TPM needs you. It’s really that simple. To make this whole operation work we need a substantial amount of our revenue to come from our readers – it’s a critical hedge against excessive or sole reliance on ad dollars.
So today we’re kicking off a drive to sign up new members for TPMPrime, our membership service for supporters of the site. There are a bunch of reasons to sign up for Prime. You get dramatically fewer ads on the Prime version of the site; no ads at all on mobile. You get access to our member discussion area, The Hive; longform articles, like our recent five part series on the rapid growth of renewable energy. But the best and most important reason is that we need you, our readers, to support what we do. You can sign up right here.
Prime has been around for three years. Until today we only had annual subscriptions for $50 a year. But today we’re rolling out a new monthly subscription. It’s $4.99 a month. That’s not much more than a fancy cup of coffee at the local Starbucks or whatever other boutique place you buy your Americano or latte or whatever else at. And that small monthly payment goes a really long way to keep us going and helping us make the site better. If you have friends who are TPM readers, let them know too.
Not convinced? There’s no risk. You get a free three day trial. If you change your mind, just cancel.
If it’s all the same to you, we still much prefer annual subscriptions it’s more predictable for us in terms of annual budgeting and so forth. But we know that for many readers 50 bucks in one lump sum is a heavy lift. Or maybe you just want to try and not commit to a whole year. Whatever works for you works for us.
As a publisher and a lapsed historian, I can tell you that historically it’s been very, very rare that any publication survives without a substantial amount of its revenue coming from its readers. The Internet changed all of that. And today many publications get all their revenue from paid advertising. But almost all of them are either looking for ways to open up some sort of subscription or membership system or they have a huge corporation behind them. We’re 100% independent. We just have you. There are no well-heeled foundations subsidizing us, no Daddy Warbucks who covers the bills. We need to cover it all ourselves. Luckily we have a great team that helps us do just that. But subscription revenues are critical. So can you take a moment right now to join us? I know I’m always like yeah definitely, I’ll get to it. But can you take a moment right now and join us? It’s really quick, easy and no risk. Just click right here.
