We make just one appeal for Ten Cent Challenge subscriptions each year, and for 2022, this is it:
As most SurvivalBlog readers know, we severed all ties with Amazon, in January of 2021. With their blatant censorship and unconscionable business practices, we simply couldn’t continue any partnership with them. Quitting the Amazon Associates program has cost us more than $30,000 per year in commissions.
We had hoped that the number of Ten Cent Challenge subscriptions would greatly increase, but unfortunately, they only went up by about 10% — not nearly enough to make up for what we lost in leaving Amazon.
We’re Not Making Much Profit
Let me summarize where things stand with SurvivalBlog’s finances:
Our expenses to operate the blog are around $37,000 per year. That includes around $21,000 to pay our Managing Editor Hugh Latimer, $9,000 for Pat Cascio’s articles, $1,480 for our combined phone and Internet bill, $1,188 for our backup Internet connection, and $3,948 per year for our offshore server.
On the income side, we earn about $13,500 per year for hosting paid banner ads and text ads, $4,500 per year in profit from archive USB stick sales, and $2,500 per year from affiliate advertising. Our other main source of income for operating the blog comes from voluntary subscriptions, dubbed The Ten Cent Challenge. Those voluntary subscriptions bring in about $31,000 per year. I ask readers to pony up just 10 cents a day ($36.50 per year.) I’ve asked that same amount since the blog began, in 2005. So, in all, the blog’s gross income is about $51,500. After expenses, that leaves me a net annual blog income of $14,500. That is not a lot to show for me putting in about 35 hours per week, writing and editing the blog. It equates to earning $8.63 per hour.
For those of you who are already subscribers, I want to express my sincere thanks for your loyal support.
Analyzing Ten Cent Challenge Support
Here are the statistics on Ten Cent Challenge subscriptions:
Gross revenue: $31,000 per year.
Only about 840 blog readers subscribe, with an average donation of $39 per year.
We have a readership of about 120,000 regular readers, mostly in the U.S. and Canada.
So, based on 840 subscribers, that means that only 7/10ths of one percent of readers actually subscribe. A lot of you have been faithfully subscribing for more than a decade. I greatly appreciate your generosity! But human nature being what it is, the other 99.3% of readers have decided that they’ll let “someone else” subscribe.
So, here is my appeal in a nutshell: If you find that you get more than 10 cents worth of value per day in reading SurvivalBlog, then please donate 10 cents a day ($36.50 per year) to help cover the blog’s costs.
Unless our Ten Cent Challenge revenue increases substantially, I will probably be forced to go back to working 30+ hours a week as a contract technical writer and/or freelance magazine writer. Hence, the volume of what I post in SurvivalBlog will have to dramatically decrease. I might discontinue writing most of my regular columns and I may switch to posting just one or two feature articles per week — instead of the usual seven features.
The bottom line is that we need about twice as many subscribers, to make up for the loss of the Amazon Associates revenue.
How to Subscribe
There are several payment options for subscriptions including PayPal, cash, checks, money orders, booklets of “Forever” U.S. postage stamps, and even mailing us a few silver dimes or quarters taped to a piece of cardboard.
Your contributions are needed and greatly appreciated.
If sending your subscription by mail, then please use this address for a check or money order payable either to “James Rawles” or “SurvivalBlog.com”:
James Rawles
P.O. Box 303
Moyie Springs, Idaho 83845
Note that this will be my only request for Ten Cent Challenge subscriptions in 2022. I won’t pester you. I don’t do PBS-style begging marathons.
Other Ways to Help
Please consider other ways that you can help support SurvivalBlog. Consider investing in an antique gun or two, through my side business, Elk Creek Company.
Even just placing a few links helps a lot, to grow our readership.
And if you sell food storage, communications, night vision, body armor, water filtration, alternative energy, shooting, or other preparedness-related products or services, then please consider either advertising your products or services in SurvivalBlog or becoming a writing contest prize donor. You’ll find the publicity very beneficial to your business.
Many Thanks!, – JWR