Patreon Cameos?

[ThisAdamGuy]

In really hoping my WIP, Road to Olympus, turns out to be my big break in the world of webfiction. If so, I'm planning to monetize it the usual way, by offering advance chapters on PayPal. But one unique idea I had that I really like is patreon cameos.

RTO is about a massive battle royale tournament between tens of thousands of superpowered combatants, with the winner ascending to godhood for the next decade. There's no way I'll be able to name and characterize all 10,000 contestants, and I don't even intend to try. But if I were to have a special tier on my patreon, people could submit their own characters to appear in the story in a brief cameo as a contestant in the tournament. They fight one of the main characters, they're defeated, and the story moves on.

Do you think people would be interested in that?

 

[MajorKerina]

How do you post chapters on PayPal?

 

[Zinless]

I don't know if people would pay to see their OCs defeated...

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

I don't know if people would pay to see their OCs defeated...

It kinda has to be that way, though. It would derail the entire plot if a random cameo character were to win and knock the MCs out of the tournament.

 

[Paul__Michaels]

This is a half-baked idea.

First of all, there would have to be a reason why an author would pay you to put their character or characters in your WIP. The biggest purpose being that it would help spread awareness of our creations to another possible audience.

So at this moment who are you in the grand scheme of authors? Not quite a household name yet, right. Like most of us. So we have no incentive at this moment to pay you to use other authors creations to help fill out a 10,000 person roster of Cannon fodder.

This might be a fun idea but it's something that you can only to do for the future if you establish yourself as author.

So my suggestion is to start a little smaller the Battle Royale style novel and use less contestants Just to see if this is something that the audience wants. And if you actually get popular enough then for might get other authors that might give you the right to use their characters.

Anyways, best of luck to you, dude.

 

[Simo]

Realistically, you can create a tier, say 10$ or 15$ they get to implement a minor character in the story. For a more advanced tier, say 50$ if you feeling it, they can implement an important character to the story, with the final decision remaining with you, and ofc guidelines such as the character follows the law of the book and make it make sense.

 

[melchi]

At what point would this just be ghost writing?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I have seen this work on Kickstarters but never seen anyone try it on Patreon. Might work best as a contest or something - open a window for anyone at a certain tier to design a character, and have every paid member vote on which ones (Say the top five or top 10) should be used, and maybe one that becomes a major player (but not an MC; perhaps they are forced to drop out after winning and forfeit, returning an MC "back into play" or something), or recurring NPC.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

At what point would this just be ghost writing?

When they actually write the chapter and aren't just providing a name a brief character description?

 

[Avery_Line]

In really hoping

In really hoping it's your big break... what? Or did you mean "I'm really hoping"...?

I'm planning to monetize it the usual way, by offering advance chapters on PayPal.

I have never heard of people offering chapters on PayPal. PayPal is not a marketplace, and has no means to offer digital products for sale that I'm aware of. So I wouldn't say that's the normal way. I don't even think it is a possible way.

But one unique idea I had that I really like is patreon cameos.

Like, you would do a cameo on other people's patreons? Or you would hire famous people to do a cameo on your patreon?

RTO is about a massive battle royale tournament between tens of thousands of superpowered combatants, with the winner ascending to godhood for the next decade. There's no way I'll be able to name and characterize all 10,000 contestants, and I don't even intend to try. But if I were to have a special tier on my patreon, people could submit their own characters to appear in the story in a brief cameo as a contestant in the tournament. They fight one of the main characters, they're defeated, and the story moves on.

Do you think people would be interested in that?

Are you asking if I would pay a premium to an unknown author to write up a character name and description for them, and then see what they do with my character in a sea of 9,999 other characters, without crediting me? No, I would not be interested in that.