Some of the podcasts I listen to (non fly-fishing) utilize crowdfunding to pay the bills, and I’m fascinated by this as a way of supporting fly fishing businesses, in particular for monetizing “free” content like Youtube videos. I haven’t produced a Youtube vid in quite a while, and to be honest the biggest reason is that I was getting very little in return. I have sold maybe 100 books from my Youtube vids in two years and booked one guide trip since 2009, plus some book sales through the shop which in all honesty are barely worth it (I make next to nothing selling the books wholesale to the shop). It was either spend two hours putting out a video I effectively made nothing on or spend the same amount of time tying 2dz flies or writing, which have produced a better rate of return.
This brings me to crowdfunding. Most of you have probably heard of Kickstarter, and while the idea of running a Kickstarter for capital investments is sort of interesting, I doubt it would work. There’s another crowdfunding platform called Patreon which is REALLY interesting. Basically, people pledge a small amount for each “unit” of content produced. So let’s say a video from my or Davie McPhail is worth $0.50 to you. You can make that pledge, then whoever you pledge to gets that amount every time they produce a video (or other creative work. An issue of FAOL could easily apply, if the site owners wanted to take that route).
Long story short: for those of you familiar with my videos, or Davie’s, or any other creative labor pertaining to fly fishing, how seriously would you consider signing up for something like this? I currently have about 900 Youtube subscribers. If 1/10 was willing to throw down $0.50 on a video, that would all of a sudden make producing them a lot more worth it from a financial perspective.
Very interesting Walter.
Some folks make the videos in order to “make a name for themselves” in a GOOD sense. If they become popular, they can often get bookings at fly fishing clubs and their conventions. Not a lot of money, but a bit like musicians holding concerts. That is done primarily to push sales of their records.
If the tier gets a big enough reputation through such appearances, YouTube videos, etc., then they might get a lucrative book opportunity.
Guys like Mike Lawson and Rene Harropp make good money from their books because: 1. They’re good and have lots of info to share; and 2. They have become well known. Lawson from his shop and his appearances across the country at fly fishing shows. Harrop from his famed flies and other products as well as his great art.
Even Hans Weilenmann has published a book with another tier. Such books, if purchased, are usually purchased because the potential buyer has heard of, or seen, some of their work and thinks it has value. This would be accomplished by appearances, YouTube type videos, articles published in tying/fishing books. If Hans had not developed a name for himself through his web site, photography, and tying videos, I doubt he would have had a book published.
I recently suggested a business model for a forum like FAOL, given presumed declining advertising revenue when data storage costs are rising might be to have a nominal fee for membership. The idea was not well received here.
But, speaking for myself, if one way of accessing good tying videos was to pay a very nominal fee, I would sure consider it. I own quite a few tying videos by folks like Harrop, bob Jacklin, Gary Borger, etc. I had to pay for them and they weren’t particularly cheap, either.
I think a good business model might be to sell uploadable tying videos through a video source similar to Amazon’s Kindle except the media would be on video v. Book form. Then, the purchaser would own his copy and could store it on his device or the cloud.
I reckon it all depends on your goals. I don’t own a fly shop, or work in the industry, so my situation is a little different. Not that that’s a bad thing…if I could make a fly shop work around here, I’d be all over it.
My books began out of a love for writing and my fishing journal. They were initially put in book form with “Tomorrows Fish” through Amazon as a way to have them in physical form for my kids. Maybe someday a great grandson/daughter would pick it up and learn a little bit about their grandpop. They are all self-published and sell modestly steady and I get good reviews. But if I were to be picked up by an agent things would add a twist to that. Although that’s a slim reality since unless you’re already a name they won’t bother with you. You get used to, “Loved your essays, but Essay Books don’t sell”…“Read your book and loved it, but unfortunately it doesn’t fit what we are looking for.” Basically saying “Who are you?” As it is, I’m not quitting my day job any time soon. My biggest payment quite honestly, are the “Thank you’s and Enjoyed it’s” I get when a particular essay strikes a chord, and I’ve received some very nice emails from folks who really related to one or all of the books. That’s priceless. But…it’s not my livelihood. If it were my thoughts would be different. Maybe some day I’ll make enough to buy a nice Bamboo rod. If I quit dumping all the proceeds back into Tying materials. LOL!
I started my blog as a way of building a database for my patterns, and began getting requests for video examples. Would it be nice to make some revenue off of the YouTube link? Sure. The thoughts intriguing.
Personally I think crowdsourcing is for suckers and considering how much free content is out there, your videos would have to be truly exceptional (i.e. better than McPhail or Wise) before I would consider micropaying for them…and then there is the whole have to trust another dodgy internet start up with financial information problem too. Having read two of your books, I’m not quite sure you are going to be able to distinguish yourself enough from a very crowded field.
