Using Patreon As A Jeweler with Special Guest Emily Marquis

In today’s episode, I will be discussing how you can use the Patreon platform as a jeweler with special guest Emily Marquis. Emily has 17 years of experience and is a second generation jeweler. Her business Emily Marquis Designs which she runs with her husband Cal specializes in custom and semi-custom fine jewelry. She also runs Marquis Jewelry Academy located in Stonington Connecticut. She has been using Patreon for her jewelry business since 2019.

Check out my favorite portable phone charger Clutch, and save 10% with code METALSMITH: https://www.clutchcharger.com/discount/METALSMITH

You can follow Emily on Instagram at @emilymarquisdesigns and @marquisjewelryacademy

You can visit her Patreon to check it out or join at patreon.com/emarquisdesigns

You can find her jewelry and a link to her academy at emilymarquisdesigns.com

Be sure to join my Patreon as a supporter or with a free membership! patreon.com/metalsmithsociety

Follow Metalsmith Society for all the jewelry tips: https://www.instagram.com/metalsmithsociety

Music attribution: Stock Music provided by RomanSenykMusic, from Pond5

Transcript

Corkie Bolton: 0:01

Welcome to Jewelry Making Tips with Metalsmith Society the ultimate podcast for anyone passionate about the art of jewelry making. I'm your host, Corkie Bolton. Metalsmith Society is a community on Instagram that has over 240,000 individuals, from professional jewelers to small business artisans, hobbyists, students and even those curious looky-loos eager to learn about jewelry making. Together, we share tips, kindness and even those curious looky-loos eager to learn about jewelry making. Together, we share tips, kindness and support. In this podcast, I will discuss tips from the Instagram page, provide deeper insights, address questions and share bonus tips that often surface in the comments section. So, whether you've been making jewelry for a while or you're just starting your jewelry making journey, this podcast is your go-to resource for all the jewelry making tips. So grab your tools, dust off your workbench and join me.

Corkie Bolton: 0:53

In today's episode, I will be discussing how you can use the Patreon platform as a jeweler with special guest Emily Marquis. Emily has 17 years of experience and is a second-generation jeweler. Her business, Emily Marquis Designs, which she runs with her husband Cal, specializes in custom and semi-custom fine jewelry. She also runs Marquis Jewelry Academy, located in Stonington, Connecticut. She has been using Patreon for her jewelry business since 2019. Emily, thank you so much for joining me.

Emily Marquis: 1:27

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Corkie Bolton: 1:31

I can't wait to discuss Patreon, but before we start, I wanted to share with our listeners what Patreon is if they're not familiar with it.

Corkie Bolton: 1:40

So, basically, patreon is a website for artists, musicians and content creators to build community with their biggest fans.

Corkie Bolton: 1:52

Creators can share exclusive work and it really allows people to turn something that might have just been a passion or you know, their artwork that they were doing on the side into an actual lasting business. Starting a Patreon is free for creators and their fans, but you can earn income by having a paid membership, and so creators get a direct line to their communities. They can produce exclusive content. They can share things just with their you know biggest fans, and I've been using it since March of 2019 as a way for folks to support me in running Metalsmith Society, and my Patreon today is one of the main ways I support myself truly. It's allowed me to create this podcast, keep all my free resources and my blogs on metalsmithsociety. com updated and continue to post educational content on Instagram daily. So when I saw that you also had joined Patreon back in 2019, I was really intrigued. I'd love if you could share why you decided to experiment with starting a Patreon for your jewelry business.

