(written on 9th June 2008)
As you probably know, I have been running this website for nearly five years now. If you have perused it fully you will know that it host numerous invaluable writers' resources, including the comprehensive AA Independent Press Guide, which has detailed listings of over 2,000 small and independent press magazines and publishers worldwide.
What you may be less aware of is the fact that I have now spent approximately £1,000 (or $2,000) in hosting and other admin costs over that period. I have also spent many thousands of hours building, maintaining and updating The AA Independent Press Guide and all the other resources on my website.
When I first set forth on this venture, back in September 2003, I was full of energy, enthusiasm and idealism. I was also considerably financially better off than I am now. I was more than happy to offer up my time for free and I was delighted to be able to offer my services for free.
About a year after the launch of the website - once I realised what it was costing me - I added a page to the website, asking for donations. I hoped, by doing so, I might generate enough donations to cover my hosting and admin costs. I rather naively expected people to be happy to help out, especially as I had received so many emails and letters from people thanking me for the services I was providing.
However, in four years I have received exactly 6 donations, amounting to a grand total of £50 (or $100). So, I am approximately £950 out of pocket.
Nearly five years down the line, my enthusiasm for this venture has waned considerably. I have maintained the website solely out of a sense of duty: my heart is no longer in it like it was.
Every day emails arrive from magazines and publishers asking me to amend their details, or from people wanting information, or even from students who are writing a project about the publishing industry. In five long years I have never managed to clear my email inbox. Right now, today, there are 68 emails in my inbox awaiting my attention. There have been times when that number has been closer to 600. I have a pile of letters on my desk and beside me I have a notebook full of "to do" lists. There are days when I feel I am going to drown in it all, but I persevere, out of a sense of duty.
For nearly five years I have tried my best to juggle my obligations as a father, a husband, a breadwinner and as an unpaid provider of information for thousands of writers and artists. I have also tried - mostly in vain - to find adequate free time to write, draw and make music.
My financial circumstances are no longer anywhere near as healthy as they were five years ago, and, as such, I can no longer afford to take only part-time, temporary jobs. Unless things turn around substantially in the near future I will be forced to take full-time work either delivering mail, working in a factory, or (if I'm lucky) as a trainee bus driver.
I am perfectly prepared to do whatever I must do to keep our family's head above water. I have no complaints about the fact I am not capable of earning a professional wage. It was my conscious choice to follow the path of the poet, artist and musician. I knew fine well when I made my choices that I was embarking upon a "career" path with little prospect of financial stability. All through my life I have taken menial, low-paid work to enable me to continue in my chosen field; and I confess I have done this sort of work as seldom as is humanly possible, because I need time for my real (and mostly unpaid) work as a poet, artist and musician.
The simple fact of the matter is that once I commence full time work, there will be no spare time to maintain this website. I will have to pull the plug on The AA Independent Press Guide and all the other resources... and, to be honest, I will not be that unhappy to do so, because at times the workload involved has been utterly overwhelming. I have, for five years now, been a voluntary administrator. Not only have I not been paid for this: I've actually had to pay for the privilege.
Now, I would prefer to continue working at something that at least relates to my chosen "profession": administering, maintaining and developing a writers' resources website is infinitely preferable to driving a bus or working in a factory. But how can I do this? Well, I did approach the Scottish Arts Council with a proposal, but they couldn't help me as the resource is not specifically Scottish, and as far as I'm aware there is no World Arts Council. Maybe, somewhere there is a suitable grant award funding body. If so, I haven't found it. The only way forward is to charge for access to my website.
Unfortunately, having only basic HTML skills, I do not have the necessary expertise to set this up. Nor can I afford to pay for someone to do it for me. So, the only solution I can see is to ask people to send me a donation. That is... I'm asking you to send me a donation!
I know that many of you, like me, are in financial difficulties, but I also know that no matter how skint I have been, I was always able to find the cash to buy myself the tools of my trade, be it a typewriter ribbon, a box of compressed charcoal or a copy of The Writers And Artists Yearbook. At times I have had to forego beer and curry takeaways for months on end. I even saw through a particularly grim winter living mainly on beans on toast. I did these things because my art and writing were more important to me than going down the pub. Hell, I was even willing to sacrifice proper nutrition for sake of it.
What I'm trying to say here is that no matter how broke you are, you can find money for the things that are important; and the future of this website is important. It's important to the 1,000+ writers who have photolinks to their websites, it's important to the 2,000+ magazines and publishers who are listed in The AA Independent Press Guide, it's important to the 750+ internet magazines that have links to their websites, it's important to the 75,000+ people who have accessed since it was launched... and it will be important to the tens of thousands of people who will access this site this year and next year (assuming this website is still here)
Whether you are a writer at the very beginning of your career or one at the pinnacle of your powers, you have been, either directly or indirectly a beneficiary of this website's presence on the World Wide Web. This website has, for nearly five years, been part of a network which connects readers, writers, artists, editors & publishers. If it dies the only beneficiaries will be those writers' resource websites that charge for their services.
If you care about what this website offers, if you care about its continued survival, then please do make a donation. If you can afford it, make a substantial donation. If you can't afford it, then make a small donation. Every penny will count.
At this moment in time I have enough cash to see me through the summer. After that - assuming this plea falls on deaf ears - I'm going to have to look for a full-time job. The day that happens, The AA Independent Press Guide and all the other writers' resources on this website become history. It's as plain and simple as that.
If you want to prevent the demise of this website - if you want me to continue sweating my guts out keeping it up to date and accurate, and even expanding it -
you need to pay me. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I've got to be pragmatic about this. Either I earn a modest living through this website or I have to go and get a full-time job. These are my only two options.
As long as the donations keep coming in this website will keep going.
So, if this website matters to you, make a donation.