This is part 1 of introducing the fact that I have a Patreon, part 2 is going to occur when I do some unboxings tonight, plan is around 8 PM central time for two games, Dwellings of Eldervale and Dice Throne Adventures, but I wanted to get this in writing as well and give you an idea of why I’m doing Patreon, and if you don’t know what Patreon is.

What is Patreon?

Patreon is a platform where you can support your favorite content creators as long as they have a Patreon account. Generally this means you get access to things early or other perks in exchange for that. It’s meant to be a way to help those creators make some money off of their product that they are putting out.

You pledge at a certain level per month, in my case it’s $3, $5, $10, or $50 per month. Patreon takes a cut of that before it gets sent over to the creator.

Why Do Patreon?

So this is going to be two parts, first will be why I’m setting up a Patreon and the second part will be why I hope you’ll consider supporting me on there.

Why I Set Up Patreon

I’m not sure if it’s been obvious, but hopefully you’ve noticed that there are zero adds on Nerdologists.com. Now, I’ll advertise my own stuff, 10 Minute Marvel and Malts and Meeples, but there are no banner ads, videos that just start playing trying to get you to buy anything. And that’s been intentional. I’m not sure how many ads I’d get, but with 150,000 page views a year, I could probably find some, but I haven’t wanted to. I, like all of you, don’t love browsing websites where I spend more time X-ing out of ads that pop up in front of me.

But with that, since I don’t have ads, that means that I’m not getting in any revenue from the site. I set up an affiliate link before for Amazon, and I might do that again as well, so that people can go through that link and I’ll get a little bit of the money if enough purchases are made. But even with that, it’s not that much money and I would be fighting for your purchases with a lot of other people as well. Patreon, I will be fighting as well, but if you enjoy my content, you can know that it’s going directly to me, not going somewhere else as well. So this isn’t a cash grab for me, I am not looking to get rich off of this, or anything like that, I will break down what I’m hoping to use the money for coming up.

Why Support Me On Patreon

Well, hopefully you’ll do it because you like my content, but beyond that there are a few other reasons to do it, and those are the different rewards you can get for pledging at the different levels. I’m going to go through the different things you can get and hopefully some of them sound interesting to you.

Nerdling

At the $3 Level you get bonus content and a shout out on the Nerdologists Patreon page on this site, the page is yet to be built. So what is bonus content. Well, every month I’ll throw out a theme or a few specific things, so maybe it’ll be deck builders, Isekai anime, horror movies, and Harry Dresden, you’ll get a chance to vote on the subject and then I’ll do a bonus article for Patrons only over on the Patreon page.

Nerd Squire

At the $5 level you get the two things at the $3 level, but also some bonus video content and a monthly coloring page. The coloring page will tie into what you pick for that month and Kristen, my wife, has volunteered to help with that to create the coloring pages. Those will be delivered as a downloadable PDF. As for the video content, it would be a few times a year basically an ask me anything probably with a play along for some board game, probably a roll and write game.

Nerd Royalty

$10 level will get you everything from $3 and $5, plus some bonus Dungeons and Dragons content that will come out yearly, think a fully developed one shot, or for this year it’ll be a mad lib style character creation aid for new players or people who just need a bit of push to get the creativity going. Plus you’ll get your shout out not only on the website but also on an ending screen for Malts and Meeples.

Nerd Emperor

Finally, we have a $50 level. It gets everything mentioned before, but also access to a monthly D&D one shot, and I could be convinced to try another system I already have, for yourself and the others at that level, or if no one else is at the level, yourself and two of your friends. At this level, I wanted to add in more interaction and a whole lot more. I honestly doubt people will go to this level, but I can dream and if you want to play some D&D with me, this might be a way to do it.

What Will I Do With the Money?

So of course, what are you giving money for. Am I just going to use this for pay bills and things like that, no. I want to use the money from Patreon for other things to help add more content to the channel. That might mean upgrading my sound equipment, getting someone to build custom logos for Malts and Meeples and 10 Minute Marvel, buying more board games to show off on Malts and Meeples or to do reviews on, that I might not get otherwise.

I do have some thoughts for goals for fun stuff to do with the money for the Patrons themselves. I have a goal for 100 Patrons, it’s a pipe dream, but if I hit it, I want to do a big board game giveaway to people who are members of the Patreon. And at 25 Patrons, I want to start doing more content that is driven by the Patrons over on Malts and Meeples.

Thank you for even considering my Patreon. I know that there are a lot of sources vying for people’s money. I even have trouble allocating much to Patreon and focus more on direct buying from game publishers when I can. Thank you all for reading this post, and I hope that some of you will consider helping support the website, YouTube channel and podcast.

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