Emily Marquis: 3:04

Yeah. So there was two main catalysts for me joining Patreon as a jeweler, one of which was I had actually started using Patreon to support a living artist, jamie Chiarello, who is one of my favorite painters down in New Orleans, and she had done a very cool thing, which was you pay a certain amount per month and she puts that into a shopping budget for you $25 a month towards $25 worth of paintings, $50 a month towards $50 worth of paintings. Her paintings were not cheap and I had become a collector of them, so I was like this is a perfect plan. It's a way for me to support her on a monthly level. And then when I see a piece that steals my heart or you know, I want a custom piece done, I've got money banked up to buy with and that really spoke to me as like somebody who wanted to support her on a daily basis. She's living her life. You know. She has rent, she has a child, she has, you know, to keep her car up and running. And it's not just about oh, you painted this, I want to paint you, I want to pay you. Now it's yeah, I understand that you have a life that you have to support and that's how we're going to keep getting these beautiful pieces of artwork. It's such a good idea, yeah.

Emily Marquis: 4:26

So when I joined Patreon, it was to support her, and that was 2019. And I'm still supporting her at $50 a month Wow, you know, we have a closer relationship because of that. I have more work because of that and, you know, I don't foresee a need to stop what I'm doing. That's very cool. So that's why I had originally joined as a member.

Emily Marquis: 4:51

Now, when it was time for me to kind of transition my business from down in DC back up to Connecticut which happened around 2019, 2020, I was talking with my friend, shannon Steiner, who is an art historian and had been a student of mine down in DC, and she was, like, what about Patreon for a way for you to continue your relationship with your students, to continue your relationship with your patrons like who are buying from you? What would that look like? And she and I kind of hashed out concepts for what we could offer my kind of broad clientele, because, as a teacher and a maker, there's two sides to that business model, and so that's what we came up with was the different tiers for students and shoppers.

Corkie Bolton: 5:42

So, before we jump into your different membership options because that's truly fascinating I would love to just generally hear how having this Patreon has benefited your business since you started it back in 2019.

Emily Marquis: 5:56

Yeah. So, the same way that I was using this to support Jamie, I created that environment for myself From day one, when I was advertising this to the people who are supporting us. It was about budgeting. It was about supporting the holistic business, not just. You know, I'm a jewelry maker, support me.

Emily Marquis: 6:18

You know, I was using our goals originally as we built up a bigger fan base, a bigger Patreon base, with hey, if we reach this goal of this number, I can start putting this money towards X, and when we reach this goal for this number, I can start putting it towards Y.

Emily Marquis: 6:35

And what those goals were was I could cover the electric bill for my studio, I could make sure that the rent was paid ahead of time every month and those kind of putting it in. That reality was not. It was not that I am going to use this for all of these wild and crazy things or these, these whiskey things. It was about supporting the business so that, month after month, I could worry less about are the bills paid and worry more about what are we producing and what are we creating and what are we offering. And so for five years now, that's exactly what it's done. This Patreon has supported our monthly recurring bills so that I don't have to think about that coming in and out of my bank account on the first of the month. Reliable income which is hard for artists to have.

Corkie Bolton: 7:29

Yeah, for sure, and you know you did touch upon this real quick. But just to explain to our listeners, patreon gives you the ability to have different tiers as a creator. Can you talk to us about that? What are your different options and what are the benefits?

Emily Marquis: 7:44

Yeah, so I definitely have played around with the tiers over the years. I started off with a very big buffet. You could say of options.

Emily Marquis: 7:55

There was free options. There was affordable options. There was kind of what I consider crazy wild options at $75 a month. I was like, ooh, you know, options at $75 a month. I was like, ooh, you know. And over the years I have adjusted those, I have consolidated them and um and I, you know, people who entered our tiers at lower levels have been grandfathered in as I've adjusted stuff. So I haven't deleted anybody from their commitment levels because I think that's a little unfair bait and switch kind of situation. So if you joined at a retired level, I have left you on that retired level as long as you want. You just can't go back to it if you leave it.

Corkie Bolton: 8:37

So I just, I just have to jump in here and interject that I too with my Patreon. I was like wild with the tiers. Originally I was like there's the one dollar tier because like one dollar, right, and I still, to this day, I think I have 201 dollar Patreons, you know right, yeah, and it's, it's, definitely they're getting so much benefit for that one dollar because I have exclusive discounts from tools and monthly giveaways and but I'm also happy to have grandfathered them in because they were those original supporters.

