From a couple of days ago, [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2773769.stm]Salon dot com running out of cash?
I was reading either [url=http://www.metafilter.com]Metafilter or [url=http://slashdot.org]Slash Dot, and I found a link to a web hosting site that looked even better than the [url=http://www.communitech.net]host I’ve currently got. Deal is, though I pay a little bit more, I’m grandfathered in under the “unlimited bandwidth” deal. Question is, is worth it now? I’ve trimmed away the excess on the page, so it’s not very big. My only banners are my own, and neither of them is really that large. Not serving up a lot of images, so do I need to worry about bandwidth?
Maybe yes, maybe no.
I had a friend of a friend working for Salon at one time, making approximately four to six times as much as I was making, for a much shorter weekly column. However, that’s gone away. I’m not even sure that the writer is writing anymore. That’s kind of hard to fathom, in my own mind, I can’t imagine not writing. But a Goggle search just turns up two and three year old columns, nothing new. No blog, no journal, no weekly posting.
I remember what an old family friend told me, “I made more in one speaking engagement than I made for all three books….”
My “sales reports” from Powell’s Books was quite good, much better than Amazon. But there was a little problem. In six months, they never mailed a check. As much as it pained me, I had to go with the advertising spots that work. Amazon works. Pays two ways, the anonymous donations and the [url=http://www.astrofish.net/xabyss/recommendread.html]direct links. Doesn’t begin to really pay for the server and bandwidth, but it’s a start. Consistently a performer, and they do pay on time.
Thus far, the model hasn’t changed any. The scopes – and the archives – are freely available. Do what thou wilt. Getting a jump start on the scopes, on Wednesday morning, there’s a suggested donation of five bucks. No big deal. That goes to defray the headache of hitting the hotmail, AOL, yahoo, insert-an-ISP-here, spam filters, and creating nuisance for administration.
Selling astrology reports that contain much of my own observations is about the only way this place makes money. And at that, I’m still priced too high.
While I’ve got a sweet deal, another grandfather clause, for credit card processing, I’m still getting hit with fees. Orders under ten bucks aren’t worth the effort – or time – really. Again, back to the micropayment. Still no model for that.
Salon will mutate and change. So far, though, there’s just one little piece to my puzzle that’s missing. I might work on it this spring.
In the meantime, I’m going to work at an event in Corpus Christi, hopefully see lots of clients, and make scads of money. At least enough to afford some good seafood, and maybe a little bit better hotel room than $29.95 a night. “The muttering retreats/Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels….”