I think you underestimate visibility you have gained from your videos, however. I bought the books because of the videos, and I put the shop on the map as a stop as well. Are the “Weekly Fly” guys making any money? There’s an example of an operation that has been around for a while, but really does not generate that much buzz, but perhaps they are secretly raking it in? Take it for what it is worth…
I make no videos. I write no books. I freeload on all the freebie sites I can. I do this because they’re available and do not ask for anything…HOWEVER…I contribute to every site that asks for donations. I click on every site I use regularly that has a “Contribution” button. I would contribute to all the great tiers and sites if there was a way to do it and beyond that I wish all the guys who do great videos of tying would have a way to buy flies direct from them. Hans is just one of my favorites and he also comes on a website I’m active in (speaking of bamboo) and shows us his great work and links to videos.
I do not know much about any of these various sites to help fund things but I have contributed a few times on sites for helping with medical costs, particularly with children. What is irritating is getting on an email list for doing this with more requests. So anyway, tho I don’t spend much time on this site I would happily contribute to keeping it alive. For me, I live on Soc Sec and pensions solely but have everything paid for so live comfortably. This allows me to make contributions of $10-15 when I have a site or link to do so and would do that here if requested.
I’m just trying to figure out a way of continuing to piece together a living in this sport. In the long run, Parks’ Fly Shop isn’t it. Richard is 71 and not interested in selling or even making contingency plans as to continuing the business if he dies. As it currently stands, I could continue to operate the Montana trips under my outfitter’s license on his wife’s behalf, but not the Forest Service or YNP trips, which constitute 80% of the business. Even if he would sell me the business, the potential for increasing the business significantly enough to pay for the lease or even better purchasing the building is minimal. The season here is just too short and property values are high. Those of you who’ve seen this building know it’s EMPHATICALLY nothing special, but it’s still probably worth about twice the business’ gross sales in a year and more like six or seven times the actual net. Moreover, out-of-staters (particularly residents of the Deep South) are buying any home or apartment that comes on the market here to turn into tax haven vacation rentals, meaning that falling apart mobile homes on 50x100 foot lots are going for $200,000 or more, and actual houses are almost all going for over $300,000. The long and the short of it is that I will probably have to move to Livingston soon. My landlord is making noises about selling my house, just like the apartment I used to live in (which sold to VRBO-ers from Alabama who now rent my $500/month basement apartment for $200 a night). I made an offer on the falling apart tiny wreck of a house that I live in now, even though I don’t really like it, and my landlady basically laughed in my face, which wasn’t too encouraging…
If I do that, I can expect to scrounge up maybe 80-100 guide trips, either booked directly or through other shops/outfitters. Look at Castwell’s old article about making a living as a guide to see what that actually works out to. Right now I’m making about $5000 a year tying flies and on track to make about $2000 a year writing. I think I can expand that last bit to maybe $5000, particularly if I write a book or two about general Yellowstone tourism. I see a particular niche there that isn’t being filled that I think could make 3-5 e-book sales per day (which translates to $6-10 bucks a day). Still, all in all, it all adds up to “not enough to not have to do something else come winter” if I ever want to buy a house. Doing something else in the winter will take away from the time I’m able to spend tying, promoting the guiding, and writing. So I’m looking at any other way of adding to the business end, and some sort of “freemium” model like the asst’d crowdfunding sites might be a way of adding another “every little bit helps.”
I do think the site owners of FAOL should look to putting out an actual e-book or PDF-format version of the issues, then set up some sort of donation-model for them. With web-based articles, it’s too easy just to click-and-ignore.
Yes, there is that link, but it has never been set up to use a paypal link yet. I’ve looked at it a couple of times for that. I did send an email to see if there is an email addy I can use for a donation but no response yet. When there is a way to send paypal I will. I do everything thru paypal today, or I can send directly thru my bank’s service, but need a place to send it.
LongsForCutts, from your post I gather the following: you WANT to make a living in the fly fishing industry but are finding it to be too difficult? You don’t WANT to “have to do something else come winter”… cost of living where you WANT to be is too high … you WANT people to pay you more for your flies, services, products… you think the owners of FAOL should “set up some sort of” way to channel money to you for the writing you’ve done on THEIR site…
Unless you are providing something on the internet which is significantly different from all the stuff which is available for “FREE”, why would anyone pay for it?
I certainly WANT to just do things I love and have people compensate me at the level I THINK they should! Reality is quite different! I MUST do something which provides me the means to support myself and my family at an acceptable level.
So basically you’re saying you don’t value what people on the Internet do enough to help them pay for it. Good to know.
If you re-read this thread, you will notice that in addition to trying to figure out ways to monetize the videos that I put out rather than just doing it out of the goodness of my heart, I was also speaking in a general sense. Everyone else who replied understood that, which is why this thread turned into a discussion of ways to help FAOL pay for itself. Your reply was actually a good illustration of why many people think FAOL needs to do something different with its issues. If you actually paid attention to them, you’d notice I haven’t actually written for this site and as such was making a general suggestion as to how I thought they might derive more revenue from it, not speaking of myself at all.
I think he Walter, is referring to his postings on YouTube-which are excellent. Spending my summers working in the Shoshone,over the past twenty years, I 've seen many good shops go under. The tourists who will pay $300.00 a night the absentee landlords, economic conditions of the area make property far more expensive than any income that can be derived from most business. Many people who were born and raised in the greater YNP are finding that they can’t afford to start out living in their own hometown. What he is saying is reality out there!
