I’m going to assume you know of the great arts patronage of the de’ Medici family, an over-simplification of their involvement in 15th century Florence. Because of all the art history studies in college, I associate the word “patron” with the de’ Medici family, and therefore, with quality art.

A year or so ago, I had a few people ask if I was on Patreon.

Patreon, the digital option of becoming a patron of creators of all types of content, was a platform I was on to support various other creative folks, but hadn’t really set it up for myself. I’d piddle around in there, but never really go through with launching an official Lone Prairie page.

Using Substack as a blogging platform was a way to get a little income off my writing, but more so was a better blogging platform in general.

Over the years, blog readers have anonymously sent cash in the mail. I’ve received a bath towel after a blog post bemoaning the worn state of my towels. I’ve gotten all kinds of unique reader support, and I’ve appreciated every single instance.

But I never really did Patreon.

It sounded so lofty. Patron! Patron of the arts! Patron of whatever! de’ Medici!

But some readers didn’t want to use PayPal, the only option I had at the time for those who wanted to support Lone Prairie somehow. It was a fair point; I’ve all but killed my PayPal use at this point for various reasons.

Just recently, another reader asked if I had different options and I decided to update those options to move past PayPal only, and include Patreon in there with the intent of developing that platform alongside this as my two content streams, with this blog being more posts/articles and Patreon being more personal/behind-the-scenes.

Yes, Virginia, I have a Patreon account.

I’m going to stop talking about it now.

It is embarrassing to talk about money in terms of asking people to please send me some. I don’t even like to talk about the books I’ve written or the things for sale on my website because I think it’s tacky to do so.

As you can imagine, I did a terrible job promoting my own books. I could feel my face getting red just being asked about them.

“Did you write a book?”

“Yes, but don’t feel obligated to buy it or anything.”

These are my sales skills.

I’m dying inside and have to end this blog post.