Patreon's changing how they charge Patrons

Hey folks!

You’re all amazing.

Seriously. Everyone at Rusty Towers is immensely grateful for your support and your belief in us as creators. When we started this, we could hardly believe we’d have come so far, so fast. We’re bowled over.

By now, you’ll have heard of the changes Patreon is proposing to make to the way it charges patrons and creators, notably moving the costs of processing the pledges onto you all. We’re very aware that this really hurts folk who support multiple creators, who support at the small dollar level, who support per piece creators. We add our voice to all the others by saying that we value any contribution you make, be it $1 or $10+. We really wish this wasn’t happening, especially at this time of year. If we could absorb the transaction fees once again, we would quite happily do so, but we’re not being given that option.

We fully understand if the changes and Patreon’s behaviour mean that you need to cancel or reduce your pledges. As of next week, the Rusty Citizen tier will cost you about $2.41, Rusty Knights will be charged $5.50 and Rusty Nobles will pay $10.64, with other pledge amounts varying accordingly.

We still have some hope that Patreon is paying attention to the backlash this has caused, including the exodus of creators, and will revise or cancel their plans. However, we have heard next to nothing from them since the original announcement. We are looking at alternative support mechanisms, but the reality is there aren’t other platforms as yet that will allow us to deliver backer rewards as readily as Patreon. Being UK-based, we also have some awkward tax administration that they currently take care of.

We are investigating what our best options are and we’ll say more, hopefully next week, when we’ve looked into the alternatives, such as readjusting the existing tiers. We do have a Paypal account available on our website (http://rustyquill.com/support/) if you wish to use a different support method in the meantime (but, alas, we can’t sync that to any supporter rewards).

Again, thank you so, so much for all that you folks do for us!

The Rusty Quill Crew