I love the idea behind Ko-fi! It's a great way to allow fans to support you directly, without any intermediaries taking a cut, and without having to commit to a lot of additional work. And it allows you to earn that extra without having to resort to ads, affiliate marketing, or over-the-top promises while peddling courses on how to become rich/famous/happy/successful.

And it's a huge motivational boost if someone actually sends some money your way because they love your work.

However, unfortunately it doesn't work that well. Even if you have readers who adore your work, the vast majority of them will not support you financially. It's a well-known problem called the penny-gap problem: people will happily read your stuff if it's free, but they'll bail if you ask for as much as a penny.

I mean, out of my 11.7K followers, only 6 are currently willing to support me directly every month. And although I love them for that, it does show you that you need a massive audience (probably in the millions) to make a patronage system really work.

So I guess there's a reason why so many bloggers specialize in selling dreams of success. People fall for that all the time and don't mind paying for false promises. Trying to make an income from fandom and generosity, on the other hand, that’s way harder. But I think it's more honest and so I’ll keep trying ;)

And maybe the problem is just that I haven't found my 1,000 true fans yet.