Corkie Bolton: 9:09

But yeah, it got to a point where it was like there were so many tiers. It was almost like, I think, option overload.

Emily Marquis: 9:15

Yes, Decision paralysis right.

Corkie Bolton: 9:18

Yeah.

Emily Marquis: 9:19

How do I pick which is the best bang for my buck? It's also the maintenance. As the person running this environment, this community, you have to go okay. Well, what did I agree to and what do I have to provide? And I think it's totally reasonable that over time, you, as a maker and the creator, are going to streamline your processes. So anybody who's going to be starting a Patreon or looking into it, don't be scared of having six tiers. Try it out, See what people are responding to and use that research to make decisions for your business. You may start it going full speed ahead for one direction and then realize that everybody is interested in this other direction and as a good business owner, you need to identify is that good for you? And should you go and double down on that, you know, instead of having your feet in the mud going no, I'm doing it this way. Why don't you guys understand?

Corkie Bolton: 10:20

You know Definitely, and so I do see, with your tiers, you have some, as you mentioned, that are geared towards your jewelry customer and the other ones that are geared more towards your students and people that attend Marquee Academy. Could you start with telling us about your jewelry customers? What are those tiers like? What are the benefits?

Emily Marquis: 10:39

Yes, so I have two main tiers that are paid tiers. So there's free memberships. That's not a tier, that's just you have whatever we have access to for free. Then my first paid tier is a contributor. This is somebody who just wants to send us a little cash every month because they think what we're doing is important or valuable to them and our community and in exchange for that, our contributors, who are paying $10 a month, get a 10% off coupon towards our jewelry that they can use once a year, and that has a cap of about $1,200. So I did realize that it was very easy to be manipulated. Now you don't want to plan for being taken advantage of, but you also do need to set controls where you go, okay, well, I'm not going to give you 10% off a $10,000 item just because you guys.

Corkie Bolton: 11:32

Ooh did that happen? Tell me everything.

Emily Marquis: 11:36

Not something that extreme, but I did find that people would be like they'd jump on, they'd take advantage of the discount and then they'd stop, and that's you know for somebody who's looking for reliable budgeting that doesn't really work for me. My Patreon is a thank you for supporting us on a regular basis, and so that's a gift that I'm giving you back for supporting me throughout the years, right.

Corkie Bolton: 12:03

Definitely.

Emily Marquis: 12:04

Yeah, the other tier that we offer is our VIP client tier, and now that is a contrasting $100 a month, so significantly higher. But what this tier offers is I take that $100 a month and put it directly into your savings budget. I don't take the fees out, I don't take a discount, you know whatever You're saving $100 a month with me, just as if you'd handed me a $100 bill, which I think is important. I'm eating fees because I think it's important that you're getting your full value. On top of that, they get 15% off a $5,000 purchase. Just once you know one item up to $5,000.

Emily Marquis: 12:49

If that item is more expensive, they're paying the whole price for whatever's over that. And then they also get some more like less specific, like tangible things they can do holds on one of a kind items. So if I advertise something that you just think is the most gorgeous piece you've ever seen the stone, the style, the whatever but you don't have enough money to buy it today, you don't have enough money in your budget to purchase it I'm going to hold it for you. You can claim it, that's mine, and when I've paid it off, I'll ship it to you. So my clients love being able to go oh, put that on my hold pile. I'm working my way up to that. I also put them on my close friends for my emails or my Instagram.

Emily Marquis: 13:32

These guys are getting behind the scenes. They're getting updates as soon as I have something cool and new to share with them. They're going to see that stuff sooner, because these are my VIP clients. These are my people. The last thing that we do that is really special is we do anniversary gifts. So once a year not on their anniversary, but on my anniversary for Patreon all of our VIP clients get sent out a little gift from us and it's what it's going to be is one of our top selling items, one of our hottest little charms or pendants. This is a little thank you. So they're building up a collection of our work in silver or gold just by being a member every year, and so that's our little way of saying not only you know do you get all this stuff, but like, here's something just I made for you, you know, which I think is a lot of fun.

