A quick update on our 'Voluntary Subscription' drive here on TDG. A month in, we have had 145 donations made - thanks so much to all that have offered some support, it makes such a huge difference to my ability to push the site forward.

However - and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, or demanding - 145 people (in a month) is *less than 1%* of our daily audience. I would like to think that the hours and expense that gets poured into TDG over the course of a year is perhaps worth, say, the price of a coffee? If it's not a valuable resource for 99% of readers, what is the point of the site continuing?

So come on, skip that coffee tomorrow and instead help ensure the future of The Daily Grail. Even if you do think the site's a worthless pile of crap, you still might get lucky and win a very nifty prize (details below)! Here's the PayPal donation button, you know you want to click it (you don't need a PayPal account, you can use your credit card as well):

For cheques/money orders via the post (only for amounts over $50 please, due to the expenses involved):

Greg Taylor
P.O. Box 28
Petrie, QLD, 4502
AUSTRALIA

Now: the upside of having just 145 donations so far is that - at the moment - the chances of those 'voluntary subscribers' winning a prize is about 1 in 15 (and getting better as more prize commitments come in). There are signed books from the likes of Jacques Vallee and Graham Hancock on offer, as well as a *very* nice piece of signed occult memorabilia from the Tool camp (thanks Blair!). More besides, but I'll keep that for the next update - let's see if we can get up to 200 voluntary subscribers by then! Remember too, the more you donate, the more entries you get in the draw.

Once again, a huge thanks to all those who have contributed to the our funding drive. You're all stars.

Many thanks to all those who have provided a contribution to our Daily Grail Donation Drive - it is appreciated very much! The prize pool (for those who have offered a 'voluntary subscription') is growing, with various authors/personalities kicking in some goods (e.g. this week Jacques Vallee and Graham Hancock offered a few autographed books each). At the moment, with number of contributors, versus the size of the prize pool, you're a good chance of picking up something - so it may well be worth your while.

A number of people have asked about providing a snail mail address, as they prefer sending a cheque to using PayPal, so here it is:

Please note: as I mentioned previously, cashing international cheques costs me around $10 each, takes 15 minutes to do each, and takes 30 days to clear. So, while I appreciate the thought very much, it just does not make sense to send a cheque in non-Australian dollars for a small amount - PayPal is best suited to that.

Greg Taylor
P.O. Box 28
Petrie, QLD, 4502
AUSTRALIA

Also: for those who queried me about donating via bank transfer, I have now received information from my bank about the SWIFT code needed to do so. Please contact me personally if you wish to do this.

And, just to persevere, here's the PayPal donation button again:

Again, many thanks and appreciation to all those who have given a little bit back to TDG!

Firstly, a huge thanks to those who have responded to my call for donations/voluntary subscriptions here on TDG a couple of weeks ago. Around 80 people have contributed varying amounts thus far, some small, some large, but all appreciated so much (although the one individual who sent a rather stunning donation will be receiving a gift in the mail from me - they deserve it)! I don't respond to each person individually, (a lot of people wish to remain anonymous, so I respect that), but if you want to say 'hi' then drop me a line - would love to thank you personally.

For those who have said they would like to send a cheque: I will provide an address next week. *Please note though*: for me to change international cheques (not in Australian dollars) costs around $10 per cheque, takes around 15 minutes of waiting around at the bank to do each one, and then takes an additional 30 days for the funds to clear. So, unless the amount is of a decent size or in Australian dollars, I would much rather you redirect your voluntary subscription to a worthy charity!

If you would like to help out via PayPal, here's the donation button once more:

Now, here's the good part!! I'm putting together a prize pool of multiple items - signed books by top authors etc. All 'voluntary subscribers' will go in the running for a chance to win one of these special items! Donations up to $19 get 1 entry, $20 to $49 gets 2 entries, and $50 and up gets 3.

Once again, thanks to all those who have been so kind as to help support The Daily Grail. It all goes back into making the site even better, so all readers (and obviously, myself) owe you a huge debt of gratitude.

