The Doozy™
👋🏻 Hello. It's been quite the week and I promised you a doozy™ of a newsletter this time. Before diving in deep, I thought I'd actually share a couple of quick bullets up top1;
- There is a new episode of MFP out with Javed Sterritt. Resonation throughout the entire chat with Javed. My favorite takeaway though was this bit about sticking with long projects and getting them across the finish line with excellence.
I need to honor the past version of myself that poured blood and sweat out for this video. — Javed Sterritt
- I nabbed all 120 Stars in Super Mario Galaxy. The only other Mario game I have done that with was 3D World on the Wii U. You can check out my notes on the game if you'd like.
- I am starting a Patreon. Let's dig into that.
How deep to dig, I'm not sure in this format, but dig we shall.
The push for this right now spurred from a conversation with my dad. To summarize a nuanced conversation down to a singular point, he asked me to build something of my own.
I have been creating online for over 15 years. I've tried and failed to generate income on my own. I have made some money freelancing. I have had that infernal, internal back-and-forth about whether or not I contribute value, often times measuring that value with clicks, likes, views, hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons, instead of assess the piece of work2 and myself on our own merits. I have been my biggest proponent and opponent.
My current job dynamic won't last forever, but it does give me an opportunity to have some space to build a thing of my own that can supply for my family. And if I have the time, space, and permission to build, I should honor both the ask and the past version of myself that poured blood and sweat out for this work.
Given this chance, I began crafting a Patreon model I think will work the best for my type of work. I have thought about and studied Patreons and memberships for years. I have so many thoughts on them and I wanted to practice what I (internally) preach. So here is what I am building out...
One Patreon to support three YouTube Channels, two podcasts, and one blog.3
Three YouTube channels? blink What? Yes. I've made the decision after some advice to make a "essay" channel that is a more curated, consistent experience. The third channel is The Max Frequency Library, a game footage archive that helps me justify hoarding all this absurdly high quality game capture.
Right now, my main channel is wildly inconsistent, not just in regards to views, but just the type of video I'll output. One day it is a video essay about miscarriages and the next is a Pokémon battle. It's channel whiplash. A focused experience that can promise some sort of content consistency is probably more important to a person, especially one that may be willing to support me.
A friend (hi wizawhat!) described Patreon to me like a funnel. I liked that so much I tried to draw out what Max Frequency does into that funnel.
The blocks up top are the wider audience grabbing bits; they have the furthest reach. As we work down the funnel, the reach gets more narrow, but the quality goes up if you get what I mean? If you are reading my blog, you are likely more invested in my voice than if you watch a casual video. If you love my thoughts on how Reggie snuck into Epic Headquarters and stole Fortnite code, you are probably more into my takes than if you just heard a podcast episode one time.
As far as increase in demean on myself, the lift isn't all that different than it is now. I was already making essays, they just have a new home.4 The Library is a lot of front end work, but once the current archive is uploaded, the channel will just release one video a day. I've have a bank of hundreds of videos as I keep recording and uploading new stuff. It'll be a machine that runs itself. Podcasts and writing are the same. That makes the pressure on me the same. I'm optimizing my workflow and presentation, not piling on more and more work.
Patreon tier wise, I settled on $3, $5, and $10. The rewards are in line with what I know I can promise and deliver. The $3 "Parvis" tier gets you this newsletter (more on the newsletter below). The $5 "Sic" tier gets the newsletter and at least 24 hour early access to podcasts and videos. The $10 "Magna" tier gets all that plus a producer credit on said podcasts and videos while subbed. Again, the lift there is light and doable on my end. I'm not over-promising. And it folds right into my beliefs on membership and what they can be best at/for.5
Before I go for the day, I wanted to talk about this very newsletter. It's going to be moving to Patreon. I'll migrate all current subscribers to the $5 tier for free. You can stay there and enjoy the newsletter. I wish I could keep using Buttondown, but I need to keep this as lean as possible cost-wise. Keeping everything in one place will streamline processes. Also, I think I am going to call this newsletter "Memory Card," which I think captures the whole chronicling of an adventure and sounds way better than "The Essay Diaries."
Okay. I think that is all. At least the initial gist. I have ideas and plans for launching properly, but I can cover those the closer things get to launch. For now, I need to hunker down and come up with a name for this essay channel and pray the name is available. Next newsletter, I will get back to our regularly scheduled essay creation behind the scenes and discussion. Lots to talk there with Galaxy and a new idea I am currently writing. 👀 Until next time.
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What does Nintendo call these? Headlines? ↩
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I hesitate to call my own work "art," even though it probably is by some definition. ↩
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And this newsletter, but the three, two, one was too nice to break up. ↩
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Once I come up with a name. Why is naming always the hardest part? ↩
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More on that in a future blog post, but read this from Tim Carmody for a solid basis. Or anything from Craig Mod's years in review posts. Those work too. ↩
This letter is one block from the newsletter Memory Card by Max Roberts. Thoughts? Send me an email at max@maxfrequency.net.
Max is the writer and producer behind Max Frequency. cultivate and curate curiosity—both for himself and for others—by delighting in the details and growing greatness from small beginnings.
He's written a rich history and dive on the making of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II, celebrated the 15th anniversary of Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the voice behind its hype, and examined how Zelda "stole" Fortnite's best mechanic.
Memory Card is a real-ish time, raw, drip feed newsletter of his creative process for telling these stories. It’s how The Thing™ gets made.
It's all powered by Max Frequency and patrons.
Wanna see The Thing™? Check it out on YouTube. Read it on The Blog.