Wednesday 26 August 2026: Reviving my Patreon

I finally dipped my toe into Patreon around a year ago and I followed a handful of people on there to get an idea of what they’re posting and what readers might like. I even posted a few premium items, just to test the water.

When we decided on the house purchase and subsequent renovations earlier this year that would require some serious project management, I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work I was giving myself and I decided that some things had to give in order for me to retain my sanity and not work myself into illness. The premium articles on Patreon, and Medium as it happened, were among the first to go, alongside writing new material when I already have so much material with which to do something – anything!

I turned the premium membership off and toddled along just posting the blog posts whenever they appeared – although I even turned those off for a month as well outside of my website.

Since then I’ve been getting new members, paid and free, and all they’ve been getting is the daily blog posts they could get on Medium if they’re members there, or on the website for free. (The blog posts will always be free on Patreon.)

I had another new member pop up recently, which I only noticed yesterday. (Hello, and welcome!) And it’s kinda given me the kick up the backside I needed.

I think I already knew I’d mothball it until at least the end of August, although I did consider leaving it to the new year as well. But September has always been a time of new beginnings for me, I think it dates back to school days, and this year I bought my first academic hard copy desk diary in a while too.

So I’ve decided that the free short stories at least will return from the beginning of September and 4 weeks later they’ll start appearing on the website again for a week. They’ll stay on Patreon, but I’ll take them down after only a week on the website. I’ll also revive the premium monthly ideas for writers along with the schedule of work following the initial brainstorming, which goes something like this:

• I start Month One with the first month’s-worth of ideas.
• In Month Two there is another month’s-worth of ideas plus what to do with the ideas I shared last month.
• In Month Three, there’s another month’s-worth of ideas plus what to do with the ideas I shared last month plus querying or researching markets for the Month One ideas.
• In Month Four, everything moves along a month but the extra article is working on the story and sending it out.

So in 4 months time there will be an article every week on writers’ ideas and what to do with them in a suggested order in which to do it all.

Initially there will be one short story every month, but, eventually, I’ll serialise chapters of existing books, just for paid members, and I’ll serialise chapters of books in progress, again just for paid members. And I’ll probably put the same behind the paywall on Medium.

I stopped doing this because Draft2Digital refused to distribute to the likes of Amazon if what they’re distributing already appears for free on the internet. I argued the toss with them for weeks saying anything I publish that’s already on the internet is behind a paywall, but they wouldn’t have it, choosing instead not to jeopardise their relationship with Amazon, which is, of course, their prerogative. But now I publish one version direct to Amazon instead of via D2D, all I have to do is answer a quick question and they publish it anyway.

So that’s the plan and as it’s September next week (eek!), I’d best get my finger out…

Tuesday I slept in. I know I was tired, and I’ve been keeping a bit of a throat at bay since before the poet fell ill. On Monday it came out as a cold and on Tuesday I was so tired I slept in. Perhaps it’s finally caught up with me now all the stressful stuff is out of the way. I still have a painful heel, but it’s less painful more often now so hopefully that’s on its way out.

I put another washload through. I thought rain was forecast for yesterday originally, and it may have been. But when I checked, it’s coming today instead, and should have started at around 8am. I hope it is here by the time you read this. The ground is parched and the heath where we walk the dog is tinder dry. I was furious on Sunday when I walked him around to see that someone had discarded a cigarette nub end on the path.

We need the rain now. Our reservoirs need topping up (although Yorkshire Water say their reservoirs are still in a good position) and our gardens need a drink. We have a couple of growbag trays in the garden I’ve been keeping filled with water, for the wildlife. One of them has bloodworm in it, though, which is apparently ‘not great’, and the other has a leak. We also inherited a shallow bird bath when we moved here and that has been commandeered for the effort. We left ours behind.

I wrote up yesterday’s blog post, having not done it over the weekend. I try not to sit at the computer at the weekend. I try to have weekends off and the weekend just gone we were still busy anyway. I uploaded my own picture and shared it all everywhere.

I caught up on the DRM rabbit hole and added a couple of new comments, having checked my own Kindle library and seen I can now download epubs or pdfs for some books. The others must still be DRM protected. I’d fired an email off to my favourite writing teacher to ask what his slant was on DRM and was delighted when he came back with the same response I’ve been giving folk. I’m not in his school for nothing!

The washing was done so I hung that out and I played with the dog in the garden for a bit. Then I came back and started today’s blog post.

I finished the new covers for the next 6 books and I published the next 2 books. The only problem is, every time I finish another book, I find an inconsistency or an error in an earlier book. I need to stop letting this hold up the work going forward. Remember to do it, or not do it, from here on in, and go back to the beginning to fix things when everything’s up there.

Of course there’s also the school of thought that if you don’t fix it while it’s fresh in your mind you may forget to fix it. We shall see..

This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.