We are back online! Server fundraiser comments.

Maybe you could have short story contests where entrants pay to enter a story (not very much money) and the winner gets the glory of winning and maybe half or a third of the money from the entry fees?

Also, anyone can have a link to amazon on their blog/website, etc. and amazon will give that organization a small portion of the money spent. Maybe you could add a link to amazon somewhere on the site. I know this wouldn't generate much, but every little bit might help.

 

@A.M.P. - I've not done it, I was just wondering. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Oh, I didn't mean you specifically.
Just a warning to everyone in general.

 

my eternal thanks to all who helped out with contributions, for saving the site!!!

wish i could've helped, but i've already used up most of my ss check and next one not due for another 2 weeks...

you're a great bunch and daniel's a saint, for having kept this site the best on the net, all these years!

love and lotsa hugs, maia

 

Had no idea about the spot the site was in - my computer & the internet where I get on has been acting fluky.
Grateful everything's up n' running again!

Since everyone's got idea's on how to generate money - here's my two cents. How about a tab where people who self publish can pay to advertise their book here. They could post a cover and a link to their Amazon or publisher's site and a small sample or description of their book.

 

I think it should be more informal than that.

"Financial supporters get extra privileges" is certainly a good idea, but I don't think that "start charging for specific existing privileges (entering contests, etc...)" would work as well as just having someplace for members to donate anytime, showing a progress bar someplace that compares the donations received in the month so far to the site's eventual expenses at the end of the month, and counting on donation traffic to increase if it gets to be close to another emergency.

Thanks, every little bit helps.
Oh, you meant you had an idea?

That could certainly help.

 

Well, I just contributed, even though you reached your target. I didn't know you were in bother or I'd have given money earlier. Please don't feel bad about asking us for money, or bankrupting yourself, Daniel. Just ask if you need more.

I'd go along with that. Maybe with a progress bar, to let us know how full the coffers are? Some of us are in the fortunate position of having some disposable money to hand; others are not. I think it would be a mistake to start tying membership on the forum and/or ability to fully participate in the forum to donations. Or at least not till you can't raise money any other way.

It might be a plan to NOT offer cash prizes for contests, though. I don't see the point of that.

 

Good idea. Or at least tone them down until the site's revenue is more reliable.

 

'Just a quick note, do not click on the same ad or multiple ads like crazy over and over.
The ad company can easily see where those clicks are coming from and if the same person does it over and over to generate false "views/clicks" they can stop paying Daniel.
Click on one ad, now and then, at best.'

Or they could read this board and see it's just a cunning ruse.

 

That's awesome that we got back up to speed so fast. Props to you all!

I've got an idea that I saw touched on in my quick skim of this thread, but wanted to expand:

I don't know about everyone's feelings about them, but there are a TON of good and legitimate independent publishers out there. I think many of these would be willing to throw a little money our way. If we could get just $5-10 a month from a few of them it would be a big support.

We would get the financial support, and they would get street-cred as being publishers that support aspiring authors and could be could add themselves to the list of Publisher Resources, where they could advertise their calls for authors and such. I think this would also give the forum credit for not only supporting aspiring authors in writing, but also in getting publishing.

Off the top of my head I can think of three legit indy publishers that I've either worked with or personally know people who have published through them. I also follow another three that look good but I haven't tracked down their credibility yet.

If we even got those six to buy-in at $10 a month that would be 35% of our minimum costs.

 

$250/40,000 members... that might work.

As people have said several times, newer members are likely not to donate since they might not yet have realized the value of this site, but just by adding a $1/month subscription (and advertise of it's existance as suggested in earlier posts) would probably get at least a small part of WF's 40,000 members to donate. $1 is after all not especially much in terms of money and a lot of those who might consider donating could probably afford such a small fee.

PS. This reminded me that I was supposed to give a christmas gift to WF. Well, as they say: "Better late than never."

 

While I agree that it should be that easy, I think that the reality is that it is not.