“So basically you’re saying you don’t value what people on the Internet do enough to help them pay for it.” If you want people to pay you for what you put on the internet, open a pay-for-subscription site! If you have content which is WORTH PAYING FOR, people will pay for it… it’s called a free market. Maybe put short trailers of your videos on the net and only sell the full versions. There are tons and tons of that business model all over the internet. If you don’t want to do it for free, and your stuff is that good, people will pay for it. You are correct- I’m not going to DIRECTLY pay to read a fishing site or watch a fishing video on the internet. I have donated to a few sites which had content I found exceptionally valuable to me… but those sites did not make it a requirement. There is SO MUCH “free” content available that anything I’d pay for would have to be unavailable otherwise… and fly fishing ain’t it.
Yes, reality SUCKS SOMETIMES! I don’t live in the hometown in which I was raised. I wish I did. It is where my love of the outdoors began. There is no longer much of a way to make a living with my talents and skills there. We all sacrifice, don’t we?
Me, or ten-thousand of me, paying for fishing videos on the internet are not going to make property values around Yellowstone affordable… I also can not afford to live where I WANT to live. Damn few people make a lucrative existence in the fly fishing “industry”… Not saying you can’t or won’t or shouldn’t. Starting from the dirt up though, you need to be something special for sure.
I don’t understand your perspective… you want to live in an area with a huge tourist economy, make your living by essentially having tourists pay you for your services, but you don’t want to deal with the effects of a tourist economy. Yellowstone is not the center of the universe. I’ve not been and I’m not going.
YouTube has options to “monetize” your videos. If you have 100 viewers, that won’t amount to much. If your videos are desirable and get 100.00 views, then it does add up. It might be worthwhile for you. Some companies who provide content to TV &/or videos are doing this. TV series can be found on YouTube, they appear to be offered by the companies owning the TV shows or rights to the TV shows (e.g. Acorn Media).
Walter,
You are a very accomplished tier. Your degrees have honed your writing skills.
Your guiding experience demonstrates your fishing and customer skills.
I think you will make it in the field.
I hope you can arrange to do some winter-time “shows” at fly fishing clubs. It doesn’t really pay (other than expenses), but it does build a following for articles, books, videos, etc.
If you do appear at shows, Parks Fly Shop should compensate you as you would also promote their shop/guide service for the next season.
It is a tough business…sure as heck is. I tied commercially through much of the 90’s…filling custom orders online. $2-300 a month through most of the year. Not enough to live off of, but I was active duty at the time. So it just ate up my fishing time. Debated for many years about trying a shop in central PA for awhile. But with a family it just ain’t in the cards the way the market is. If you can find your niche and make it work, my hats off to you. I would certainly be envious. These days Parkinson’s would never let me tie commercially. Life is what it is. Thankfully I have a career that still supports my fishing.
Sadly it’s an old, old story. 40+ years ago I came to Montana, worked two jobs, my wife worked and somehow we made it when many others that came around the same time did not. The only time I ever made a living from fly fishing was the year that I worked at Dan Baileys. Today it is even more difficult. The fly fishing world has changed, the way we get information has changed, if I want to know about something I can find it, for free, on the Internet. I survived in Montana for the first few years by working a jobs that I really did not enjoy until I ultimately found one job that would pay the bills, but even then my wife continued to work. Between us we made an adequate wage that allowed us to enjoy living in Montana. I wish you well in your endeavor to find something that will allow you to fulfill your dream.
As others have posted it’s really tough to make a living on the internet if you aren’t going big. Free content is simply too plentiful and often it’s of amazing quality. On another board there was a discussion about the F3T and how unhappy several posters were with this years’ line-up. Overall the assessment was the films were of poor production quality, generally uninteresting, and overall not worth the price of admission. I haven’t been recently, but I felt much the same way when I went. More than half of everything shown was an extended trailer for a lengthier film and only a few selections were “feature length”. I have a hard time justifying attending when most of the content I could have seen online for free. Given Orvis now has a “Fly Fishing Theater” site, it’s pretty easy to get good, high quality content and the cost is zero.
All this is to say if you are going to monetize your internet content you have to be exceptional and provide real value. Patreon and similar sites are great, but to make anything off it you’ll need to put out a lot of content day to day as you are only paid when your content goes live. Once live if it’s watched 10 Million times and you only have 1000 Patron’s you’ll only get the Patron donation 1000 times, so that means lots of content. Several artists (musical) I follow have begun using Patreon and they are putting out content 1-2 times per week in some cases just so they can make a living off it. In other cases the web presence leads to actual paying work and I believe in some cases that was the intention all along. YouTube and similar sites provide the exposure which leads to paying work. This being said, everyone I know who works in the fly fishing industry says that nobody is going to get rich doing so and perhaps that needs to be modified to “nobody will make a living”. Most of the guys I know who guide during the summer have full-time paying gigs during the non-summer months (in many cases teaching so they have the summers off). It may be that if you want to live near Yellowstone your only option is to find a paying gig which doesn’t involve fly fishing.