Corkie Bolton: 14:26

I absolutely love that. I think it's so unique. I think it's definitely something that other jewelers and artists could, you know, emulate. It's a good time to mention that, the way that it works. Like my patrons get a thank you sticker and note that I nail out personally and sometimes my kids help me like pack the stickers if you get like stamps that are a little wonky but what Patreon does is it gathers everyone's shipping address if they've submitted it, and that's private information that's never shared. So you can always feel free to add your shipping address if you want to opt in to get a gift like what you're saying, emily, and then it's on you as the you know, as the person, the creator, that you individually ship them out. They do also have this feature now where they will create merch and ship it out for you, but what they're going to do is they're going to take a higher percentage of the money.

Corkie Bolton: 15:21

And you also mentioned fees and I have to say you know it's worth it, the fees that I pay for Patreon because they've created this incredible platform, a free app that's on Apple or Android, that's really easy to use. It's easy to navigate all the content you've shared. There's now these chat areas, too, where my Patreons can go and sell their gently used tools or they can ask questions and everyone's like interacting with each other. It's just really they keep building on Patreon and making it better and better. So, yes, you're losing a little bit of fee money, but I think in your instance you're losing a little bit of fee money, but I think in your instance, you're guaranteeing the purchase later on and you're building your monthly income, which is invaluable as a jeweler. But, yes, tell us more about Scholar. If someone is a jewelry student, how can they support you on Patreon? What are they getting?

Emily Marquis: 16:17

Right. So our Scholar tier is $20 a month and what that started off as was a guilt assuager. I am a teacher, I run a jewelry school and I have a lot of peers and jewelers and jewelry students who love to ask questions. And, of course, how else are you supposed to learn? I do not keep information as a. As somebody who has learned from lots of teachers, I don't think that I own this knowledge. It's mine to pass on and so if you DM me and ask me 400 questions, I'm going to answer most of them. You know I'm going to try and make sure that you're getting the information that you need and set you up for success.

Emily Marquis: 17:03

But I did find that I had a lot of people who were like I'm so sorry, I have another question. Oh, I'm so, and you know we live, we, we are operating on the internet. Not everybody can be my student. I have a physical, in-person school. I chose not to work digitally. That was a choice that I felt like I could be more present with my community and my students in person. So I don't offer online classes and that kind of thing. But what that meant was I still had a international set of people who looked up to me as a mentor or a friend or just somebody in this industry who was worth asking questions, and then they would feel so guilty that they weren't supporting me, and so the scholar developed as a way for them to go. You know what? I'm going to give you $20 a month. I'm always going to know that my questions are going to be answered and I can feel like this is a win-win for both of us, right? So I am your student in that sense.

Emily Marquis: 18:06

The perks that they get are instead of. You know, my school runs on like an hourly cycle, so if somebody wants to book a video call with me to go over stuff, I do an hour minimum. What if you don't have an hour? That might be a lot of time, it might be a lot of money. Maybe your questions aren't that involved. So my scholars can book half hour blocks of my time, which makes it a little bit more approachable, and so you're not trying to save up all your questions for that one hour call. And then they also have the opportunity to have 10% off our in-person classes, which, you know, we're a bit of a destination school. We're down by the ocean, so students do like to travel to us and make a weekend or a week of being in shoreline Connecticut and experiencing the school. So it's not unlikely that our students who are learning from us from across the country are going to want to come and spend a week with us at some point, and having that discount is a nice perk, I think.

Corkie Bolton: 19:11

Absolutely. How many people take you up on the video consultations?

Emily Marquis: 19:15

I would say about half of the people who are enrolled in the scholars actually utilize the video call and, like that might not be so formal as hop on Zoom, but it might be just hop on IG, you know video chat or you know. But I find just having me in their pocket, knowing that they can text a professional, is helpful. You know going, this person's going to answer my emails and they're coming from a place of authority and experience and I can trust that.

