Reply To: Site Funding

[Ginger Herten]

So, I voted for adult advertising, but I do think it might make sense to do a combination of the above suggestions. Having adult advertising doesn’t mean you can’t also put up a paypal donation link.

I would be hesitant to rely on people using anything that requires electronic paying. It’s not like we can drop a couple of dollars into a tip jar anonymously. My paypal account has my name on it. My real actual name. The name I am known by professionally, the name I have on school contact forms, the name I was asked to consider running for a local political office under. A few of us might not have a big investment in being completely anonymous here, but most of us do. So very few are going to be comfortable using anything that tracks back to us. So setting up a paypal donation option and amazon affiliate link might bring in something, but probably not enough.

Trying to censor ourselves to please Google ads seems like a trap. Do we even know where their line in? Like is it ok to say “I went down on her” but not ok to say “I sucked her clit” or are they both a problem or both ok? Do we just have to avoid certain specific words (dick, pussy, etc) or any adult content. There are hundreds of stories here, and many of them fall into a gray area of PG13 to R rated content that might or might not be a problem for google. Even if we can, do we want to?

If you did set up a patreon, the obvious bonus would be no ads. Access to curated collections would be cool, but probably too labor intensive to be practical. Could theoretically combine with making the main site google ads friendly, and access to the XXX area is limited to patreon patrons. I’m not really loving this idea though.

As for worrying about feeling bad about profitting off the authors who publish here without compensation, I get that, but speaking for myself I appreciate having a site that I can just publish to anonymously and easily. I don’t go to the trouble of publishing on amazon unlimited where I could make some money for a variety of reasons, but I do get something out of sharing my stories. If it would help assuage you guilt, maybe commit to donate all profits above and beyond a certain amount. If you want it could be anything over: actual cost; taking yourself and any significant other out for a nice dinner once a month because you deserve it for the work you put in; and an emergency fund equal to three month of operating costs.