A possible ad placement and the path to TMR self-sufficiency

Gang,

I’ve been leaning on the TMR readership base very hard over the past couple of months, and it’s been doubly necessary because of the very nature of this website–it’s commercial-free, and has been since the start, so the NPR of blogs means that a blogger has to ask for help. But it’s also sucked, and it’s turned some readers off to this blog, which isn’t great.

I’ve been approached by a company that wants to place inline, non-intrusive ads on TMR, and the company, Play Pickup, can be viewed here if you’re interested in the kinds of ads you’d be seeing on the site, as well as the content that they’d be promoting on TMR (mostly answering prompts, but it needs to be said that they’re partnered with DraftKings, so sports betting is part of their portfolio).

I’m strongly considering their offer to place their and only their ads on the website because, put bluntly, it’s been hard to balance the bills lately, and AA and I are doing our best to break even every month, which will get a little harder come February as my “hazard pay” from the State of Michigan (which pays me a very modest fee to be AA’s caregiver; the “hazard pay” has doubled my paycheck) will end on January 1st.

I spoke with two gentlemen from Play Pickup today for over an hour, and their partnership with DraftKings and willingness to help promote blog content as well as connect bloggers in networking terms are all intriguing to me. I’m not a bettor, but we are going to be having sports betting in this state shortly, and, more importantly than the possibility of earning some money, being able to both help pay the bills and begin to reinvest in the website would be very exciting (see: my clunky website’s design needs to be readjusted, and they understand that the one thing I don’t have is a network).

Now I wouldn’t stop fundraising entirely, especially as far as deferring the costs of doing things like heading to games or training camp are concerned, but if all goes well, the pressure on me to ask you for money every couple of weeks and you to help me along would lessen over time, and I would get on more solid footing in terms of taking steps toward true self-sufficiency.

Right now, things can be kind of desperate from month to month, and that’s not pleasant. I’m never going to get rich from this profession, but I’m okay with that, and, more importantly, Aunt Annie is okay with that, but having some extra predictable income would be a big bonus right now.

All of that being said, none of this could have ever have happened without your support or approval, so I want to know whether you’d be okay with me going the ads-and-contributions route. If the majority of you don’t want to see ads on the website, I won’t do it. You guys and gals have sent me up to Traverse City repeatedly, you’ve bought me the laptop I’m typing this from, and that’s all happened without commercials. The decision is really up to you.