Corkie Bolton: 19:48

Definitely what is your most popular Patreon membership At this?

Emily Marquis: 19:53

stage, it's our VIP clients for shopping. People love being able to save up and budget for our jewelry, and that has been the most popular year after year.

Corkie Bolton: 20:08

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Emily Marquis: 21:03

so on, like a on like a day-to-day level. I'm occasionally mentioning it on ig, I'm sending it out in emails, I have it tagged. You know those like buttons, those hot buttons in your websites and your emails and your your link tree, and so it's omnipresent, right? The fact that I have a Patreon is present on everything. But my highest converter is in-person or warm sales. So if I have a client who is buying a lot of jewelry, if I have a client who is regularly shopping with us, if I have a client who is having a hard time saving up and budgeting because of whatever I do a warm intro I'm like, hey, by the way, I do have this. I don't know if you've heard about it, but this is what this could look like for you and this is how you can envision that working for you long-term if you want to keep shopping with us and so that that's usually the highest conversion for us is going. You seem like a prime candidate for this because of x, y and z. What do you think?

Corkie Bolton: 22:12

yeah, I would love if you had advice for other jewelers who are considering if Patreon might be right for them.

Emily Marquis: 22:21

Yeah, how would you approach it.

Emily Marquis: 22:23

I would take a look at what you are looking to offer your community. What can you actually add to your plate, right? So for me, not over committing with a lot of product was very important, because I didn't have the bandwidth to create more product for an exchange on Patreon Somebody who might be doing more merch, somebody who might be doing you know, this is not just a jewelry conversation. If you are a painter, if you are a graphic designer, if you are offering different services like consulting, take a look at what you have to offer your community and what you want to double down on offering your community and making it a little bit more streamlined, and assess if you can categorize those into monthly payments for somebody, because that's what this is Patreon is taking from an income generating point of view. It is taking monthly payments from your clients and giving it to you in a big, solid chunk which you can then reliably budget your business and your life with.

Emily Marquis: 23:41

When I'm talking to my students, other business owners, I love consulting and brainstorming business models, income generation I think that looking at alternative incomes, not just I'm a jeweler, I make jewelry, you buy my jewelry, that's that else can you offer your community? I can teach, I can consult, I can create custom jewelry, I can create stock jewelry, I can do wholesale items right. When we start looking at beyond just what your main income driver is, how else can you be bringing in income through your tool belt of skills? And so when I'm thinking about Patreon, I want you to think about it as one facet of your whole business, you know.

Corkie Bolton: 24:38

Yeah, I mean I can just speak for myself. You know, when I first started it out it was, you know I had dollar memberships and it was. It was this, this little little nugget for me every month. That was it really meant the world to me.

Corkie Bolton: 24:53

But over the years it has grown and you know, I've seen since I think COVID was like the ultimate in me selling Metal Smith Society merch, if I'm honest, people really came out of their wallets and supported Metal Smith Society t-shirts and stuff and then it was like, ever since then it's just been slowing down and slowing down. And I mean I'm still hiring a new designer every year to create a limited edition t-shirt. This year's design is amazing, but you know that slice of the pie of you know how I generate income for myself shifted, but thankfully the Patreon had also shifted and so I wasn't in a scramble, I wasn't solely relying on selling t-shirts to support myself in this work that I do. And so I think to your point. You know it's fantastic as a jeweler if you can come up with some diversity in how you're bringing in income and then if you do have a slow month in selling your work, you're not solely relying on it.

Emily Marquis: 26:03

Yeah, so for my business model, if we just kind of take a step back, I would love to just touch on a couple of the things that I do when I've been talking about multifaceted alternative income strains. I have my jewelry website, right, you can go online and you can order pieces that you see there. I have my Instagram. I'm posting in my stories, I'm posting in my feed jewelry that I am making and that is attracting a lot of custom. I love this. Can you make it like this? I have an entire line of jewelry that I strictly keep on Etsy that is separate from what I keep on my website, and the reason being it has a certain price point and it has a like, a like, a Google factor. People are looking for it, um, so, so people find it on Etsy. Those are my, my scarab, my vintage scarab pieces. Then, on top of that, I am teaching for the school. I am operating an entire ecosystem where people are interacting with me as an educator, helping them design and create and build their skills.

