The Lesbian Historic Motif Project has a Patreon

It's a bit of an impulse thing. Evidently Patreon is changing it's contract structure in a few weeks to something a bit less beneficial to users, but people with an account set up prior to that are locked in to the current structure. Since I'd been toying with the idea of a Patreon for a couple of years, this information made me think it might make sense to set up an account, even if I didn't seriously intend to push it.

You see, I feel a bit weird about soliciting financial support through venues like Patreon because I don't need the money. Even with the added expenses of the audio fiction series (royalties + narration fees), and commissioning podcast transcripts, I'm quite capable of funding the thing out of pocket. But on the other hand, having a Patreon gives people an opportunity to make a concrete statement that they find what I'm doing valuable and worth supporting. And since I've currently set up only a single support tier ($1 per month) with no benefits other than good will and thanks, it's not like I'm going around begging people for more than a token statement.

In theory, between the fiction series and commissioning transcripts of the interview shows, I'm out of pocket about $150 per month. (This doesn't count general overhead for the blog. I certainly wouldn't ask people to underwrite my rather extravagant book-buying habits. And the podcast hosting is currently covered by The Lesbian Talk Show which has it's own Patreon.) This is, if you will forgive me, only slightly less than my coffee shop budget.

So I'm not asking people to support the LHMP Patreon because I'm in financial need, or because the blog and podcast won't continue without the support. Trust me, they'll keep going as long as it makes me happy to do them. But if you support things on Patreon already, and you find the LHMP (especially the podcast) of value to you, and you wanted a concrete and low-effort way to give me that feedback. Then pledging a dollar a month on Patreon is one way to send me that message. The message that you find what I do valuable is far more important to me than the money.

Oh, and here's the link.

If you have any ideas for Patreon benefits for higher support tiers (that wouldn't involve significantly more time for me), feel fee to suggest.