Are you a fan of Chris Meadows’s work? Now you can show it with tips for him personally—we will not take a cut. The following or something shorter will appear at the end of every Meadows post. Read on, and you’ll see why he deserves your support. We’ll work out similar arrangements for other TeleRead writers if they want them. TeleRead, in case you’re interested, is the world’s oldest ebook news and views site.
TIP CHRIS MEADOWS! (EDITOR’S NOTE)
Like the above post? Want to tip Chris? Please click on this PayPal link to send him your money directly. Or donate to show your appreciation of his work as a whole. Maybe even do it regularly.
Chris’s ebook-related news and advice, often inspiring additional information from other members of the TeleRead community in our comments area, can be a lifesaver—read one reader’s thanks. He also does his best, in industry commentaries, to look out for the interests of ebook lovers and writers alike. Chris has been into ebooks since the 1990s and has been with TeleRead for about a decade (read more about Chris on our About Page).
Let’s incentivize him, especially since we’re no longer bothering with advertising in this challenging business climate. We run TeleRead as a public service, not a profit-driven venture. TeleRead is the world’s oldest site offering news and views on ebooks and related topics, and we’d like to survive another two decades.
Again, however, your donations to Chris will be just that—strictly his money; not a penny will go to TeleRead. Yes, I’ve been skeptical of donations. Prove me wrong! – David Rothman, Editor, TeleRead.
Update: I’ve asked Chris to check to make sure that PayPay won’t deduct from blogger tips, as opposed to donations for nonprofits. As I see it, at least, these should be personal transactions treated like any others.
teleread.org 
Chris would be better off with a Patreon. Paypal takes a huge chunk of donations.
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@Nate: Big thanks for the info. What’s the source? The percentage? That sucks. Is there any way Chris could just come up with a PayPal address without any deductions? Happy for him to switch to Patreon if he’ll do better there.
Wait. Here’s some information I quickly Googled up. It’s for nonprofits qualifying for tax deductions. In that sense TeleRead is not a nonprofit. Meanwhile here’s some unofficial info for individual bloggers without mention of deductions. I could still be missing something. Best thing would be for Chris to reach PayPal to nail this down for sure.
Thanks,
David
.
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Clarification: I take donations through Paypal. They charge me between 5% and 33%.
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@Nate: I really appreciated hearing that your facts come from your own experiences. I wonder if the charges jibe with PayPal policy—you and/or Chris should still check to see if PayPal can skip the deductions. Thirty-three percent is outrageous; what determines the rate? Micro payments, especially as tips for otherwise voluntary work, should be much lower. Thirty-three percent is an outrageous gouge. Perhaps since we’re not accepting ads, TeleRead can more easily qualify for the no-fee personal transaction category.
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At the risk of being a gadfly here, I think it’s harder for people to decide to support journalists and commentators than people who are engaged in an explicitly artistic activity. (I can count only a handful who have actually succeeded, and they have been high profile bloggers — Andrew Sullivan and Dahr Jamail). Something is better than nothing though, so there’s no harm in trying at least. This is sad because writing encompasses a lot of different genres which are hard in their different ways.
That said, I love Chris’s writings, and I think the idea of showing your support for quality work is important. (I only wish more people made it easier to figure it out how to tip them). Given the perilous state of journalism these days, I think it’s important for people to set a yearly dollar amount to pledge to indie artists and writers.
With regard to Nate’s points about paypal fees, the transaction fees are more like 3.4% + $0.30 https://www.paypal.com/np/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside . Larger tips are reasonable. If you tip 10$, the transaction fee is 6.4%. If you tip $20, it is slightly less than 5%.
I have only looked briefly into Patreon, but I like the fact that it gives you access to patron emails and allows you to provide special benefits. Transaction fees are 5%.
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@Robert: Big thanks for the information on fees. As for Chris, he’s an artist in his own way. We’ll use whatever tipping arrangement he prefers, if at all possible. David
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At the moment, my Paypal account is still personal; I’m honestly expecting to receive few enough tips that hopefully they won’t take any notice of it.
If that changes, I suppose I can always look into Patreon. I do have a Patreon account, but the process of setting up a Patreon page seems kind of intimidating—setting goals and such, and committing to meeting those goals in return for people subscribing. I barely even know what I’m going to be doing from one day to the next.
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Book marketing expert Derek Murphy has a good video about the downside of crowdfunding .
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