Some personal news
I've got two bits of related news that will affect the future of OSNews. The first bit of news kind of led to the second bit of news. You don't have to care much about former, but the latter will be important for where OSNews will be going from here on out.
First, after 14 years, I've effectively quit my job as a translator - I am self-employed so there's no dramatic clearing of my desk of being led out by security, which is probably a little bit of a letdown to some of you. The translation industry is in the process of collapsing - you know why - and I've been feeling the squeeze for a while now, and I like going out on my own terms. I've known this day would come, and I'm not sad about it.
My motto: it is what it is.
Of course, this meant I had to think of what to do next.
Well, I have decided to work on OSNews full-time. This is risky, scary, and I'm absolutely terrified of what this will mean. Right now, my OSNews income - ads plus Patreon - does not even remotely come close to what I earned as a translator, and as any translator will tell you, translating isn't exactly a cornucopia either. This means I've got some serious work ahead of me to change that.
After talking things over with David, OSNews' owner who takes care of the commercial/advertisement side, we've already taken a few steps. First, we've switched hosting providers and saved considerably on our hosting costs in the process. Second, David changed advertising partners to one that will most likely yield us some better rates, but since I don't know much about that side of OSNews - as it should be - I can't comment much on it.
There are two main ways in which I can increase OSNews' revenue, and that is by growing our readership, and by giving people more reasons to become a Patreon, make individual donations, or buy our merch. In other words, you can expect more original articles so that people will want to keep coming back, and possibly support me financially because they like what I do.
A third avenue for revenue I'm exploring is sponsorships - this is a longer-term project, and I'm approaching and talking to several (tech) companies about this. If you happen to work for a company who would be a good fit for an OSNews weekly sponsorship, feel free to contact me for more information.
The end goal: have OSNews be entirely funded by readers and sponsors, and remove all regular advertising.
This all sounds great, but there is a dark side to this news, too. If all of this fails, if I am unable to attract more readers and make my work for OSNews financially sustainable, I'll have to find work elsewhere - and that would mean the end of OSNews. I'm not trying to be alarmist or scare you; I just want to be as honest and realistic as possible about where we stand.
Anyway, this is a big deal for me. I've really only ever had one job, and that's being a translator, a job I am trained for with two university degrees to show for it. My only other job was a teenage thing where I worked at a hardware store (think hammers and screws, not computers) for eight years. I don't like taking risks with these sorts of matters, so I'm absolutely terrified, and while I believe there's a sustainable income hiding in this ol' website, it's not always clear how to get at it.
Anyway, want to become a Patreon? Or a sponsor? Pretty please? Now would be kind of a really good time to do so.