Emily Marquis: 27:18

And something that I have added in the last couple of years you were talking about the pandemic kind of changed how people were shopping, right, you had this huge influx because people were looking to support you during a very trying time and for me, I had realized that I wasn't gonna be able to go do markets, I wasn't going to be able to teach, I wasn't going to be able to teach, I wasn't going to be able to get all the income generating tiers that I thought I had had kind of fallen to the wayside.

Emily Marquis: 27:54

For me, and a little part of my story, is that Cal and I had moved from DC to Connecticut at the beginning of 2020 to open our jewelry school and had put all of our investments into getting that school up and running, just to close it two days after we opened. So so spring 2020 was a little alarming and, to say the least. To say the least, I had a, I had a fully, fully stocked, empty school and I had a new city and state where I knew nobody, I didn't have any community around me, and then I also wasn't getting any access to that community.

Emily Marquis: 28:33

So I really doubled down on my Instagram community, my international community. Out of that were these surprise boxes, which is now my annual sale opportunity for my clients to come and interact with things at a discounted rate. Right, I've thought for a long time that my jewelry I don't do sales. Clients do not expect sales from me because I'm doing a certain quality of work and they're getting a certain quality for what they paid for. But all of a sudden, I had all of this stock that I had created and I had a business that I needed to support and I needed to move that stock in a very effective and quick way, and so we designed a surprise birthday boxes.

Emily Marquis: 29:24

My birthday is in May and that is when we started them was. I wasn't about to have a birthday party or an event because, pandemic, you weren't getting together. And so for the whole month of May, we sold these surprise boxes with our products in them, and at the end of the month we would ship them all out and everybody would get you know some sort of cool piece of jewelry that we had made over the year. They wouldn't know what it was. It was just within a tier that they had paid for and that has become. We're having our fifth annual this month and that has become something that my clients look forward to, that they get excited by. It doesn't stop them from buying throughout the year, but they go. You know what? That piece that I haven't been able to afford? Maybe I'll get it in a surprise box.

Corkie Bolton: 30:11

Yeah, I mean, who doesn't like a surprise something? My kids love these surprise eggs. They don't know what toy is going to be inside. I mean, the idea is genius.

Emily Marquis: 30:23

And it's something that came out of a necessity of going. How do I create another form of income for my business? And now, here we are, five years later, and it's it's one of the most exciting times for our clients to do this big annual surprise box sale, so it's so fun and they're getting better value for what they're paying.

Corkie Bolton: 30:45

Like there's, you know, even more jewelry than what the box value is, which is so cool.

Emily Marquis: 30:53

Everything is more than you paid for in the surprise boxes, so it's a really great gift for them. And again, when we're talking about like, what can you provide your clients with? Like, that's a gift. They're helping me out. We're moving through old stock and we're talking fresh old stock six months old, seven months old, like. It's not stuff from years and years ago. It's stuff that's hot and trending and cool, but it's getting it into their hands and they're helping me go. Okay, spring cleaning, let's do new designs, because I'm not being weighed down by all this stuff that I just made.

Emily Marquis: 31:34

So I look at all this stuff that I'm offering my clients, like Patreon, like the surprise boxes. I'm going to give you something and you're going to give me something, and we're both going to feel like this was worth it. And so, when you're looking at things to offer your business, offer your clients, make sure that it doesn't seem like there's a catch. Like I love transparency with my clients, this is what I'm getting and this is what you're getting, and we're both going to be thrilled about that, hopefully.

