4 Unusual Ways Of Monetizing Your Creative Content
Monetization has always been tricky though. We’ve discussed how to monetize blogsin the past (we even wrote a manual on it). But what if you’re not just a blogger? What if you’re a programmer, or a videographer, or a musician?
If so, this article is for you. Here are 4 of the best ways to monetize content you’ve probably never thought of.
Patreon
So, you’ve been doing your thing for a while now. You’ve built a following on Twitter and Facebook. You might have even done a successful Reddit AMA. You’re now recognized for being the best at what you do.
How do you turn that into hard cash? One thing you might want to consider is Patreon. This site has borrowed the tiered-perks, crowd-funding model of Kickstarter, and mixed it with recurring, monthly payments. Kind of like Kickstarter by subscription.
One musician who has effectively used Patreonto fund her work is Americanindie-folk singer Kina Grannis. Almost 300 of her devoted fans contribute financially to the production of her YouTube videos. Each clip she publishes pulls in $1,672 per clip. Not bad. Not bad at all.
But what’s in it for the fans? Well, it depends on how much they are willing to contribute. The highest tier gets free concert tickets whenever Kina rocks up in town, in addition to the same stuff the lower and middle tiers get. This includes free music, and monthly Q&A meets with Kina on Google Hangouts.
The beauty of Patreon is it allows creative individuals to leverage the enthusiasm of their fans, whilst simultaneously rewarding fans for their loyalty.
Patreon is available internationally. Opening an account is free, although they do take 4% from all transactions as a commission. This covers the cost of processing credit cards (which is expensive indeed), as well as the costs associated with operating the site.
Beacon
Beacon can best be described as two separate properties. The first is a beautiful content management and publishing platform that rivals the likes of WordPress and Tumblr in their ease of use. It allows journalists and writers to publish stunning, engaging content, without breaking a bead of sweat.
Another – more interesting – facet of Beacon is how it allows readers to support content creators with monthly financial gifts, much like Patreon does.
However, unlike Patreon, if you fund one writer, you don’t just get a single perk. You get access to all the works produced by writers working on the Beacon network.
There’s a diverse range of journalists and storytellers taking advantage of Beacon, from cutting edge science writers, to stories of people hitchhiking their way from California to Africa.
Beacon empowers users to fund research into stories they care about. One author I fund personally is Lyra McKee. This Northern Irish investigative journalist iscurrently researching the decades old murder of a Unionist politician during the turbulent period of The Troubles.
Over 150 supporters have contributed almost $9000 to her research, which has funded six, richly detailed posts about this real-life murder mystery.
And much like Patreon and Kickstarter, there’s also the option to offer tiered rewards. If you contribute more, you might get more.
Beacon is currently invitation only. Prospective writers can submit applications to become an author, although there’s no guarantee they’ll be accepted. Beacon gives 70% of all subscription dues to the author, and keep 30% for themselves. They have a minimum pledge, which is $5 per month.
Put Up A Paywall
Paywalls. They’re not for the little guys, right? They’re for the big players. The massive media houses, like The London Times and The Telegraph. They’re the ones who have the audience, the money, and the technical infrastructure to actually implement one and make a profit.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
It’s not just mainstream media outlets who operate paywalls. The likes of Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan (we’ve written about him before), to German cycling e-zine Farrhad Journal both restrict some content to paying customers.
Paywalls allow you to control who gets access to your content, and to actually give your content a tangible dollar value for consumers.
But how do you actually implement one? Well, that’s easy. TinyPass is a service that allows you to add a customizable paywall to your website with just a few lines of JavaScript. You can control everything, from how many free articles someone can read, to how much people pay for access. Setting up a paywall has never been this simple.
TinyPass also handles the tricky process of taking payments. Their services aren’t free, however. They insist on a commission from each sale, with the fee for payments over $2 being a somewhat painful 18%. That’s not quite as much as Patreon charges, but many magnitudes above what BeaconReader takes.
Take Tips
There’s still a place for advertising on the Internet, but this model is under serious threat. This is partly due to the spread of AdBlocking software, and people trying to stiff content creators by avoiding banner adverts entirely.
Many content producers have taken to accepting tips in order to supplement the income from their online properties. Tipping is pretty hot right now and there are two horses in this race worth mentioning.
The first is Flattr, which was created by Peter Sunde – one of the three founders of The Pirate Bay. We’ve talked about extensively about this service before. Their product works a bit like this. Users sign up and establish a recurring payment which tops up an account with cash. This is then later used to ‘tip’ content creators.
Site operators then put a ‘flattr’ button on their website. Whenever a user presses that button, they indicate that they wish for a portion of their funds to go to them. At the end of the month, the money in the user’s account is divided equally between the sites who have been tipped.
Flattr takes a cut of any money donated, but rival TipTheWeb does not. Instead, they fund their operations through tips themselves. There’s no monthly subscription to pay, and users are free to choose how much they wish to tip, from $0.05 to as much as $100.
TipTheWeb also allows you to support not only blogs, but also open source software on Github, presentations on SlideShare and videos on YouTube and Vimeo.
Another service is Gittip (our Gittip review). Despite the name, it has got nothing to do with code-hosting service Github or the Git version control system, and nothing to do with software development.
Rather, it’s a slightly bizarre hybrid between Patreon and Flattr. You sign in with Twitter, and you select who you wish to ‘tip’. That person is then sent an unconditional cash payment from you each week. The person receiving the cash doesn’t have to be a software developer. Anyone can get paid with Gittip.
You can sign in with your Twitter, BitBucket and Github account. Beneficiaries can get paid via direct bank transfer in the US, and they accept International users, although this is handled manually through the banking system.
And if neither of these take your fancy, there’s still Dogecoin.
As a revenue source, tipping is still incredibly speculative. It hasn’t been proven as a reliable model for monetization like advertising. With that said, when used in addition to traditional revenue models such as advertising, it becomes an appealing additional source of funding. .
Show Me The Money
There’s still a place for advertising. People can still make money from their digital properties by throwing up some AdSense adverts. But if that doesn’t appeal to you, there are other options.
Are you a creative? Have you found any unusual ways of monetizing content? Let me know. Comments are below. Source: www.makeuseof.com
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