After polling the community it was clear that more donation options were needed and so now we have a Patreon!
The original vision for this site is and always has been to elevate trans voices and pay them for their work. Which I think we’ve done a pretty good job of so far with over £1,000 put into the hands of trans creators for their work.
We now have 10 pieces of work (11 if you include our very cute logo!) from transgender creators of varying experience from first time writers to experienced essayists. We have stories from around the world (though predominately the UK, please more non UK pitches!) including Nigeria and Hungary.
We are achieving what we set out to do and it has all been thanks to those soft-launch donations. This community really came forwards to show they wanted this project to succeed and we are so grateful for that. We will absolutely continue to keep delivering trans-led content, exclusively from trans creators who have been paid for their work.
Which is where Patreon comes in. I didn’t set one up originally because somewhat naively I thought we could just simply hit the ground running and generate enough ad revenue to get a piece out on a monthly basis pretty quickly. I now have a much more realistic view of that in that it’s going to take a year, maybe two to build up to that even despite quite healthy traffic numbers for such a new site.
Though after someone gave me a little bit of friendly bothering about not having one I put it to a community vote and overwhelmingly people wanted to see more donation options. We’re starting with Patreon as that’s what was asked about in the poll, but I did see a significant number of people asking for something like a ko-fi too. I’ll try to do that eventually once I’ve gotten to grips with how to use Patreon properly. (I have my own, I am just bad at it.)
I want to assure all readers that every penny raised via any donation options for Trans Writes will be given to trans creators or to pay for site upkeep. If you want to donate money to Lee and I personally we can provide options for that too, but I want people to know where their money is going and so if it’s branded as Trans Writes; it goes to creators.
Thank you to the people who have already took us up to £71/month on Patreon! You’re all mega-legends! If we manage to hit that £100/month goal we will be able to guarantee a contributor piece every month alongside myself and Lee covering various trans stories in the news. Which is all amazing and I can’t believe we actually get to do this!
I will be looking into options for how to use the Patreon to give back to Patrons (I think our logo would look super cute as a pin don’t you?) Though I don’t intend – at this time – to do any tier locked stuff. It would be nice to have little podcast sessions with each writer to chat about their piece and have the community ask any follow-up questions or something though, so look forwards to that maybe!
Anyway, I’m rambling. You’re all cool, thank you so much for believing in our vision for Trans Writes and being the mega legends that you all are. Lets kick some ass!
