Until about two years ago, I ran ads on this site to help cover its costs. It was an unpleasant experience. Despite my ad provider’s promises to the contrary, the ads generated pop-ups and videos that played automatically. Sometimes music would play, and there was no way to shut it off. I had to keep emailing their support team to make the ads behave. My few inconspicuous ad placements generated about 20 bucks a month. I could have made more if I had plastered ads all over the site, but I think that would have turned many of you away. The money I made wasn’t remotely worth the hassle. I finally had enough and disabled the ads.
Some of you told me that you’d like to support my work, so I set up an account with Ko-Fi and put their “Buy me a coffee” button on my site. Each time you click it, you can send me $3, or any multiple of $3.
Since then, I’ve dropped that button at the end of every post. I announced it at the time, and I mentioned it one other time, but otherwise I’ve not promoted it. To my astonishment, you have responded generously! In an average month you donate $30 on Ko-Fi! That’s one third more income than the annoying ads, and I do next to nothing extra for it. Win!
Your donations have bought a ton of film and developing as well as several old film cameras, all of which I have featured on this site. They also helped me buy a dedicated scanner for 35mm negatives, which significantly improved the quality of the scans I share with you.
As always, any time you click that button I will be most grateful. Every time Ko-Fi notifies me of a donation, I feel honored and validated — my work matters enough that you’re willing to support it financially. But if you never click it, you are always wanted and welcome here!
I considered other platforms to help me cover this site’s costs, but they were more complicated for me and for donors, and to get the most from it I would have had to create special content for those sites. I’d rather share all of my writing and photographs here!
Ko-Fi offers many of those features, and they keep offering more. They recently announced an integration with the Discord community platform, and soon will release Ko-Fi Memberships where supporters can subscribe monthly at whatever level they choose. But you don’t have to use their extra features to get value from it, as my results show — and the basic Ko-Fi service remains free for creators like me.
If you’ve supported me via Ko-Fi, again I say thank you! And thank you to Ko-Fi for your easy and valuable platform.
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