It's been so long! I am truly terrible at “email marketing”, but I'm choosing to count that among my desirable personality traits.
I'm dusting off the old Campaign Monitor account to drop another one of my overwrought essays on how I am squaring our little creative project with the financial realities of the world, which I loathe. Long time subscribers will remember my screed from when we sold our first playmat.
We’ve finally created a page on Patreon so those of you that wish to support Lucky Paper Radio and all of our projects can now do so. This is not a decision I made lightly. I’m profoundly skeptical of the urge to monetize one’s hobbies and for five years I’ve been really proud to make a show that asked nothing of its listeners. However, I am burnt out on editing the podcast. I still love recording it and sharing it with everyone, but the 3-5 hours a week it takes me to edit every episode has become too much. I’ve got other creative projects I want to make room for in my life and need a break.
So, we’ve found an editor to help, Matthew, who is a long time listener and a seasoned audio engineer. It’s going to cost $200 per episode to edit the show, so we’re trying to reach ~$1,000 a month on Patreon to cover those costs. It’s a lofty goal and I don’t know if we can reach it, but at the time of writing we’re incredibly already halfway there. If you’re reading this and have already backed, thank you.
Supporters on Patreon will receive a couple of benefits. First, access to an entirely new, bonus podcast called “Magic Doesn’t Exist”. On this unedited show Anthony and I talk about whatever we want — as long as it has absolutely nothing to do with Magic. If you love our tangents about pickles or video games or weird YouTube channels, this podcast is for you. I don’t like the idea of recording any Cube or Magic episodes and then holding them hostage, hence the restriction that we cannot talk about Magic on the bonus feed. If you only care about Cube and don’t want to back us on Patreon you are not missing out on anything! Isn’t capitalizing on people’s FOMO so gross?! Supporters will also get access to our Discord. I’m not sure what that community is going to be just yet, as Anthony and I both plan to still primarily discuss Cube on the main “MTG Cube Talk” server, but I’m excited to find out.
If, somehow, we exceed our goal of subsidizing the editing of the podcast on Patreon, we have a couple of ambitious stretch goals. Parker, who has long been the editor in chief of the website, has requested a fund to pay aspiring writers to publish articles on Lucky Paper. We have not sought contributions from other writers before because we could not offer compensation, but it would be lovely to invest in more writing about Cube and game design more broadly. I also have a dream of sponsoring players that otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to attend a local, grassroots Cube event. They are such a great way to solidify our community and the only sort of Magic event I have any interest in attending. If we could pay the way for some of our format’s best ambassadors we’d be supporting these small events while simultaneously helping to make them more diverse and accessible. I would be so insanely proud if we could make this happen.
Given that we’re asking for money, I want to be transparent about exactly where that money is going. So, we’ve decided to open up our books and built a page on our site showing all of our income and expenses for Lucky Paper since its inception. We’ll update this monthly moving forward. I hope this will also be instructive for anyone who is hoping to turn a podcast or website into an income stream.
If you’ve got an extra couple of bucks a month and love the show or any of the other work we do at Lucky Paper, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Otherwise just keep listening! The normal, Lucky Paper Radio feed will remain ad-free and unchanged.
Andy