One of the questions I’ve heard more than once over the years is, “Can money be made from podcasting?” The answer is usually “Not really.”, but there are people that do it. Some of them do so indirectly. People listen to their podcast fiction and buy their book(s). Other’s have set up a “subscription” model through Paypal. Still others, at least in the podcast fiction world, go through Podiobooks where listeners can donate and the author gets a large percentage.

There are a few problems with these options. Some people don’t want to buy your books. They’re happy to listen to the podcast and then move on. They might, like me, want to throw you a buck or two for the entertainment you provided without adding to their collection of stuff. Other people have an undying hatred of Paypal. And on the creative side not everyone wants to deal with putting their stuff on Podiobooks (I’ve yet to), or their content might not be fiction.

Is there a solution to these issues? It turns out that there may be. It’s called Flattr. (I know, I know, again with dropping a final vowel.) How does it work? It’s pretty simple really. Sign up for free. Put some money into your Flattr account using a major credit card or Paypal. Then “Flattr” content creators that you want to support. Every month an amount you budget is divided by the number of Flattrs you distributed and 90% of that money is given to the creators. Flattr gets the other 10%.

There’s a problem with this, though. I can’t Flattr you if you don’t sign up for Flattr (well I can actually, but you don’t get any money unless you sign in). So help me to help you and other content creators. If you’re a fan of podcasting and other content creators, sign up and get to Flattr’ing. If you’re a creator, do the same thing, but also make sure to add a button or widget to your site and let us know that you’re using it and why.

Let me bottom line this for the consumers out there though, if you’re listening to, watching, reading, or otherwise enjoying something find a way to thank the creators. Comments are awesome. Retweets and shares are great. Getting paid is even better. Let them know how much you value what they do!