Imagine a web publishing platform that costs $10 per month.
$5 of that $10 goes to the platform company for the boring stuff.
The other $5 gets split evenly between the writers, photographers, videographers, designers, and other creative people you follow who also pay to use the platform, up to a maximum of — say — 20 followers, hand-picked by you.
Now imagine if that platform was tumblr, and the $10 service was called ‘tumblr PRO’. Suddenly, you don’t need advertising, feed sponsorship, affiliate products, ebook spin-offs, or a lucky break to earn a respectable side income if you wish. You just need to keep publishing the things you love and watch your (paid) follower count climb.
4,000 paid followers would give you a side income of $1,000 a month. 8,000 paid followers would give you at least $2,000. (If people picked fewer than 20 tumblogs to ‘support’, you’d get a bigger share of their $5.)
And now you have a way to choose 20 people whose content you enjoy and thank them in a way that counts — with cash.
The gift of free and easy publishing is a wonderful one. But the gift of earning a living doing something you love? The gift of never having to hear the phrase ‘monetisation strategy’ again? That’s pretty hard to beat. We need a better way to support indie publishers. Isn’t it time someone built a platform to help?
