My basic argument is that mainstream music success has become rarer than ever (see here), but also that small-scale music success has become more achievable than ever (see here). So it makes sense for many of you to launch some sort of paid community that will support your artistry at a small scale – something like a Patreon or a Substack, etc.
But this doesn't make sense for everyone, and in fact, for some artists, it'd be a rather terrible move. In today's email, I want to help you think through whether or not it'd be a good or terrible move for you.
Famous last words, but I'm gonna try to make this email short and sweet. So...
Paid communities are worth it if:
You have an existing audience. It's just super helpful to have a pool of fans from which to pull your first community members. It's not like you need a million fans or anything to launch; I'd say 1,000 followers on any platform is a feasible starting point, and you could even do it with less, as long as your people are pretty engaged.
But you shouldn't start a paid community purely from scratch. If nobody other than your mom knows who you are, nobody other than your mom will want to join.
You have some way to regularly grow your audience (i.e., a traffic source). For many artists, this will be a social media channel, and most commonly it'll be Instagram or TikTok. But it also doesn't have to be online; if you're regularly playing shows, plugging your Patreon in person can work even better.
It's worth noting that you don't necessarily need to have this bit figured out at first. But you will need to figure it out at some point if you want to make your group work over time, because a community that never brings in new people will die.
You are actively making art. Last week on our call, Tom described Patreon as a "subscription to an artist," which he juxtaposed against streaming services as "subscriptions to finished art." His point is that his Patreons subscribe, at least in part, to get the behind-the-scenes view of his creative process. Obviously, if he weren't actively creating anything, that'd be a pretty lame view.
So if you have no plans for regularly creating art – if you're an "album every couple years" kind of person – then you probably shouldn't start a paid community for your artistry. This isn't to say that you shouldn't promote your music, but it is to say that you probably shouldn't make a Patreon for it.
You have an easily identifiable thing. This is maybe the vaguest criterion on my list, but it's also maybe the most important: You need an angle, a brand, a story, a thing.
A litmus test for this: People should be able to look at your social media profiles and instantly get what you're doing. ("Oh, this girl's making metal guitar covers of pop songs," or "Oh, these guys are making English alt-rock music but they're from Cuba," etc.) If people can't quickly explain the thing you're doing, then you probably don't have one.
In marketing terms, yeah, we're talking about brand, which is a famously amorphous concept. I mean I've done branding workshops for Fortune 500s, taught entire courses on branding to indie musicians, and listened to far too many Alex Hormozi podcasts, and for all that I'd still rather you didn't ask me to define what "brand" actually means. But I absolutely know a strong brand when I see it, and so will your audience.
And basically the stronger your brand – the more of a thing you have – the more likely people will pay to support it.
If you don't have those four things, don't launch a Patreon.
On the other hand, if you can check off each of those four points, then a paid community would almost definitely be worth it for you.
Unless you are already an immortal mainstream pop megastar married to debatably-likable NFL star Travis Kelce, in which case you have no need to launch a measly little micro-community when you can just sell out a new 65-stadium tour next week.
But if you're not Taylor Swift, consider applying for my upcoming Patreon cohort here. Applications close Friday.
Either way, I hope you have a wonderful week.
– Jon
Jon Anderson
Founder @ Two Story Media
Unsurprisingly Bad @ Being Famous
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100% Human Guarantee
I wrote this, not AI.
Today's random photo: In 2014, I spent a semester in Florence, Italy with three good friends – one of whom got married this past weekend! (It was not the Catholic priest, don't worry. Father Karl gave us a tour of Rome 12 years ago and we hadn't seen him since then.)
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P.S. – Last week I wrote about why micro-stardom is the future. You can read that here.
P.P.S. – You can apply to build your Patreon with me here.
Related note: If you've already applied for the cohort, thank you so much! I'll be reviewing all applications at the end of this week, and I'll personally get back to you on the status of yours by 8.18, if not sooner.