It's something Quakers, it seems, don't like to
talk about very much. Our personal circumstances especially, but I've
even found that we tend to be reluctant to get into too much detail
about our organisational finances unless we really need to. Anyway,
it's personal circumstances that come into this post.
A lot of Quaker bloggers out there are either
retired, or blogging in their spare time while earning from a day job
– or even being able to blog in relation to their day job, if they
are in a Quaker-related job. I'm not in that position. Indeed, due to
various circumstances, I am reliant on state support. While I do
various things self-employed, this doesn't earn enough to live on.
There is a pretty decent system of support in this situation. Or
there was. It's being taken down and replaced with a much worse
system, but that is (for now) fortunately not a current issue for me.
However, to get the support I do get, I need to be able to
demonstrate that I spend my time on things that could plausibly make
me money to live on. Not all my time, but enough of it.
Because of issues around my physical and mental
health, conventional employment situations don't work so well for me.
I'm generally pretty open about talking about these issues, and have
done so in the past elsewhere, but for this situation, here and now,
please just take my word for it, and while I'm hoping for thoughts
and ideas in the comments, please don't make them about how I could
somehow make conventional employment work. That's a whole other
conversation – let's keep this post and discussion from it on
topic.
What does this have to do with this blog? Well,
while the written ministry on this blog is something I do not
control, and will always share online one way or another as it comes
up, pieces of deliberate writing take time and effort, as does – to
a lesser extent – maintaining this blog and social media presence.
Putting as much time into them as I want to, as I feel they deserve,
takes time that I could spend on things that are arguably more
profitable. On the other hand, if I were to be able to earn money out
of my Quaker writing, I could put pretty much all the time into it I
want – if the money actually matched up with the time, to some
extent. Add to that, some of the avenues of earning money that I've
been pursuing haven't been working out as well as I'd like, so
opening up a new avenue would be helpful both in terms of my income
and in terms of being able to satisfy the government that I'm doing
what I should be doing. If it ended up doing well enough for me not
to need state support, that would be fantastic, but let's take it one
step at a time.
So, here we come to it. You may have noticed that
ads have appeared on the blog. These are provided through Google
AdSense. Please DO NOT treat these ads any differently from those you
might see on any other website. This might generate a trickle of
income; it's in Google's interest to put ads in place that will
perform well on this site and for this audience, so there's reason to
hope, but the rates aren't huge and you don't get anything until
you've managed to get £100 of earnings rolled up – and that can
take a while. So, while this might earn something, it's unlikely to
be enough unless the blog really takes off. While I'd love for it to
do that, I'm not going to bank on it.
The other route a lot of people try, when they
want to make money online, is Patreon.
For those who do not know, this is a site that allows those engaged
in creative endeavours to attract “patrons”, after the old
fashioned route, but with a twist of crowdfunding. An endeavour
recruits people who sign up to pay a regular amount, and, much like
Kickstarter,
offers them rewards for certain levels of contribution, or promises
to do extra things or meet certain commitments if the total regular
contribution goes above a certain level. Indeed, it's much like
Kickstarter, but for ongoing payments.
I'm seriously considering setting up a Patreon. Of
course, there's not much point without a sense that people will sign
up for it. As such, there's a sort of “poll” below allowing you
to anonymously indicate how likely you might be to sign up for it.
Let us be clear – I will always carry on writing
up any written ministry that comes to me, and sharing it as best I
can. Without finding a way to make it a source of income, I will not
be able to carry on producing deliberate writing as much as I have,
much less to step up production to the level I would like. If I can
make that income, I can step up to write about all the things I want
to write about, spending more time on it, including writing up more
related to the presentation
I recently gave at Woodbrooke. If I can make enough, I could
commit to a substantive piece of deliberate writing per week, minimum
(barring extraordinary circumstances). If I make more, I could up
that commitment to two. As such, I expect that would be the
commitments based on total support I would list on Patreon, at least
at the lower levels. Perhaps I could also commit to spending time
experimenting to find how to encourage the Spirit to allow me more
written ministry.
In terms of perks for people making sufficient
contributions, I suppose that I could offer one of the typical
options – the opportunity to influence what I write about. I
wouldn't want to make polls, unless it were for extra “bonus”
content above my basic commitment, but discussions and sharing of
ideas are possible. If someone makes a particularly generous
contribution, I suppose I could offer a more extravagant perk, but I
don't know what that could be.
So, I'm asking you, my readers, for two things
right now. Respond to the poll below, and share any thoughts on the
whole “making money from Quaker writing” situation in the
comments. Why I should or shouldn't do a certain thing, what I might
do instead, what rewards and commitments I might make on a Patreon.
All of it. I want to hear from you.
POLL CLOSED
