Donations processed, authors paid and more on the “new deal”
Note to readers: I was up until nearly 2:00 AM last night. Pray this be coherent…
After a long neglect, I finally managed to get through all the donations which had piled up from September. Yes, I’m a procrastinator. A very, very big one. But thank you notes have been sent and, just as importantly, every author has been “funded” for their completed works through the end of November. Whew! That’s a relief. I’m ready to move forward into December at the new 75% rate for authors.
Speaking of that, our decision to increase the author’s portion of all donations has kicked up quite a stir and left many folks speculating. The most common question/comment I’ve seen so far is a variation on:
You must be raking in so much cash with Podioboks.com that you feel guilty…
In a word — not really. OK that’s two words.
But Podiobooks.com is doing well — all things considered. For the past few months, we’ve been pulling in roughly 100 donations on average. I’ll let the math geeks out there do the calculations on percentages and totals. Have fun, fellas. I’d like to see a few more donations and my raising of the author amount is part of that plan. But the biggest reason I did it was simple — it seemed like the right thing to do. There are plenty of folks looking to take money out of authors hands. I’d rather not be one of them.
The good news is that, thanks to the support of LibSyn, our hard costs aren’t that high. Yes, we do have to pay for dedicated web hosting right now, but it’s not outrageous. And while I’ve yet to pay any of the staff members any sort of salary or even picked up a flight or hotel with any revenues generated by Podiobooks.com, I’d rather not do that with money that I feel is rightly deserved by the author.
You will see new revenue stream ideas from me in the coming weeks, just like you’ll see new features on the site. Some may appeal to you, some may not. My goal is to let none of them drive you away. So keep on supporting the authors with your generous donations. And speaking of that, if you don’t already have PayPal account, get one.
You’ll need it to donate to books and you can use it to buy all sorts of things online — without whipping out the credit card.
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December 4th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
A-freaking-men Evo- you have always had your heart in the right place when starting podiobooks.com, and that always shines through.
I bet the folks reading this will want to donate even MORE to their favorite authors!! I know I will.
December 4th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Have you considered adding a specific Paypal button so that users can donate directly and wholly to Podiobooks. Call it the Podiobooks staff beer fund or something. I mean obviously the authors are great and make the site what it is, but at the same time it might be nice to reward the staff of Podiobooks directly.
Just my 2 cents.
December 4th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
Chris, isn’t that the other 25%?
A PayPal button just for Podiobooks could be useful for the occasional extraordinary need.
December 5th, 2006 at 1:30 am
[…] Link […]
December 5th, 2006 at 6:42 am
[…] This is a terrific time to check out the Podiobooks website. There are 80 titles available, some from the public domain, others from authors such as Mur Lafferty, Patrick McLean and Tracy Hickman - mainly science fiction and fantasy, but with a healthy assortment of other genres as well. Be sure to make a donation if you can afford one - it's for a good cause. Link to the news blog post (via BoingBoing), link to the Podiobooks website. […]
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:20 am
hi,
i read about your site/organization/personhood in the article in the New York Times. I’ve written a novel, “The Boy,” it’s fantasy-like, if not a pure fantasy. what i’m not clear on (and this could be because I haven’t tooled around enough on line) is, how does it work. do I (if you want) email you my text. or do i first do a podcast (which i haven’t yet but i also just visited libsyn, and am prepared to get a lmike and whatever else i need to record it myself. would you like to see the text version. do you want to read a three sentence blurb of what it is.
additionally (and i don’t know if this comment goes directly to all the comments, thereby making me sound like a blitering idiot, but here goes: do i also need a website in order to join the lland of the living.
thank you for your time and (I hope) your interest
ellen rittberg
p.s. i don’t know if you need a phone number.
do you (person I am emailing) have a name?p.s.s.