As you have probably noticed, there have been changes to the front page of These Old Games. Gone are some of the ads and they have been replaced by a Support Me on Ko-Fi.
Rather than looking at my blog as a revenue stream, I would like to fund a project that does not yet rise to the level of a Kickstarter while being slightly more developed than These Old Games can support. This project is called:
The benefits of this are two-fold. I have been running ads on These Old Games for years and that has become problematic. First, ads interfere with the reader's enjoyment of the site. Second, ads cannot fund a project of this scale. Most readers are likely to click an ad for DriveThruRPG while ignoring ads for other websites.
To this end, I will be working to eliminate all Non-DTRPG links. This is a big project in and of itself. I wish I could say "this blog is ad-free," but I am not there. In fact, I think that completely removing all ads including the DTRPG ads might not support the gaming community. I like to push people to great products, which is difficult when DTRPG hosts so many great projects.
So, what is up with Ko-Fi?
I guess this is the portion of the blog where I sadly admit that I'm not quitting my day job to produce content. That is not the intent of this project.
I am using Ko-Fi to get this project off the ground by raising a modest amount of support while being accountable to a community. This is not an exchange of funding for specifically targeted content. It is to keep on track to complete a PDF that will eventually be sold. Ideally, if this project is successful, it could become a Kickstarter for physical books. That is my goal, but it all seems very far away. There is so much content creation between now and then that I have a hard time picturing the end. You are not funding a book, you are funding me to write a book. Or three.
To that end, I have five-ish different "levels" over on Ko-Fi. Following me is the first step and level. There is no cost to following me on Ko-Fi. You will not see every post, but I hope you see enough to decide to hit that support button. The next level is a one-time tip or donation. This is where you throw some change in the tip jar. Like a follower, it really confers no Ko-Fi benefits beyond knowing you chipped in to make this happen.
Next are the paid tiers, at $3, $5, and $10. Starting at the bottom, The Southern Tier (yes, a pun), you will be joining my Community and will receive a shout-out here on These Old Games and get Discord access to my little server. In the next level, The Central Tier, you will receive everything The Southern Tier receives plus some behind-the-scenes content. This behind the scene content will be things that probably won't fit in the book, but may be of interest to you as a DM and gamer. The final tier will include everything listed before plus the ability to Direct Message me on Ko-Fi plus a pre-release PDF of sections and chapters that will ultimately end of the book.
In sharing this post, I would hope that some of you would take a moment to join Ko-Fi and click that free follow me button.
There is no TL:DR version of this. This new idea is wildly outside my comfort zone. I am creating a fantasy campaign predicated on a time-traveling Elf stealing a nuclear weapon and a cool pair of Raybans to overthrow a god, only to settle on being a travel blogger. That is nuts enough. But the reality of this project is, simultaneously committing to start a community, raise funds, delete a bunch of completed blog posts AND write as many as 3 books.
That's crazy. The part that makes me most uncomfortable isn't all of the hard work, it's the request for support. I've gotta tell you while getting this project off the ground, I've been hearing this song non-stop.
And I don't mean in my headphones or on Youtube. I hear it when I'm sleeping, too.
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