Corkie Bolton: 32:02

Yeah, yes, absolutely. That's awesome advice, Emily, and you know, I think it's worth noting that at the time that we're recording this, we're all seeing significant changes with Instagram, where you know they're following a similar model as TikTok, where a lot of times in our own feeds we're getting served a lot of stranger content content from strangers, paid advertisements, but generally stuff that has really high engagement. So you're sort of they're trying to give you the stuff that they know you're going to like, but you might find that only every third or even fourth post is actually someone that you follow. And then, if you're like me and you're following over a thousand people, like there's some people that you're just never going to see a post from them, probably ever again, which is frustrating, you know. And so for me this is a bit of a dilemma, as it is for many of us, because I have my jewelry business at Corkie Bolton Jewelry and I want to continue to connect with my community there.

Corkie Bolton: 33:04

But even with Metalsmith Society, you know, my goal has never changed.

Corkie Bolton: 33:08

I want to provide educational content and tips, but if they're not really being seen by people and I can't connect with people as much, you know, it's a lot of effort and I want to make sure that I can continue to connect, and so that is really why I think, more than ever now, a Patreon membership is a really great way If you can just get people to say hey, you know, all you have to do is give your email and create a login for free membership entrepreneurship.

Corkie Bolton: 33:47

The way it works is as a creator, you choose certain content is going to be shown to free and certain is going to be for paid, and in your case, because you have jewelry students and people that are your you know jewelry customers, those people are only going to see the content that is meant for them. So it's really great as a creator that you have all of that control. But I'm asking all of my podcast listeners and members of our community to come on over to Patreon and, at the very least, create a free account, because it just means that I can connect with you and with all the changes in the algorithm there is no algorithm on Patreon you will see all the content, tips, discount codes and, for your people, they're not going to miss when you have a sale or anything else. So I just think it's really important to note that Patreon is looking more and more now to just boost this concept of just bringing the community back to a place where you have a little bit more control.

Emily Marquis: 34:48

Yeah, I think Patreon is definitely in this, this kind of sweet spot. I don't know if you recall, let's go back 15 or 20 years when Etsy was just starting to be this like this kind of cool place where you could find stuff, but your mom didn't have an account right. Yeah, and now two decades in it's owned by eBay and it's not what it used to be right.

Corkie Bolton: 35:14

Mm-hmm.

Emily Marquis: 35:15

Patreon has been around for near a decade and at first it was like Patreon, Like what is that? How do I even spell that? I'm going to get an account? Who's going to be on there? Now, there are enough makers in all of the different environments there are people who do video content, there are people who do music, there are writers, there are artists, there are jewelers out there so that, creating a free membership, you're going to not only have access to us as a free account, but you can also go find all those makers that you enjoy and start creating a space where you're interacting with them, supporting them. And you know it's not just going to be, it's not just us, Right?

Emily Marquis: 36:02

And I think, that's kind of exciting, totally to be. It's not just us, right, and I think that's kind of exciting. We've kind of reached this place and Patreon as a business is starting to up what they're offering and working on those interfaces and listening to the creators going well. What do we need to do to make this more user-friendly? What do I need to do to make you more likely to use these new features? They're always checking feedback from the creators how we can connect to our communities more, and so it's a very cool time to be a part of this website because I think it's reaching, it's like it's running pace. You know it's going really well over there.

Corkie Bolton: 36:37

Absolutely, Emily. I wanted to thank you today for sharing about your experience. That's really generous of you. I think it's a really fascinating topic and it was really cool to hear how you've been utilizing it. You can find Emily on Instagram at emilymarquisdesigns and at marquisjewelryacademy. You can visit her Patreon to check it out or join at patreon. com/ emarquisdesigns, and you can find her jewelry and a link to her academy at emilymarquisdesigns. com. I will put all of this in the show notes.

Emily Marquis: 37:12

Thank you so much for having me. This is an absolute joy to share a little bit more about this adventure I've been on and also, you know, just being able to talk it out right. We live on a. We live on a world where everything is just us putting information out there and hoping it's being heard or retained or or devoured, and being able to have a conversation is just really. It's part of that community that we're all looking for.

Corkie Bolton: 37:41

Yes, for sure I appreciate you, emily. Thank you so much. All right, thanks for listening. Bye.