Reply With QuoteGood idea.Originally Posted by J.Edward
We could do a 2016 theme and see how it does. If sales for that one item are good enough then no further item would be needed.
If sales were not then we could do additional themed items within the 2016 year.
With good advertising [ie everyone here shouting out about it around the net] we could possibly generate enough sales to make it with one item and some other donations.
I do think useful maps would sell better than just 'pretty' maps. Maps people could actually game with. So for them it serves a dual purpose - support a good site/cause and get some good game maps.
That also seems like it would be one of the easiest ways for Robbie to administer, as once the DTRPG account was set up and the product was produced all that would be required is some promoting and collecting the revenue.
Artstation - | - Buy Me a Kofi
Good idea.
Not to mention - It would drive more traffic here as well - great advertising for the Cartographer's Guild.
More members - more donations.
I am new here, and I did not even realize that it survived on donations.
I figured that it was all through advertisement banners.
What companies have you gone to for selling advertising space?
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Last edited by CharlesRobinson; 10-27-2015 at 04:12 AM.
You can set up a thread just for the project.
Give clear directions on what is needed.
And then people can post directly to it.
I am assuming high res maps.
I'm also guilty of having only donated once and then after that just thinking "Ah, I wanted to donate to the guild! Well, I'll do it tonight..."
That being said, I'd be one of the people willing to pay my 5$/month. It would help keeping it from slipping my mind.
I like the idea of donating maps and selling books to generate venue. What about a calendar? I think that might aswell be a good thing.
How secure is the donation system?
http://www.cartographersguild.com/misc.php?do=donate
Phishing attack ahead
Webroot had blocked access to the website you tried to open.
It has been evaluated to contain phishing content.
I see that the donation goal for next month was $90.
Twelve x $90 = $1,080.
I also looked and saw that you have 791 active members.
At $3 per month membership fee or $36 per year - that is $28,476.
That is not bad.
That is why I was asking about what the financial requirements (to include upgrade schedule) was.
Even if a membership fee was set up - I think a annual project for Drive-Thru customers would still be a great thing.
It brings in more funding, builds the sites prestige, may bring in more commissions, and would build the community.
You do not want people getting security alerts though when they go to donate/pay.
Very bad juju.
YES! I would love this. I'm not a gamer so a book doesn't really appeal (I'd rather just give the cash direct to the site, if it came down to it) but I can use a calendar, and it has the benefit of being an annual purchase, rather than just a one time thing. I know sites like Zazzle can create calendars from supplied art work, though no idea what the end product is like.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"
Robbie, before you opened it, you were thinking that money was lacking to make the CG working well as it should do (maintenance cost, servers cost etc.). 2 days after, there's 367% of a monthly donating goal reached. That brings me the following thoughts:
a. Some guilders forget to donate and once we just say "hey guys, help us with donate", they do.
b. Some guilders didn't even notice there was a donation system and once we just say "hey guys, help us with donate", they do.
c. Some guilders don't really know how the site is running, who is behind the scene and how they (means you here) make it works and once....you ge the thing.
I'm pretty sure that having a, b and c in mind, having a clearer/bigger donation message, a message on the front page explaining how the site is working, along with some regularly messages about it during the year will first help to bring more donations. There's obviously a lot of members that are ready to help to keep the forums working.
This said, there's a lot of good ideas brought into this thread and I'll be glad to contribute to some of them ( book/calendar/portfolio fee to name a few)
I'm not sure how feasible any of my ideas are, but I figured I'd throw them out there anyway:
THE BOOK
Further to the sponsored challenge idea, I think the annual challenge is a great option for real prizes and could also be a source of material for the book suggestion. For instance, the winner could automatically be picked out as the cover for that year's copy of the book, if you were to do a yearly release. You could then do a digital copy of the book at cheaper rates and permit people to print it themselves, or a hard copy maybe as an art book? (The problem with a book is picking a size that works well for all the maps that could be chosen. Some are designed to be printed at poster size, while others are meant for digital use only.)
J.Edward's right about wanting maps to be exclusive to the book. Part of me thinks that having a hard copy of a map would be awesome in itself even if it's also available online, because there's something about print that makes things feel a lot nicer (if you do it right), but it could put people off. I think all that would be required there, though, is to put any maps that wind up in the book into a private archive for reference but so only staff can see them.
I also like Bogie's idea of the book being themed. You could have several, eventually, such as City Maps, World Maps, Dungeon Maps, Hand-Drawn Maps, Alternate Earth Maps, etc. You could pick entries for some books so they're a similar style, and then other books so they're vastly different.
And further to my recent quest for material for practice maps, how about releasing a book of ready-made settings specifically designed at newbie/inexperienced cartographers who want to practice their style but don't know where to start in terms of what features to add? Things like "This city is divided into four quadrants and straddles a river that winds through mountains north to south" but with great enough detail to fuel a full map. I guess it'd be kind of like the DnD campaign booklets describing settings (which I don't have much experience with so possibly/possibly not?), but specifically designed with cartography in mind.
PAID SUB
Some other suggestions for a paid subscription, if you do have to go that route, would be things like special site themes for people to choose from and customise their experience of CG more, access to commercial resources, a special usergroup and usergroup badges, a special title, special award, etc. The forum customisations wouldn't be the selling point, but might tip the balance. Everyone here is so generous and giving away excellent resources for free, though, so I'm not sure it would bring in much revenue and I don't think I'd like CG like that anyway. What appeals to me now is that everyone is so generous with their time, feedback, advice, and the textures etc. Maybe access to private/extra challenges, though if CG is anything like my old forum-based game, it's tough getting enough people to join already that this might just be a waste of time.
As has been said, though, I don't think a general subscription is the way to go. If I had the money, I'd be happy to pay for silly little things like extra allowances for uploads and whatnot, but most of us don't have that money lying around anymore (if we ever did). I'm not a commercial mapper/artist so I'll leave the ins and outs of subs to the others, but I do like the idea of having dedicated subscriptions such as "People who make maps" and "People who buy maps". They could each get different benefits as people have already suggested.
I personally prefer the idea of allowing us to set up a monthly donation, though, because we can set how much we can offer ourselves. I'd rather go through CG itself than a secondary site, if at all possible.
MERCHANDISE
You could maybe offer merchandise in addition to the book, like T-shirts, bags, mugs, notebooks, USB drives, etc with a CG logo or motto or winning map on the cover, or yeah, a calendar. I'm thinking right now of the nanowrimo.org merchandise because nanowrimo is kind of stuck in my head, but deviantART could be another example. I know for books there are small press publishers who do most of the work and print on demand. AFAIK, all you'd have to do is the initial design and set up with whatever companies are required for the merchandise you're offering, then the rest would be fairly automated, and you could theme the merch on stuff cartographers need (such as drawing pens or flash drives). I'd be especially interested in a CG mascot as a soft toy, or in specialist notebooks for map-making. It's tough to find isometric paper in the UK, especially, especially at the size (A5) I want it. You could do something like a Moleskine but with slightly thicker paper and different grid types, or a book of watercolour paper that's got grids printed on it (because sometimes I want to paint my hard-copy maps but can't because it's not watercolour paper, and I can't be the only one).
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