Buzztracker gets a lot of traffic. It also costs a lot to run. The maintenance cost is mainly in servers — it takes a lot of horsepower to handle 450,000 to 500,000 unique visitors a month. But on top of servers is, of course, my salary (when I'm working on it full-time). We're wary of slapping ads on it for the sake of revenue because it was never initially intended as a direct money-making mechanism. So instead of bombarding people with Google ads, we added a simple link for donations. We figure, if you use buzztracker (and obviously, a lot of people do — regularly), then you could probably afford to give up five bucks.

The thought process was like this: if just 1% of 1% of the people who visit buzztracker.org donated $5 a month, we'd cover server costs and be perfectly happy. 1% of 1% is not a lot. At least, I don't think so. And we have enough traffic where that small percentage is, while not huge, enough to help us along and continue offering the project to the public.

So in the two months we've had the donations link up, how much money has come in? Five bucks.

Which equals 0.0001%. (Our goal was 0.01%)

*sigh*

We didn't expect an outpouring of support but we did expect a bit more than that. Call it what you like — faith in humanity, the impossible optimism you need to run a small publishing company. If anything, this feels like it's been more of a curious experiment than a futile plea for cash. What we've learned is that people don't give money when they absolutely don't have to.

So what are we to do? Making books is expensive. We'd like to make a lot more. In fact, it's rather stupid that we don't make more than we do — and we would, had we an infusion of cash. We have a national distribution network and a small but acutely dedicated team. We also like to think we have a finger on the online and digital publishing pulse. There are lots of interesting things to be put out there in beautiful little packages but not a whole lot of money floating around to do it with. Last year we stumbled through our birthing process; this year has been the year in which we defined ourselves in broader strokes, and 2006 is going to have to be the year we pull all of these bits and pieces — our books, our online work — together and find the cash to take this operation to the next level.

But for now, I'm off to donate a few bucks to all the small sites I frequent regularly.