37Sims Freed

[dstar]

Read here http://www.37sims.com/ . She has moved to financing the site from advertising and voluntary donations rather than pay sets- checked the donation button no pay sets on the donation page, nothing marked as pay in the downloads section. Congrats Eliza/37Sims

[CatOfWar]

Great!  Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it's just one site, but hey, I'm going to be happy about.  Every little bit of hope is a bit of hope.  I would have thanked the site owner, but can't find a contact button.

Is it too early to find something there that might be finds list worthy?  I can thank them by promoting them now that they are free, if I find stuff I like.  Just want to make sure they stay free.

[dstar]

She just updated with a new set of modern rugs on the 9th. She does not have her whole site up yet - She may actually get her own post in the finds section at my site tomorrow with special Congratulations on Going Free feature- after I check out her site and see what else she has to offer. It looks like how she is supporting the site via ads and donations is the same way MTS does it- with the paypal donation button, Amazon ads, and the Amazon minisite where  for anything Sims related you buy a certain percentage of the money is donated to support the site.

[ShanOw]

Finally some good news! I wish her all the best!

[lorikay]

I'd never been to this site before.  However, I'm looking forward to checking it out often now.  I'm with Shanow, finally some good news!  Congrats Elize!

[MamaKitty]

Contact info is on Impressium page.

[redraw]

It does look like a good site.  Some of the stuff I might get for my motherlode or non-asylum houses.

I do like that she did get a reseller thing through Amazon.  I'm pretty inclined to get Pets through her amazon storefront so she can get something at least from her commission.  Though I wonder what's her percentage.

[dstar]

I think that MTS gets roughly 5% of the sale. The better person to ask might be CatofWar she more knowledgeable about how the MTS system works. The other way to help her out is to not ad-block her sites. Sites that pay with advertising- get paid a percentage from their advertisers for every page view,

[redraw]

Noted and turned off Adblock for Elize's site.

According to Amazon, it is up to 10%.

[SoggyFox]

And there was much rejoicing!

*passes around rum*

Best way to 'destroy' a paysite, if you ask me, except if its one like TSR.

[missymoo]

I would be willing to bet the site makes more money this way too, good on them for switching ^^

[CatOfWar]

I asked.  Here's Delphy's advice on supporting a site financially.

- Don't rely on one method.  He recommens Adsense, a Paypal donation button, and Amazon store.
- Don't expect much from Amazon.  It starts at 2-4%, goes up with more sales.  MTS gets about 6%, but that's still only about a "tenner a month", according to Delphy.  So don't rely on Amazon.
- Have a PayPal button, but don't pimp the hell out of it, that annoys people.
- If you can get about 5 people donating monthly, regularly, that usually pays for standard web hosting
- Have a donation meter.  Meters encourage people to donate, and they like to see them.

So now if someone asks, I have something more to say than "Erm, I don't know".

----------------------------

HP had this very helpful suggestion.

- Offer pictures of your naked ass for money.

And I would add this.

- Threaten to post pictures of your ugly ass if you don't get money.

[dstar]

She probably will- because she will get more traffic- modern Sims objects are kind of like the Historical/Ethnic content at Tarox, or Parsimonious- a niche market. People who were not willing to pay for content at all, or who did not want to buy donation sets that looked like they had been up awhile are more likely to buy something at the Amazon mini-site, or sign up for Netflix or Gamefly. As CatofWar said  this is one of the reasons that MTS system works, they support the site with a wide variety of methods other than donation sets and pay content, but, people who aren't happy simply with a thank you email from the site admin  and who want something shiny for their good deed, get something in return like a game, game guide or faster download speeds.

I wish other pay owners would take this method up, I really do, especially the smaller sites like 37Sims where they can't possibly be making enough off of donation packs or sub fees to support the site anyways since many  small sites only offer  donation and pay stuff that is several years old that most paysite supporters already have in game, or that is already freely available at the Booty or at Sims Cave, or who play to a niche market like M-Rated content, modern content, or historical content where they really don't get as much traffic as larger, less niche sites.  I wish her good luck for her site, and hope to see a lot of great modern stuff from her for the game.

[chemistrycourtney]

Well that is just really good to hear.  Always happy to see a site taking a different direction outside of donation only objects.   

[SamanthaS]

I wonder if this could mean she's not going to be an FA at TSR anymore? Because that would be great.