Setup Done!

I've finally finished setting up everything for Ancient Rune! I've been working on it nights and weekends for the past week or two, and its finally done. Now that the infrastructure is ready, all that remains is to start prepping things to share. I've already got a list of topics I'd like to discuss. Here's what I setup so far...

Website

I copied my website template from my portfolio website, then made a ton of adjustments and re-SEO'ed everything. Should be good, don't think I missed anything. There's obviously a lack of content, but that will come with time. My old design blog posts will have to do for now.

The 'Runestone' is a page on the site where I'll list people who support me. I love the idea of my supporters getting their name engraved into a virtual runestone forever.

The Resources page is currently empty. I have a lot of digital assets for GMs I'd like to share- less so for creative writing- but the assets need to be cleaned up a bit, maybe made a little more user friendly, and ideally I would have an accompanying video/blog post for each to help introduce them and teach how I use them.

Patreon

I was originally going to go with Substack, and I might add that later, but as far as I can tell Substack's main feature is just a mailing list for newsletters. I've never been a big fan of mailing lists and I don't want to the spam in anyone's email. I'll stick to videos and blog posts for now, and Patreon supports a blog as well as Discord membership integration.

There are two tiers: Runesmith and Master Runesmith. All Runesmiths- which is the term I'm coining for my community members who are also supporters- get access to a private Discord server, and Master Runesmiths will get to participate in polls which influence what I work on next. I'll add other features as requested.

It'll take months to gain followers, let alone Patreon supporters, so I need to pace myself and not do too much too quickly or I'll get burned out if my monkey brain doesn't see numbers going up. I don't think I'll promote my Patreon until my YouTube channel gets going.

Discord

I was hesitant to setup a Discord. In my career in the games industry, I've seen the behind-the-scenes of managing and moderating a large Discord server, and its painful. Thus, I had no desire to create one. But then I was thinking about it some more, and how I don't feel like streaming on Twitch but it would be cool to do some form of live interactions with followers some day, and then a private Discord made sense. I figure if someone cares enough to pay to support my work, then they shouldn't be too much trouble to moderate. Additionally, since it is a private Discord only for Patreon pledges, if someone needs to be kicked from the server, they won't be able to easily make a new account and re-enter.

My main plans for the Discord are to host live events there- such as Q&As, playtests, and readings- and for there to be a place for the community to chill and discuss stuff. If the Discord gets to be too much to manage, and I can't find moderator help, I will shut it down. I would love to have my work be what a community gathers around, but I have no interest in being the internet police and moderating a community.

YouTube

I'm excited for this! I have experience making videos and growing a YouTube community, and I expect YouTube will be the main platform where new people find me. I'll need to make sure my video production pipeline stays simple, quick and easy, because editing videos drains my soul. The time to edit a video has an inverse relationship to the amount of videos I can make. And since I get bored with sticking on one subject for too long, editing a lengthy video is a slog. Like most of my stuff, I'll be aiming for a simple, unified edit without much flair.

Twitter

I setup a Twitter account as a sort of proxy for a mailing list. Instead of sending people an email when things go live, I'll just make a tweet about it. I think discoverability is decent on Twitter, but I'm not experienced with Twitter brand accounts so I have low expectations.

I don't plan to share news updates (like this post) on to Twitter, only content with actual value.

Content Delivery Plan

My workflow for delivering content will be as follows:

1. The new post/video/chapter is first shared early with Runesmiths on Patreon.

2. After 1 week, anything that isn't secret WIP stuff will be shared on YouTube and the Ancient Rune blog.

3. Eventually, secret WIP stuff will be shared with everyone once the project is complete.

Time-sensitive content and certain news updates (like this post) will be shared on all platforms as needed, without a Patreon early access period.

That's the plan! We'll see how well it goes. My biggest obstacle will be converting my creations into sharable media. I create stuff all the time- because that's what I love to do- but when the sharing process takes longer than the creation process, I get bogged down and stop doing both.

By the way, if you don't like reading posts like this, just ignore posts with the "personal" tag. Thanks for Reading,

Ross