- Joined
- Apr 19, 2008
- Messages
- 18,772
- Reaction score
- 6,287
What does Community Mean to YOU?
AW is Free to Members
But that’s because someone else is paying.
Like any online community, AW has costs. We have server and hosting costs, bandwidth costs, software licensing costs (the forum software as well as tools for making sure we’re malware free, for instance).
AW is a community of writers. We support each other. Why not support the community too?
- The server upgrade and move in 2017 cost much more, by several hundred dollars, than it was expected to cost.
- We’d love to not have to run ads, and we really do appreciate our wonderful members who have voluntary subscriptions.
- Subscriptions don’t come close to paying the monthly server costs.
- Less than 5% of the people who have logged in during the last year are Kind Benefactors; that means that some time after they joined they subscribed. Members who subscribe at any point at any amount, retain their benefits.
- We’re facing the same problems faced by other large communities, some of which have simply had to pack up and close down.
- We run our own “local” ads as much as we can, but we turn down advertisers who don’t have ethical privacy policies or which otherwise strike us as not appropriate for our members.
In other words, advertising alone isn’t enough.
How Can You Help?
- Continue being an active member. Being an active, engaged member of the community is the most important kind of support. That includes people who rarely post but engage a lot via PMs, Crits, and Rep comments
- Use our affiliate links (see below) or Subscribe to AW via PayPal.
Voluntary Subscriptions to Absolute Write
There’s an FAQ: AW Voluntary Subscriptions.
Subscribing, at any amount, gives you a permanently larger PM box and the ability to use a larger Avatar.
You also get the warm and fuzzy feeling of helping a community of writers.
You can use the Benefactor Member User title.
You don't need to have a PayPal account.
You can use a debit or credit card.
You can subscribe for another member (PM AW Admin or MacAllister with the member’s Username).
You can use the large blue AW Subscription button on the bottom of any forum page.
You can use this special link: paypal.me/AbsoluteWrite
You can even mail a check made out to Absolute Write (be sure to include your Username if want to have the Benefactor Member benefits):
Absolute Write
8911 Vernon Road
PMB 165
Lake Stevens WA 98258
Absolute Write Affiliate Links
- When you purchase something from an affiliate, Absolute Write receives a small percentage (generally between 2% and 10%) of the purchase price.
- We don’t know who bought it, or what individual shoppers bought.
- It doesn’ affect your price.
- If you’re buying something anyway, why not use an affiliate link?
Here are some of our affiliates.
Book Stores
Amazon.com
Amazon wants you to know that “As an Amazon Associate [AW earns] from qualifying purchases.”
Anything you buy after clicking this link to Amazon.com will send a percentage of the purchase price to AW. It won’t affect what you pay.
We won’t know that you bought anything, by the way. We’ll know someone bought a particular item, but not who.
Here’s a link for Amazon UK.
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