There is no real art to creating sponsor tiers. At least, there isn’t until you feel like you’ve nailed it. And then you want to tell The Entire World.
So here we are. 🙂
The sponsorship tiers remain the same, but the pricing has changed and the way you can access them has changed. Since Gumroad has been developing at an incredible rate of knots, we now have the ability to add tiers to products, rather than having to list them all separately.
What this means for you is not having to wait for an entire set of products to load. You can just go to one link and see all your options right in front of you.
New sponsor tiers!
Each of these tiers has a given price, but the seriously fantastic thing that I am super excited about is that you can just pay whatever the hell you want!
Then, you get the bonuses of whichever tier is next below what you paid.
It’s a much simpler, easier, and kinder method of offering sponsorships, and I’m super happy that Gumroad is the platform enabling me to do this.
So without further ado, here is what all of the tiers include:
Basic Sponsor, $1+
- Weekly Letter from me, in your email.
Flash Fiction of the Month Club, $4.50+
- Weekly Letter from me, in your email
- Flash fiction to your letterbox, anywhere in the world, every month
This Is Serious Mum, $9+
- Weekly Letter from me, in your email
- Flash fiction to your letterbox, anywhere in the world, every month
- Alpha Reader List Member (read first, offer feedback, shape my work)
Silver Sponsor, $19+
- ALL THE ABOVE
- + Access to early discounts and offers
Gold Sponsor, $47+
- ALL THE ABOVE
- + Handwritten letters from my writing desk, min. 1 per quarter
- + 25% off any ticketed event where I’m able to provide discounts
Platinum Sponsor, $97+
- ALL THE ABOVE
- + 1 x FREE copy of any book published after you become a sponsor
- + Priority acknowledgement in sponsors lists in all works
Arts Investor, $197+
- ALL THE ABOVE
- + 50% off any ticketed event where I’m able to provide discounts
- + A meal with me when I’m in your town (max. 1 per year, we’ll go dutch)
- + 10% discount on books for your friends and family, wherever I am able to provide discounts
- + 1 x autographed copy of any hard-copy title published after you become a sponsor, for free
I’ll be honest, promoting sponsorships instead of product is… a fun challenge
The challenge is that it’s almost like asking you to give ME money. When in fact, the sponsorship is a bunch of value-oriented outcomes in exchange for your coin.
Truthfully, for regular readers and fans it’s the easiest and most honest way for me to give something back to them.
That’s why pricing has been so tricky
There’s a real risk with pricing sponsorship tiers for artists that you end up pitching too low, and thus not recouping your actual value, or pitching too high and alienating everyone in sight.
I’ve done both, largely as an experiment.
The thing is, if you’re aiming to provide as much value to people as possible, then low tier fees don’t matter. And if the value you give people is meaningful enough, then even your so-called “high tiers” will seem reasonable and justified.
That’s partly why I named the top tier the Arts Investor. Before you give someone $197 per month, you have to really assess whether this investment (because that’s what it is), is going to help the creator build his or her own practise.
If it wouldn’t contribute meaningfully, then even the investor must reconsider.
But this is also why the investor tier has some super sweet, highly personal offers inside it. It’s just like if you were to invest in my company; you’d gain a seat on the board. And I kind of see the arts investor in the same way.
In Summary
Sponsorships, patronages, memberships, whatever you want to call them, are one of the best ways to fund creative output. It allows the creator to remain independent, while delivering value. And it supports the creative process over time.
Writing, unlike many forms of visual art or performance, is often a detailed, solo, long-drawn-out process. It comprises travel, research, and entire weeks carved out to focus and write.
That’s why your contribution is so meaningful. It allows creators like me who right now also have to have a day job, to more effectively fund the days taken to create and write. And that, in turn, leads to higher output, which itself gets us closer to doing this work full-time.
