!). You can choose to click the Remember Me tick-box if you are on a private computer so you don’t need to put your details in each time. Just remember not to select that if you’re not on a private and secure computer.

Once your card details are saved then you can support whichever Creator you choose by clicking on the “Become A Patron” button on their page.

And if you choose to use Paypal then it will redirect you straight to the Paypal website where you can put your details in.

Paypal

Inside the pink box are the Paypal/Patreon details that say: “Adding PayPal account to Patreon for recurring pledges. Cancelable anytime.” This means that once you sign in that Patreon will use your PayPal account to pay for your pledges until you tell them not to. You can still easily cancel pledges through Patreon and you keep complete control of how much you pay to each creator.

Once this is done your PayPal account or Card details show up with lots of little ****** over the important parts on your account page (obviously not the public bit, the part you see when you are logged in!). I’m not screen-shotting that because security!

Now your details are all sorted you can be a patron. Here are the next few steps. First you need to find a page you want to support.

Become Patron

Click on Become a Patron to support the creator of your choice.

Choose Pledge

The next part to do is to choose how much to donate.

Reward Level

The lower limit is $1 and I (Nate) post around twice a month, so be sure to set you monthly pledge limit in the relevant box (which appears on the final confirmation screen). You also then get to choose a reward level! Woo Hoo! You can choose any reward level up to the amount you’ve pledged. You won’t be charged anything right away – I have to give you something first and you only pay at the end of the month. You can also change the card you want to use or switch to PayPal or back again here.

Confirm

If your reward level includes something that needs shipping you also need to provide a shipping address.

Shipping

And because your payment details are saved anytime you want to support a creator it’s really easy to do!

Congrats

And then I thank you. A lot! I’ve hidden the thank-you message here because that’s for patrons only…

After this comes rewards and access and engagement. You can head over to my page and leave a message or read through all of the posts there. There’s also a link so you can tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook how amazingly generous you’ve been;). You’ll also have an email from Patreon (this time it’s [email protected])  to let you know that you’re a Patron.

I hope this has been helpful. I know that Patreon is still pretty new and I wanted to make sure the process was as clear as possible. And if you’ve read this far through then well done – and I hope to talk to you on Patreon really soon!

Again, HUGE thanks to Vick for allowing me to repost this for my fans, so please go check out her patreon page too!

Love and hugs
nate

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