Know Your Opponent: Penn State Nittany Lions
October 21, 2016Progressive Field skyrockets to MLB’s fifth best ballpark in 2016
October 22, 2016We thought about it for a very long time. How can we make WFNY work even better? In the end, it was always about investment. We’ve invested our time and effort pretty much to the max since the site began. We’ve also injected financial investment at various points as well. It feels as if we’ve plateaued to some extent. We’d like to find a new level.
We tried to partner up as a way of outsourcing some costs and that didn’t work. We ended up back in the comfort of this space, but the business issues remain with trying to keep a place like this growing. It’s not the staff. We feel great about all the wonderful contributors we have on board right now. We’ve never been much for putting out the tip jar as it were. It just didn’t feel right for whatever reason. Regardless, we thought we needed to provide our audience a way to support the site and get involved in helping us take it to the next level without putting it behind a paywall. That’s why we jumped on Patreon and we hope you’ll at least go visit and see what it’s about and consider supporting in any way you can.
In case you haven’t been over there to see all that we wrote, I’m going to include the text below. We appreciate your consideration.
Waiting For Next Year started as an independent site and as we’ve learned in the last year, it should remain independent. All due respect to the great people we tried to work with in the past, but we’ve learned a great deal about ourselves and what we value most about running WFNY for us and for you. We promise never to forget it.
Alas, we still have some goals. No, these aren’t goals that involve getting filthy stinking rich, mostly because we know that’s not very realistic. That said, we do need some more funding to try and take the site that you love and push it to the next level. We’re hoping we can count on our loyal readers to help us do just that.
We know that we can’t just put the site behind a paywall, so instead we’re going to use Patreon to help us lay out our goals and what we’re trying to do, and if you have the desire and means to support us in our goals, then it’s a win-win.
So here’s what we’d like to do.
1. We’d like to hire a part-time or full-time editor. WFNY has never had a part-time, let alone a full-time employee. As we’ve ramped up the quality of the copy, we’ve put a system in place to ensure that 99 percent of everything you read has been looked over and edited. That’s fallen largely on Scott and a host of volunteer editors who’ve come and gone over the years who’ve done it because they shared our passion.
Editing, while extremely valuable, is a function that can be hired out. The hope is to free up all those great people who volunteer to edit and take valuable time away from writing and using their voices to talk about our favorite teams.
2. We’d like to improve the website. Every time we make a change to the website it costs us money. We never feel like we’re caught up and generally we spend money when there are fires to put out. We’d prefer to be a bit more proactive and forward-looking with the technology. Having a budget would make this much easier. (We promise to never get rid of comments.)
3. Expand our reach. What we’ve built is awesome, but it can be even bigger. Part of having an exceptionally dedicated writing staff is supporting them to the best of our abilities. The only thing better than having an amazing post about the Browns is having a small promotional budget to give it a boost on Facebook and make sure it’s getting read by as many potential readers as possible. In 2016 promotion has largely become “pay to play” and if we had a few extra bucks lying around it would be nice to push our best stuff to a wider audience.
4. Cover more bills to do more things. This is generic, so let me explain. We pay to host our website. We pay to host the podcast. We pay graphic designers to do things for us on occasion when the budget allows. We do not ask for favors from artists, and we always try to pay something for the valuable work they produce, but it would be great to do more. Whether it’s for photos, logos, or fancy header graphics, there’s always more that we could get talented people to do for us for money. We’d also love to pay for really creative freelance work on occasion.
That’s really it for now. We hope that because you like us you’ll trust us with a budget. Please trust that none of this would be a means to put more money in any individual’s pocket. We’ve always reinvested in the site and more than anything that’s what we want to continue to do.
You can help us do that. We thank you in advance.
2 Comments
This is, hands down, my favorite Browns site. I’m happy to offer $ support for a site that has so often “supported” me. Glad you’re around and hope you are for a good, long time.
Dudes! Ain’t no thing…glad to.
And I think all of us can pitch in a little something. Come on you cheap Michigan fans…I”m talking about you…you pay extra!