Make Money On Line!

 

“MAKE MONEY ON LINE”

“IT’S EASY!”

“YOU CAN DO IT!”

“OPEN A MERCH SITE, AND WATCH THE MONEY ROLL IN!!”

 

I can describe all of the above in one word:

 

BULLSHIT!

 

I have had Patreon for years. I have Ko-Fi. I Have two “merch” sites, Fine Art America / Pixels and Redbubble. I recently opened Redbubble (again – I had it before several years ago).

I think in the several years I’ve been doing this, I have had the following results:

Patreon – never had more than 3 “Patrons” at any one time.

I’ve had a bit better luck with Ko-Fi – have had several “coffees” (I.E. $3.00 contributions), and one of my former Patreon supporters has moved to Ko-Fi due to Patreon’s habitual CC payment denials at the beginning of every month.

On the “merch” sites, I’ve sold… Let’s see… A total of 4 or 5 coffee mugs, and maybe a T-shirt or 2 at most.

Yeah. I’m rolling in greenbacks.

If I link a new post, artwork, or other item on Patreon – even in the “free” area – to my FB page, it’s completely ignored. No likes, no comments, no nothing.

I clearly haven’t figured out the “formula” yet. Yes, yes, I know.. Successful owners of those “merch” sites have hundreds or even thousands of items available in their shops. I have maybe 20 or so – and I AM working on that. I’m not shutting anything down; at least not yet.

One of my FB friends, Lizzie, sent me this: "It's partly to blame to Facebook's algorithm. It puts a lower priority on posts with outside links which really, really sucks. It's their way of trying to make you pay to "promote" your posts to get more views."

Lizzie's also a vendor on 'Rosity (Dream9studios) so if you don't wanna buy my stuff, go buy hers! 😁

I guess I’m just feeling discouraged a lot lately. I’m sitting down here in this goddamned cold basement (it’s probably warmer outside than it is in here), trying to do stuff that people will like. I’ve had my TNA story running on Renderosity for over 10 years, and it’s one of the most popular things I post there. Pretty much anytime I post artwork there – TNA or anything else – it ends up in the top 10 “trending” artworks within a day or two. So it seems my work isn’t just cobbled-together junk in peoples’ eyes. They actually like it.

No. It’s something else. And I have yet to figure out what.

Clearly, advertising and promotion are not my strongest suits.

Open to suggestions…