14 Responses to “End of year plea and special offer”

1. 

   Griff

   December 5th, 2015 at 4:56 pm

   Vern, I was wondering, have you ever considered going the Patreon route?

2. 

   Dan Careaga

   December 5th, 2015 at 6:33 pm

   Good question from Griff!
   I would jump all over a Vern patreon sub.

3. 

   Vern

   December 6th, 2015 at 3:37 pm

   Chris suggested it once. Would it replace the Paypal donation, or be in addition to it? I don’t really understand how it works but if you guys think it fits what I’m doing I’ll look into it.

4. 

   JTS

   December 6th, 2015 at 5:09 pm

   Can’t speak to whether you’d replace the Paypal link or not, but I will also say I would definitely support you on Patreon. (I don’t know what kind of Patreon rewards you could offer, though, and the idea of offering exclusive stuff to Patreon subscribers might be anathema to you anyway.)

5. 

   clubside

   December 6th, 2015 at 6:31 pm

   I promised you a video on it Vern but I’ve been so wrapped up in launching my site I probably won’t get to it until next month.

   The short of it: Patreon doesn’t have to replace any of your current methods though PayPal becomes redundant depending on how you set up your patronage options. Patreon attempts to mimic the old royal/lord patron system for creatives. Then as now you can seek support for a time period (usually monthly) or by created work.

   The second option may be more inspiring to you. Basically you’d describe what you do and people would donate for that action. In your case, reviews, obviously, but it can be more nuanced such as occasionally posting reviews that don’t count against the pledges (freebie reviews) that you are less passionate about. You can even have multiple Patreons such as “Vern is Reviewing DTV and VOD Releases” as well as “Vern is Reviewing the Films of Cinema”.

   The biggest advantage to Patreon is discoverability like your social media accounts. By tagging your campaign(s) people already interested in the topic of film will browse and find you in a way a generic Internet search for “creed review” never will. And people can also find you by checking their friend’s patron lists and clicking through.

   Obviously it adds extra work as does maintaining your current social media accounts since you have to post when you release a new review (or amount of time passes depending on pledges) and it’s easy to get sucked into imagining reward tiers, but it is a worthwhile option that also adds a layer of separation not available with the PayPal system (since Patreon acts as a go-between “protecting” donors).

   As I said in my email there is more to it and I encourage you to check it out, otherwise I still plan “the talk” as soon as I can get to it to provide additional information.

6. 

   CJ Holden

   December 7th, 2015 at 1:52 am

   I don’t know what Patreon is, but it should be noted that many PayPal alternatives are not available outside of the US. Not even Google Wallet! If I have the time time, I will check it out later.

7. 

   Jerome

   December 7th, 2015 at 9:23 pm

   I am super-broke for the time being, but I think I need to own that Val Verde tee. Hell, I can put a little money on my debit card and get it done. I just hope I don’t do it drunk and forget to e-mail you that I did it, Vern. I am what I like to refer to as a drinker.

8. 

   Vern

   February 17th, 2016 at 12:11 am

   Griff, Dan, JTS, Chris and others: I’ve really been thinking about trying out Patreon as you suggested, and I think it’s a good idea, but I’ve failed to think of any good reward tiers. If anybody has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate them.

9. 

   Crushinator Jones

   February 18th, 2016 at 3:47 pm

   Vern, here’s a site that does pretty well on Patreon and they have only two funding tiers (the “whatever” tier and the “more than 5 bucks a month” tier):

   

   Support Cool Ghosts creating Excellent, ad-free gaming videos and podcasts

   Patreon is empowering a new generation of creators.
   Support and engage with artists and creators as they live out their passions!

   The 5 dollars or more tier gets you access to a once-a-month hangout where they shoot the shit with their funders on Twitch about whatever they want to talk about and fuck around.

   It seems to be working well for them. I know you are much more camera-shy but you could get Facerig (facerig.com) and commision a custom 3d avatar of a grizzled old guy and use that to hide your identity. Or just do an audio-only podcast as the backer bonus.

   You could also do a $20 and up special T-shirt club every 3 months or so. I’ve liked all your t-shirts.

   I’m gonna come at this from the aspect that you are worth reading and that you deserve to be financially rewarded for this. So on that note:

   1) please get a more visible platform of some kind. Be a guest writer on Movie Mezzanine or something. I know that I found out about excellent critic James Rocchi from his “Marvel Industrial Complex” article on there. (side note: James Rocchi deleted his twitter and vanished off the face of the Earth late last year, what happened?) Anyway I know you’ve done a few things and you kind of seem to subscribe to the philosophy of “live with excellence and let people discover it” but I really do think you need to get a little more aggressive. Get Guillermo Del Toro to tweet your site, he loves promoting shit he enjoys on Twitter. Maybe start an interview series with David J Moore or something. I don’t know. I get the vibe that you think promotion is dirty but it’s not.

   2) Just get the dang Patreon up and let us give you money. Worry about the tiers later. I have bought all your books but I feel dumb just handing you 20 bucks like you are busking or something. But 5 bucks a month to continue to support your writing makes me feel like a purveyor of the fine arts.

   Ok that’s it, I hope this helps. Keep up the excellence!

10. 

    Vern

    February 18th, 2016 at 5:32 pm

    Thanks Crushinator, I really appreciate the insights. I will think about all those ideas. Honestly I agree with you that I should promote myself more, I’m just bad at it. I hope I can figure it out by the time I finish my next novel. The occasional freelance gigs I’ve done, like The Village Voice, seemed to give me more prestige than continuing readers, but I would like to do more. And a regular column about DTV or something would be exciting if I could get the right outlet interested (and screeners).

11. 

    Sternshein

    February 18th, 2016 at 6:05 pm

    This reminds me Vern. What happened between you an AICN? The reason why I discovered you and your writing because of the DTV reviews you would do.

    Also, did you have a falling out with Steven Seagal films? It feels like forever since you’ve reviewed his movies. Granted I just looked at his IMDB and it looks like a lot of co-starring stuff so that might have something to do with it.

    Anyway, keep up the great work.

12. 

    Pacman2.0

    June 2nd, 2016 at 2:51 am

    Does anyone know if I use the Amazon search function on the right, but were to buy a product through a third party seller on Amazon would a cut still come here?

13. 

    Vern

    June 2nd, 2016 at 7:27 am

    There are complicated rules that I don’t totally understand, but I think usually the answer is yes. Thanks for asking!

14. 

    Pacman2.0

    June 2nd, 2016 at 7:46 am

    Thanks, at the risk of looking like a metaphorical George Constanza only giving tips when the waiters can see I just ordered the Antoine Doinel set from “i want one of those” on Amazon UK, hope you get the cut as while I am no arthouse novice, I can’t say I’d ever thought that much about looking into Truffaut until I read your reviews.