If we apply a membership fee, even a nominal one, new members will be deterred simply because they don't want to invest the time to set up the payments. They'll just go to the next free forum instead. Likewise, if we just ask members nicely to support, like we do now, very few will do it because it there isn't enough motivation to spend the time making even nominal payments (until the site goes down of course).

 

It might need to grow a bit more in popularity before introducing a fee. We especially need more people interested in voting.

 

I know that it might not be enough by just adding a $1 voluntary donation, but adding one would not harm the forum in any way. And like the existing subscriptions it would be possible to choose "recurring" so that you only need to set up the payment once and thereafter it will be handled automatically.

As I think someone mentioned before, every little bit helps.

Pay-for-access is not a payment model I can say that I like and it would probably harm WF beyond repair.

 

Though I'm still new, I'm so impressed with what I've seen that I've upgraded my account to yearly Supporter status.

 

Even with mine & Jannert's idea for putting a visual somewhere that lets people see how close we are to an emergency?

 

I think that is a good idea and will certainly help. I was just trying to say that people in general don't respond until pushed.

 

Yeah, although I thought maybe a monetary prize would get more people to enter.

 

That is exactly on the money.

Do not click on the ads for the sake of clicking on the ads. If you see an advertisement that interests you, of course click and see what they have to offer. However, Google knows when fake clicks are generated and will suspend Daniel's account.

 

It's a tough choice. On the one hand, the other writing forum I frequent is a site that requires a paid membership, and it therefore attracts a higher percentage of people who are really serious about writing and a lot of people who have published and know about the writing business.

But, writers are generally not the wealthiest of people. There certainly are people who can't afford to spend anything extra on websites, even writing sites. It also would prevent a lot of younger members from joining, as a lot of people who are under 18 don't have a credit card, or easy ability to make a payment on a website. (Although maybe more do, with paypal connected to a bank account -- I'm not really all that in touch with what many norms are for teens these days, as my kids aren't there yet.)

And it's hard to see a real benefit from a writing site without spending some time on it, so an initial fee would be a disincentive to join. (The other site I'm on put on some conferences, and if you were a member, you got a discount to the conference, which was greater than the cost of membership, so it was an easy decision for me. We don't have a comparable offering, so membership would merely make it more exclusive.)

Duotrope had to go to a pay site earlier this year, because they couldn't survive on donations alone. The sad thing is, if a lot of people had contributed even a dollar, the site could have remained free. But instead they had to go to $5 or $10 a month -- I can't remember what the fee is. But it's enough that casual users won't join, and in some ways that hurts everyone.

 

Yeah, paying for access to a site deters anyone from joining as they don't really know what they're getting.
I believe there are perks and advanced access that can be sold to prospecting members without making it so "casual" members don't have a chance to properly participate.

It's only 170$ a month, it's not so huge.
I believe there is a right way to balance it and keep casual and senior members happy all the while growing the website.

 

There are some people here who do editing and proofreading work, how about letting them do their work here and the site receives a commission of the cost? I'm not talking workshop type stuff, but full novel deals. So if a person edits at $.03 a word on a 50,000 word novel, that's $150. The site could get $25 of that and the rest goes to the member. It could be almost like elance.

 

I actually want to become a proofreader if becoming a full-time writer doesn't work out, so this idea works splendidly for me.

 

I plan on getting a Supporter membership as soon as I can afford it. I just had to pay over $20k in tuition, so I'm a little short on cash.

I'm definitely against making people pay to access the site. Membership would drop, and you would lose sponsors as a result. Besides, not everyone can afford to donate.

One thing I think would help is growing the Resources area to include more publishers and magazines taking submissions. Hopefully that would attract more members and make it easier for you to get sponsors in the future.

 

You would need a bunch of staff members with the sole purpose of critiquing work on a regular basis in a VIP workshop, limited to paying members. In that workshop, anything you submit is guaranteed a full review. Consider making it for full length novels, where only the poster and the staff can see it, and there's some sort of confidentiality agreement. Essential, you can charge people for beta readers.