When I Tweeted that out this afternoon, I’d just done a minor rattle of the tip jar in my Oslo update, which brought responses from three readers: Mike in Ardmore, Stephen in Texas and Richard in Missouri.
That’s three Good People, out of more than 9,000 visits Saturday. Of course, many others have hit the tip jar at least once over the past three years, thereby permanently exempting themselves from the category of Ungrateful Sons of Bitches Who Never Hit a Blogger’s Tip Jar.
This little experiment in reader-supported journalism has been remarkably successful, but there are occasional moments of frustration: Nine hours of aggregation Friday, with more than 14,000 visits and — counting Richard in Cohocton who hit the tip jar yesterday — that makes exactly four readers who’ve hit the tip jar, out of some 23,000 visits in two days.
Lots of Ungrateful Sons of Bitches out there, y’see.
But here’s their chance to redeem themselves: Our buddy Pete Da Tech Guy finds himself about $1,800 short this month. He’s raised more than $600 in two days, and still $1,200 to go.
I gave Pete $10 myself — he wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t need it — so thanks in advance to the Good People who I know are going to help Pete in his hour of need, and to hell with the Ungrateful Sons of Bitches.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds is not an Ungrateful Son of a Bitch.
UPDATE II: Joel in Nebraska is a Good Person who hit my tip jar while I was writing this post, and so I went and hit Da Tech Guy’s tip jar for another $10. C’mon, Good People!
UPDATE III: The list of Good People grows longer: Pete reports he got another $600+ overnight and has been busy writing thank-you e-mails. Just another $500 to go.
UPDATE IV: Now, thanking my own tip-jar hitters: Peter in Wisconsin, John in Annapolis, Philip in Englewood, Krista in North Carolina, Ross in Lakeland, Peter in Tennessee, Chris in Texas, William in Iowa and — as always — Jeff in Walla Walla.
Special message for Kevin in New Hampshire: I’d love to take you up on the offer to let me crash on your sofa when I come up to cover the primary campaign, but when I replied to the e-mail address on your donation, it bounced back. Please send me an e-mail!
Ask any blogger: Revenue from other sources — and we’re still seeking an Amazon buyer for that $120,000 7-carat diamond ring — is deeply appreciated, but nothing in the world is so encouraging as that “Notification of Donation Received” e-mail from PayPal. Every $10 or $20 helps and some of the Good People send much more than that. (You know who you are.)
Some of y’all saw my response Friday to John Hawkins’s “Death of Blogging” post. As I said, my previous attempts to reply had been interrupted by the need to report breaking news, and I just took a moment out of my nine hours of aggregation on the Oslo bombing to dash off a quick reply Friday.
What I said to John was that, despite all discouragement — e.g., the idiocy of the GOP Establishment — the main problem isn’t a failure to attract readers (we’re doing OK in that regard), but rather “the damnable and eternal problem of monetization.” And then, just about the time I’d rattled my own tip-jar Saturday, I learned to my horror that Pete Da Tech Guy was $1,800 short.
How can I expect readers to encourage a wretched sinner like me, when a nice guy like Pete’s hurting so bad?
Here’s the really galling fact: During the 2010 election cycle, the major Republican Party national committees (RNC, NRSC, NRCC) raised $589.6 million. Averaged over the 24 months of the two-year election cycle, that’s more than $24 million per month.
A mere 1% of that total would be $245,667. And with a quarter-million bucks a month, you could pay $1,800 monthly to 136 bloggers.
Now, $1,800 a month is only $21,600 a year — scarcely a lucrative income — but what would that kind of money mean to a lot of those who are blogging part-time?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that the GOP put conservative bloggers on their payroll. (That would tend to impede our ability to call them idiots when they screw up, which they so often do.) Rather, what I am expressing is my frustration that Republican donors — people who are giving more than $24 millon a month to the official GOP — can’t see the value of providing a small measure of support to the conservative blogosphere. That’s just shameful.
OK, so much for griping. Last time I grumbled like this, it gave James Wolcott a reason to gloat, and we wouldn’t want that to happen again.
Go hit Da Tech Guy’s tip jar!
With bills piling up here at home, I’d been wondering how I was going to fund further travels from the Shoe Leather Fund. How could I expect the tip-jar hitters, who gave so generously for my “Fear and Loathing in Iowa” trip to hit the tip jar again in September, when I hadn’t even been able to find time to thank them for what they’d already given in August?
