I’ve been planning on writing this post for a while, but a reminder about my upcoming hosting/domain fees has brought it to the forefront of my mind. I’ve been running Track of Words for over six years now, and I’ve finally reached the point where I feel like I need to start asking readers of the site if they – you – are able to help support Track of Words. To that end, I’ve added a new page to the site, called (appropriately enough) Support Track of Words. I wanted to take a moment in this article to explain what I’m asking and why.
What’s the situation?
Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that this isn’t a website run by a team of people – it’s just me writing all of the reviews, putting together the interview questions and so on. Don’t get me wrong, that’s how I like it; I can contribute to other sites when I’m in the mood for collaboration, but I enjoy the autonomy of running Track of Words by myself. That being said, it’s a lot of work – I published over 248k words across 251 articles in 2019, and 310k over 348 articles the year before – and I spend the vast majority of my free time either reading or writing in order to maintain that sort of rate.
It’s not just time that this takes, though – it also costs a fair amount of money. There are two main costs, which probably won’t come as much of a surprise:
- Reading material: I buy the majority of the books, short stories and audio dramas that I end up reviewing, although I do get a few review copies from publishers as well.
- Site hosting: while it’s possible to run a site like this using free tools, I pay for the trackofwords.com domain and web hosting so that I can get rid of the awful adverts that plague so many free sites, and maintain control over the site (although I really should do more on the visual design side).
In the grand scheme of things we’re not talking about vast costs for hosting and domain fees, but £80 or thereabouts per year is still a cost that I don’t normally recoup. It’s harder to say exactly how much I spend on books/short stories/audios, but to give you a rough idea, here are some approximate numbers based on the number of reviews I posted in 2019:
- 63 books at an average of £8.99 per book = £566.37
- 86 short stories at an average of £2.49 per story = £214.14
- 15 audio dramas at an average of £9.99 per audio = £149.85
- In total that comes to £930.36
I appreciate some of the books were novellas – therefore considerably cheaper – but equally some were Limited Edition hardbacks which were MUCH more expensive. Similarly some of the short stories will have been included in anthologies so the individual cost would be a little lower. Nevertheless, taken as a rough approximation that’s still a lot of money’s worth of books and so on, and even if I aimed to get half of those stories as review copies from publishers (which is highly unlikely) we’re still talking well over £400. Of course, I would be buying some of the same books etc. even if I wasn’t running Track of Words, but not all of them.
What’s the ask?
In principle I don’t mind spending money on reading or on running Track of Words, but I have to be realistic – I live on my own in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and any money I spend on this site is money that could be put to other uses. I love running Track of Words, and I’d like to make this as sustainable as possible, so I’ve decided to start asking readers to contribute anything they can towards the site’s costs, if – and this is important – only if they can.
It’s important to me that Track of Words remains as widely accessible as possible, so I don’t want to go down the Patreon-esque route of rewarding paying subscribers with special content. To be fair, I wouldn’t have time to put any more content together, anyway! Instead, I’ve set up a way for anyone who would like to support me to do so as easily as possible, which I’ll explain in a moment, while I’d also like to talk a little about other ways you can support what I do which don’t involve spending any more money than you do already.
Ko-fi
You’ll notice on the new Support Track of Words page AND on the site sidebar that there’s a button which looks a bit like this:
[kofi]
Clicking that button takes you to my new Ko-fi page, where you can – if you want – buy me a coffee. You won’t actually be buying me a coffee, but rather you’ll be contributing £3 towards the costs of running Track of Words [I didn’t choose the £3 point, that’s just the default which I can’t change without paying a monthly fee…which sort of defeats the purpose of a Ko-fi account].
The idea behind Ko-fi is that it’s a way of encouraging small donations from fans – or in my case readers – which feels appropriate for the position I’m in. I don’t want to ask you for regular recurring payments or any form of commitment, and I don’t want to put any Track of Words readers under any obligation – if you don’t want or can’t afford to support what I do, that is not a problem! If you do want to support me, however, this way feels like a good solution to me…even if asking for any form of monetary support instantly sends my reserved British sensibilities haywire!
I don’t really know what to expect from this, but I figure there’s no harm in making the ask and seeing what happens. Any contribution, however large or small, is going to be very welcome and will make things that much easier in terms of sustaining Track of Words – so thank you in advance to anyone who’s interested in supporting what I do!
Other ways to support
This new Ko-fi page is only one way you can support Track of Words – there are other options too, which don’t require you to personally send any money my way! Have a read of the new Support Track of Words page for more details on those, but here’s a very quick breakdown:
- Amazon referrals: I know, I know – the big A is hardly the most popular company around these days, but their referral scheme is pretty good. I’ve been adding referral links at the end of reviews for a while – pretty much anything you buy after clicking one of those links will result in a (small) referral fee, so please do use them if you can!
- Share and recommend: it sounds a bit cheesy, but using your own networks – social media, blogs, forums etc. – to share links to Track of Words is always, always a good thing. Costs you nothing, too!
Just to reiterate, though…Track of Words will remain free. If, and only if, you can afford to throw me some money via Ko-fi or buy some books (or anything else) on Amazon via one of the referral links, I’ll be very grateful and you’ll be making a genuine difference to the sustainability of the site. If you can’t though, that’s not a problem! I’m grateful to you just for visiting and checking out the site.
If you have any thoughts on this topic, please do let me know. I want to be as transparent as possible so I’m very happy to answer any questions you might have on why I’m doing this (although hopefully the article and/or page will answer most of those), while I’m very much open to ideas, comments or suggestions. Get in touch via the comments below, or come find me on Twitter!