Give away a share of our hard earned cash to our readers?! Surely not a good tactic from a blog that’s all about making money.
But blogging, sang Phil Collins, is a game of give and take.
Ok, so maybe he was actually singing about ‘love’, but the sentiment is the same. Here at The Money Mountain, we don’t just want you to enjoy reading our articles, we want you to feel part of our project, so we’re doing something radically different to the other blogs out there.
So what is this all about?
Well there are a lot of blogs out there these days. But we want ours to be different.
If you’ve read our ‘about us’ page then hopefully you know what we’re trying to do.
The three of us who run this blog are simply trying what almost everyone is doing these days: to supplement their main income with other sources of earnings.
Of course we’re hoping to entertain you along the way, but this is also a voyage for the three of us of seeing what’s possible – what works, and what doesn’t.
It’s going rather well so far. In our first 18 months of this project we made £4,500. That’s money that we’ve made outside of our regular full-time jobs. We’re nothing special – with a little hard work and desire, anyone can do this.
But we want you to feel part of this project. We want you to celebrate our successes and join in the collective disappointment at those times we meet with miserable failure (and there have been a few of those).
So, we figured: what better way to make you feel part of it than to give you a stake in our fund!
Think of yourselves as honorary members of the project. Welcome aboard.
So how much is the reader’s stake?
We’re setting it at 10% for the next year. A tenth of everything we make without you having to put in any effort at all – that’s a pretty sweet deal.
Normally, giving away cash isn’t something we’d be into. But in this case we’re doing it for the benefit of valued members of our community. And we hope that will bring us all together a bit more.
Us, giving away our cash….
Many blogs exist only to make money off their readers through advertising, affiliate sales and selling courses (some of them cynically so). But not only are we going out there and busting our backsides making money from other sources, we’re giving some of it to our readers! That’s how different we are.
Is this for real?
Absolutely, it is. At our 1 year anniversary we tried to give away nearly £300. Alas, we didn’t have enough engaged readers at that point who wanted it! So we only managed to give away a fraction of that. But we wish we could have.
We’ve deemed that to be considered a reader you have to be subscribed to our email list. The link is in the sidebar – or below if you’re on a mobile device. We promise we won’t spam you and you can unsubscribe any time. You don’t even need to read these emails!
When it comes to giving out the money (each June) – and we commit to doing it annually at least – we try to think of the best way to use it for our readers collectively.
For example, it might take the form of:
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A raffle with multiple winners
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Charitable donations to reader-nominated organisations.
Or any one of a load of other possible ideas.
It all depends on how much there is and how many readers there are. The above are just a few ideas but the possibilities are endless. We’ll need your help with it when the time comes. It’s your money, after all.
When people find out we’re sharing our fund with them….
What do you need to know?
We’re absolutely genuine about giving out this money, but there need to be a few conditions to stop things getting silly. Here are a few terms and conditions so we don’t end up in any disputes about this:
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The direction of the reader share is intended to be for annual distribution but the timing, amount and use of those funds is ultimately at our discretion.
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No reader of the blog has a specific entitlement either individually or collectively to any payment from us.
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The amount intended for distribution will be a portion of the increase in the value of the fund over the 12 months. It’s not a proportion of the absolute value (otherwise our funds will shrink in periods where we don’t make money).
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The increase will be calculated after all taxes and fees.
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If the fund makes a loss in any particular year, the readers aren’t liable. Obviously. Sometimes I wonder why I have to say this stuff.
Anyway, that’s the boring stuff done. It’s time to get subscribed as a reader today! As part of the email list you’ll be better able to follow along this journey and, as part of the team, we’ll be looking to get your opinions on how to take this project forward! And of course it’s only those who are subscribed who will have any say on how the 10% gets used when the time comes.
Let us know what you think in the comments below!