Do you like this site?
If you do, you might consider supporting it in a slightly more substantial way. It's been free for decades... literally... but could use a little saltwater injection. Now accepting PayPal...
The Global FlyFisher has been online since the mid-90's and has been free to access for everybody since day one – and will stay free for as long as I run it.
It has basically been ad free, nag free, paywall free, subscription free and free in every other way all through these years. OK, I have ventured into ads a couple of times, but soon backed out again.
I have no problems with keeping it that way. The site is fun to make. It's a huge satisfaction to have thousands of people visiting daily, reading what's been published here, enjoying the photos, watching the videos and so on.
Now, you might think that running a site like this is essentially free, and just a question of using some free time to write and publish. Server space doesn't cost much after all – a cheap web hotel is just a few dollars a month – and spare time is in principle free too, as is the material contributed by outside people, so costs can't be high, can they?
Well, actually they can.
PayPal
Single amount of your choice |
The thing is, that a large and popular site like this can't run on any run-off-the-mill scrawny web hotel, but requires something more substantial. The direct costs for running the GFF server is in the neighborhood of 750-1000 US$ per year depending on traffic and required service and support. That's the price of one really high end fly rod, or a really good reel, a very good handful of books or quite a lot of hooks and fly tying materials – which I don't get to buy because the money pays for the server. I also need camera gear to produce good images, lights and tripods, a powerful computer to work on, a scanner and not so few other things needed to make the site as good as possible.
Regarding my time... it is kinda free alright, but then again. Being self employed means that every hour I spend on the site rather than working, is one less hour of paid work equaling a lower income. I balance things, and have done so for years, but it would be nice to be able to free a few more Global FlyFisher hours.
Your support could help me there.
Regarding my time... it is kinda free alright, but then again.
Since the site is visited by literally thousands of visitors every day, and has had more than half a million – like 500,000+ – unique visitors during the last year, you can imagine that just one dollar from every tenth visitor would make me pretty happy!
You can be that tenth visitor. You don't have to, but you can... just sayin' so...
Use the options on Patreon (subscription-like) or Ko-fi (one time donation), or use the PayPal options above, which allows both types of support. Help making this site even better, and help making me very happy at the same time!
None are binding, and you decide the amount. And as I said: if you decide not to donate, you are still equally welcome and will have the same access as always and as everybody else, paying or non-paying.
Ko-fi
Allows for one-time donations of your choice
Patreon
Allows for one-time donations or recurring monthly support, amount of your choice
if you decide not to donate, you are still equally welcome
You can also help in many other ways:
Contribute articles
Submit videos
Submit pictures of your flies and fishing
Submit pictures of your tying table
Suggest fly patterns
Make sure I get review copies of books
...and whatever you can think of to help.
All ideas, suggestions and comments are appreciated.
Regards and tight lines
Martin
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Comments
Financial help
Any american way to donate bucks? PayPal? Band Check?
Both work with PayPal
John,
Both Ko-fi an Patreon accept payments with PayPal, so the options can both be used in the US as well as in Europe and the rest of the world.
Martin
Donation
Martin, I’m glad that GFF is back up and running again. The temporary loss of the site due to the ransomware attack reminded me that I hadn’t donated in awhile so when I was able to open it today I sent a PayPal contribution. Love your site and am happy to support it.
Thanks!
Carl,
Thanks to much for the donation! I wanted to send a thank you mail when I got the notification from PayPal, but my mail is still acting up, so you get a heartfelt thank you here.
Martin