ANNUAL KEEP TBP FIGHTING DONATE-ATHON

LET’S MAKE TBP GREAT AGAIN!!!

It’s that time of year again, where I ask for monetary support to keep this site running. I notice other alternative media sites are constantly begging for donations. I know it’s annoying to me, so I will only make this one post for the year and let the chips fall where they may.

I’ve needed financial support to keep this site alive since it was attacked by some outside entity (Google???) trying to silence our message two years ago. With the indispensable Man With No Name protecting TBP from attacks, the site has run like a well oiled machine for the last two years. The ads generate enough to pay for some of the costs, but you smart monkeys tend to block the ads. It’s only when a major article gets onto other sites do the ads generate decent revenue. And it’s a lot of work on my part to generate those nickels and dimes.

I’m clearly doing something wrong when it comes to generating donations. I received $12,000 in 2014 during the year of the great denial of service attack. My visitor count went up by 40% in 2015 to 6.1 million. Somehow donations fell to $11,000. I guess I attracted a bunch of new cheapskates. So far this year, the visitor count is up another 15% and the donations, as you can see from the donate-a-meter are tracking at about $10,000.

The more popular we get, the less donations we generate. I’m clearly a financial genius. Lucky I’m not really running a business. The site has 1.6 million visitors so far this year. Of the donations made, almost 50% came from three extremely generous TBP patrons. Then there are the Tremendous Ten who make automatic payments month in and month out. I would like to thank everyone who has ever made a donation to help keep this site alive. I have all the letters of support you have written in a large file folder. I promise to burn them while DHS is surrounding my house some day. 🙂

I particularly appreciate the original content provided by Stuck, Llpoh, SSS, Hardscrabble Farmer, Muck, Yojimbo, Gayle, PA Mike, Indentured Servant, T4C, Thinker, Maggie, TPC, Stephanie, Roy, Tim, Francis, James, and everyone else who contributes regularly to the site. The diverse points of view and varied subjects make the site better. The comment stream on TBP is far more intelligent and thought provoking than ZH or any other website I follow. The proof is in the numbers. March will have the highest visitor count in TBP history, 35% higher than last March, and blasting to 650,000 visitors.

But, at the end of the day, I’m responsible for keeping this place interesting 24/7/365. It’s a pressure that never lets up. I was sick for five weeks at the beginning of this year and I still felt the overwhelming responsibility to post 15 to 20 discussion worthy pieces per day, even though I wasn’t capable of writing anything myself. I get up every day at 5:15 am to get ready for work. From 6:00 am to 6:30 am I try to get 5 or 6 posts done. Then I drive the 1 hour to work. I eat my lunch at my desk so I can do some more posts. I then make the 60 minute to 90 minute trek home at night. I don’t sleep in on weekends because I feel the obligation to post interesting discussion generating stuff.

I have observed how many other bloggers run their sites to maximize revenue. Some provide free content, but charge for the “really good” content. Others have written books and use their sites to promote them. Other sites have advertising links and ads throughout their articles. Some try to sell newsletters with their articles. I consider this the opportunity cost of running my site as a community, rather than a business.

Doug Casey was paying me $500 per 1,500 word article for the Casey Report. I had to stop doing that because running this site takes too much time. That’s potentially $6,000 per year of lost revenue. I could probably write or assemble a book based on all the articles I’ve written over the years. But, I can’t run this site, work a full time job, and write a book at the same time. I see how Chris Martensen, Charles Hugh Smith, Michael Snyder, Lew Rockwell and many other fine internet bloggers generate revenue, but I’m a one man show without the time to dedicate to that.

I love to write articles. I barely have time to do that anymore because I’m trying to keep the site interesting on a daily basis for you shit throwing monkeys. There are over 30 articles in my draft folder where I had an idea, started the article, but haven’t had the time to finish the article. If I can spend less time collecting nickels and dimes from the ads, I can spend more time writing.

So that’s my annual pitch. I know that many of the readers of this site have less financial resources than myself. Don’t feel guilty if you are unable to donate. Do your part by spreading the articles far and wide to try and wake more people from their self induced stupor. The purpose of this site is to piss enough people off by telling them the truth to make a difference.

If you think this site provides a useful service, useful information, or just a place for you to visit with friends, and you have the resources, please click the donate button on the right side of the page or use the PO Box listed to send a contribution. I only go to the PO Box every two weeks, as it is usually empty.

I don’t like to do this, so this will be the only solicitation for the entire year. I’ll just update the Keep TBP Fighting Thermometer as the contributions come in. Thanks again for all your moral and financial support over the years.

Remember. Freedom isn’t free and we are not alone.