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Showing us some love

Decaturish updates

Showing us some love

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Dear readers,

I love bringing you the news. I am thankful that I’ve been able to assemble a team to assist me in providing you information about your community. They’re a talented group, worth far more than I can provide at the moment.

This month we hit some important milestones.

In addition to forming Decaturish.com, LLC, we’ve already reached our goal of getting 20,000 views for the month of October.

Stats1

As you can see, this website has come a long way from what it was when it was just my vanity blog. We have readers now, people who have made us a part of their routine.

But there’s a reality to running a website like this. 

It takes time and costs money.

I’ve been told that if I reach a certain amount of page views, I’ll pierce a magic cloud where a leprechaun sits, hoarding all of that mythical internet money.

Stats2Getting writers to put their time and energy into this is a small miracle. They’ve agreed to an all-in arrangement with me. They split the contributions provided by readers like yourselves.

In return they provide you content and keep the website tidy. As a guarantee that your investment doesn’t go to waste, I provide regular transparency updates showing you how much we took in and how much we spent. Our report for this month is looking pretty disappointing.

There’s only seven days left in October. While we’re going to exceed our goal for page views, we are going to bring in less donations than we did last month.

I’ve run the numbers and this is how much we received in donations: $0.

Yeah, it bites. Look, let me level with y’all for a second. I’m not naive enough to think that donations to an LLC is a viable long term strategy. Obviously we’ll be considering selling ad space and other potential revenue ideas. The biggest media companies in the world haven’t figured out how to make money providing news on the internet.

I have a couple of outside the box concepts, but they’re really too premature to discuss at this stage of the game. Right now, we’re building that foundation that will allow us to take the next steps.

It’s very likely local news coverage won’t generate a sustainable revenue stream at all. That’s why Decaturish will need to move into other communities and diversify its products. (Don’t worry, though. We will still proudly call Decatur home.) All of that will take time and we’ll need good content to sustain us until we have something we think will work.

Your donations are more than a tip for a service. They’re an investment in a product you will be proud of. Eventually, we hope to provide news without coming to you hat in hand. We’re not there yet.

Will you help us get there?

Did you like our coverage of the tear down moratorium? The donation button is in the upper right hand side of the screen.

Do you like our kickass logo? The donation button is in the upper right hand side of the screen.

Are you glad we provided you accurate and timely information about crime in your community? The donation button is in the upper right hand side of the screen.

Are you glad we covered the local school board election? The donation button is in the upper right hand side of the screen.

Do you like having a news service that’s transparent and accountable to its readers? The donation button is in the upper right hand side of the screen.

Any donation of any size is appreciated. It will not go to waste.

This way of raising money won’t last forever. With any luck, it’ll soon be replaced with something innovative and sustainable.

Help us reach that leprechaun at the end of that rainbow so we can take his stuff.

Thanks.