Patreon growing as crowd-funding platform of choice for creators

Over at Robot6, Corey Blake crunches numbers of crowd-funding platforms. Of interest is the rapid rise of Patreon for comic creators. If you’re not familiar with Patreon, read Corey’s piece and then head over to Patreon to learn more. Patreon’s model would fit better with The Daily Cartoonist fundraising efforts in the future and would work well for long-running projects rather than the one-time project like a book.

Although less than a year old, Patreon already has more than 100 campaigns raising money for creators of webcomics, comic books, graphic novels, manga and related content. Estimated to the end of January, the top 100 comics campaigns are generating $25,195 a month, which is really good growth so early in Patreon?s existence. In comparison, the first year or two of Kickstarter and Indiegogo were fairly flat. As those two sites helped to establish crowdfunding, people are more open to trying out Patreon, which helps it grow faster. Whether it will compete on Kickstarter?s level remains to be seen, but Patreon?s business model is smart: Instead of finite projects and relying on blockbuster campaigns to drive money and interest, the site works with ongoing projects. That means unless there?s a mass exodus, the platform theoretically should only see money and participation grow from here on out.

As for Kickstarter and Indiegogo: January was rough for both sites.