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So... I've been struggling with a question for months now. The question is one regarding exclusives; should I post everything I write here, or should I keep several stories as Patreon exclusives? I've been writing other tales you see, and as I promised, Patrons of mine get a first look at all of it, but it was not my intention to hold any stories back from my readership at large. Which was why until today I didn't even mention it; I hadn't come to a conclusion.
My internet company has just forced my hand by raising my bill beyond my capacity to pay; in short, that means my net gets shut off in a month.
So there it is; those new tales will have to remain exclusives in order to entice people to give me their coffee money, much as I hate the idea.
That said if you have the coffee money or quarters just lying around in your couch cushions and like what I do, please consider navigating to patreon and looking me up; my pen name there is the same as here.
If you have other ideas you think I could use to avoid losing the internet, I'm all ears; list them below.
Comments
I for one.......
Am not averse to contributing to an author who's work I not only enjoy, but value. I have in fact purchased numerous of your works off of Amazon for Kindle, and would be willing to continue to do so.
D
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
D Eden...
So get off my lazy butt and edit more, eh? I can try that.
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If you appreciate my tales, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I may continue:
https://www.patreon.com/Nagrij
Lol.......
Not quite how I would have phrased it, but no arguments here!
D
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
You can't write if you can't eat
I'm going to make some assumptions here. Please call me out if I'm wrong.
Lots of us here have published here for free and then moved on to Kindle, Lulu and the like.
Nancy Cole and I used to post our books online here, leave them up for a few months and then migrate them to Kindle.
Maddy Bell has an avid following through Lulu and Kindle and then shares them here a year or so later.
Snowfall has published Late Night Princess here and has concurrently made it available on Kindle.
To be brutal about it, if people like what you write why shouldn't you earn some reward? A 60,000 word novel takes about 400 hours of work to produce (well... it does for me).
You may love what you do and love to share it but love isn't particularly good at paying bills.
Persephone
Non sum qualis eram
Persephone...
All true, and I actually have some things on Kindle. I haven't posted anything lately due to my own laziness in actually putting my chapters together into a book, mainly because of some technical issues. I'm trying to draw a line of sorts, given some past promises I made and my desire to support this site as much as I'm able.
I've got no issue with keeping some tales as free as possible, or in the current model I use (which adds differing pov chapters for the Kindle versions of my current tales) and keeping some behind a slight paywall or publishing them, as long as my fans think it's worth it. I guess that is in part what this post is asking.
If enough fans don't think my tales are worth the cost, then I've failed anyway and I suppose I should lose my internet and go dark.
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If you appreciate my tales, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I may continue:
https://www.patreon.com/Nagrij
I would suggest the following:
If you can, sell ones you know that will make you money- Fast.
Look and see if you can cut back on what your internet provider provides via speed. If your able to get say 30megs find what the lowest cost is and see about getting that. Shop around if possible for such as free Wi-Fi if possible to say upload a file from your phone, yet make the story on the computer, edit and so forth.
Start a patron service: Save some very compelling stories to be later released for publication.
Post stories that you feel allow you to experiment with your writing ideas. One shots.
Ib12us...
I'm already at the lowest speed and have been for years. My service provider keeps raising the fee. As for Patreon, I made one, and part of the post I just made includes the fact that I have decided to keep the new tales on it exclusive. If the powers that be here won't get upset, I'll link the page directly.
The advice about one shots is something I admit I need to take; I don't write enough of those.
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If you appreciate my tales, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I may continue:
https://www.patreon.com/Nagrij
30 megs?
30 megs? Where do you live? I pay AT&T $49/month for 1536 Kbps downstream speed, which is their slowest speed. It was $15 per month when I started with them in 2002. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and my only other real choice is Comcast, and I dislike them.
DAB2640,
I feel your pain. My choice is AT&T (not even fiber) for 49$ (introductory, 64$ normally!) and a former comcast affiliate.
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If you appreciate my tales, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I may continue:
https://www.patreon.com/Nagrij
I feel sorry for you.
You and most AT&T customers are getting ripped off.
For a similar sum per month as you I get :-
- Landline Rental (£18/month)
- Free calls evenings and weekends
- 80Mbits/sec Fibre with unlimited downloads. My averge DL per month is 10Gb.
Some alternatives...
Can you get a decent Mobile/cellular signal where you live? What are the costs of plans that will give you 3-5Gb/month.
How far away is the nearest Starbucks/other place with free WiFi?
Do you have a neighbour that you are friends with? I let my next door neighbour use my WiFi. Their provider (Virgin) kept upping the price and since she is a widdow, money is a bit tight. Can you do that?
Samantha
SamanthaMD
I'm afraid not. I've long since stopped my phone service, plans are too expensive for me. Any calls I make I use my internet for, as it is cheaper. The nearest place with free wifi is miles away; if I absolutely have to, I'll walk to the nearest in order to post tales, but I would have to use the library computers to do so, which might cause some changes in spelling and grammar quality, as any mistakes I miss I will not be able to correct last minute with the library computer's software.
Unfortunately, my neighbors are asshats who will not share, even if I offer to chip in on the bill; they are too worried I'm going to flood them with viruses or hack the pentagon with their ip or something.
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If you appreciate my tales, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I may continue:
https://www.patreon.com/Nagrij
I should have said
I should have said mbps not Megs. Nor did I say how fast I have. But to let you know what I used to have, it was 10mbps over dsl. Not everyone lives in the city. I wasn't even close. But I had more reliability than what I have with a faster one at a cheaper price also. And that was a suggestion. And AT&T wants twice that much where I'm at. And AT&T is not avail in my area.
ib12us:
Yep, I hear you. As for the lowest plan in the area, I'm on it. There are only 2 companies here, and they know it, so their prices are pretty similar. When one raises the price, so does the other.
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If you appreciate my tales, please consider supporting me on Patreon so that I may continue:
https://www.patreon.com/Nagrij
Reality is nice but it's not perfect!
Please don't feel so bad for making some stories exclusive! People on the Internet may take free stories for granted, but as others have pointed out, it's kind of hard to do things at cost (e.g. paying for the Internet access to post stories for no compensation). Someday perhaps we will become independent of resource constraints, but until that time comes, we still need to do awkward things like "obtain food"!
Best wishes!