Update on our Subscription Revenue Sharing Program
Bucks for Blogs
Hey y’all, just wanted to give a quick update on the Bucks for Blogs program we announced last year around this time.
Thanks to the generous support of our readers, Seeds of Science turned a profit in 2024 for the first time in our short but illustrious history. This is a problem for us however, because, while not technically/legally a non-profit, we are committed to a “no-profit” model. We have decided that the simplest way to solve this “problem” is to redistribute all of our subscription revenue to the authors we feature on the Best of Science Blogging feed.
Here is how it will work. Each article counts as one “share”. If we post 60 articles in 2025 and two of them are yours, then you are entitled to 1/30th of our subscription revenue (the profits from 2024 will be rolled over and included in the pool for 2025).
After doing all the mathulations, we were able to offer $55 per article. The vast majority of authors refused payment; in the end, we distributed $825 to six authors (some of whom had published multiple articles with us) at $75 per article.
This leaves us with a ~$1500 surplus. The subscription revenue program was a worthy experiment I think, but given how many authors refused payment—preferring, in effect, to make a donation to SoS—perhaps there is something more interesting that can be done with the money. Given our current subscription revenue, we will have something like $3000 at the end of 2026, enough to sponsor an essay contest or a small grants program or….
It goes without saying, but the more revenue we have, the more seeds of science we can germinate, so please consider purchasing a subscription ($7 per month, $75 per year) if you dig what we are doing here. As always, we love hearing from our readers—please don’t hesitate to reach out (info @ theseedsofscience.org) with questions, ideas, devastating critiques, or article submissions.
Congratulations on all the success!