Sorry about “Alas” going down the other day – I hadn’t been paying enough attention to our bandwidth, and so we went over the limit.
I’ve decided to switch to a different hosting company. Hopefully, this will solve some of the problems we’ve had with “Alas” going down now and then – by moving to a company which is much more WordPress friendly, and which also offers much more bandwidth for the buck.
I’ve also decided (with Pseudo-Adrienne’s approval) to experiment with ways of making “Alas” pay for itself. If I could start over from scratch, I’d probably do a free blogspot blog; but at this point, I’m committed to keeping the “Alas” archives – including the incredibly huge archive of comments – and I don’t think I can do that if I switch to “blogspot.” Therefore, it’s necessary to pay for space for “Amptoons.com.” There are occasional other expenses as well – for example, the “Alas” comments database is so enormous that I need an expert to move it to the new server! So I want to leave a nice sum in his tip jar.
So there are two new additions to the sidebar. The first is a tip jar. If you enjoy “Alas,” consider leaving some money to help pay for it. Right now I’ve put it right near the top, since I expect the next couple of weeks to be extra-extra-expensive because of moving to a new server; in time, I hope to put the tip jar in a less obtrusive place on the sidebar.
The second is a blogads area, which is affiliated with a new feminist blogads network, “Blog Sheroes.” I’m pretty sure it’s set up in a way that will allow Alas to avoid the “offensive ad problem” we recently saw at Daily Kos. In the meanwhile, if any “Alas” readers would like a free ad (just to get it started), drop me an email.
I’m planning to experiment with the tip jar and the blogads thingy for a month or two; after that, we’ll figure out if they’re worth keeping, and what the next step is.
Related posts:
You do have a lot of control with BlogAds–you’ll get a little box to look at each ad as closely as you want and you then decide if you want to accept or decline it.
Have you considered starting a Cafe Press store? Since you have so many great drawings, you could put them on T-shirts and coffee mugs that people might be interested in.
I’d buy a mug, and probably a T shirt too.
Thanks for the interest!
Actually, there is a Cafe Press Shop – Alas, Some Merchandise. I had a link on the sidebar for about a year, and no one ever bought anything, plus I began to feel guilty about the lack of extra-large sizes, so I took the link down.
I recommend the clock. The clock is awesome.
You can see one of the cafe press shirts pictured in this blog entry.
Barry, cafepress needs Alas.. hoody sweatshirts.