In two months time (September 1), the Daily Grail will be ten years old. For some time, I've been seeing this date as a moment to ask myself whether it's worth continuing on with TDG. That's not to say that I don't enjoy it, or that I don't have big plans - simply that the requirements of living a happy family life (I've been married and had three children since starting TDG) have meant that I need to start justifying the time and expense I sink into the site.

The upshot of all this is that TDG needs to stop being a hobby, and more the thing that I do professionally. I have a number of ideas on how to achieve this (website improvements, advertising and marketing, diversification projects), but to do so the Daily Grail first needs some working capital, to help fund these future developments.

I have always been averse to people paying a subscription for TDG - I sincerely believe in information being a free resource. As such, with TDG's tenth birthday approaching, what I am doing is simply asking for a retroactive, completely voluntary subscription, for the ten years of information TDG has provided thus far. This donation/voluntary subscription drive will run for the next two months, till September 1st. To begin with, below is a Donation button for both Paypal and credit card/bank account transactions. I'll post details for snail-mail cheques in the coming days, and will occasionally post reminders until TDG's birthday. The donation amount is completely your choice - what has TDG been worth to you?

Access remains exactly the same here on TDG, whether you donate or not. If you can't spare anything, there are other ways to help - such as by spreading word about the site to others. When one reader becomes two, our advertising revenue (theoretically) doubles. So that's how easy it is to give back a little to the Daily Grail.

My appreciation and thanks for all assistance provided!

A quick apology for the lack of updates (other than news briefs) this week. Have been under the hammer with a bunch of other tasks, and can't quite seem to get the time to sit down at the keyboard for too long. I have a number of very interesting articles to post on as well...so hang in there!

On a brighter note, I sent out royalty payments to all the authors involved in Darklore Volume 1 this week. Really great to be able to help support good researchers and writers in the Daily Grail genres, so huge kudos to all you guys that bought a copy and threw your support behind the project. Darklore 2 is approaching completion right now, and I'm also about to publish a few other great books - exciting (if draining) times!

At a bit of a crossroads at the moment, wondering where to go with TDG. Server costs have just jumped appreciably, and my free time is growing more and more limited. Somehow, I need to make the website become a (paying) job for me, to justify the necessary time and expense involved in running the site. The dream would be to work full-time on it, and have the time to host regular interviews and features (perhaps even in video form) - in other words, regular frontline content. Being able to devote serious time to the site would also result in a far more professional presentation

The strange fact is that if every person who visited TDG regularly paid $1 for a year of access to daily news (compare that to $30 for a yearly magazine subscription for 6 mags), I would earn that full-time wage. However, the intarwebs just don't seem to work like that. So I'm at a loss on how to achieve my aim. I may make July 'voluntary subscription' (donation) month, for those who are willing to pay a small amount - just to help pay the bills. Obviously, we have other projects working towards that goal (e.g. Darklore), and I'm hopeful that they will one day make us self-sufficient. But apart from that, I'm open to suggestions from readers on how to make TDG a bit more of a worthwhile investment of my time. (Selling my body will *not* be a money spinner, unless I get paid by the kilo).

I have to apologise for not assembling the Tuesday Blogscan today, and also for missing the annual Daily Grail April Fool's gag for the first time in a long while. My excuse is a serious one - sorting through a huge controversy which has erupted with Amazon trying to take control of the print on demand industry (something which could impact me considerably). You can read about it in full detail on my Publish Yourself website, but in short this is the deal:

Bookselling giant Amazon is using strong-arm tactics in an attempt to take control of the fast-growing Print on Demand publishing industry, pursuing a new, hardline policy for publishers: if you want a print-on-demand book to be stocked on Amazon.com, you need to leave your current printer and sign up with the Amazon-owned printer Booksurge. Publishers have received phone calls from Booksurge with "an offer you can't refuse" - convert to the Amazon-owned company, or the 'Buy' button will be removed from your books' Amazon pages.

The enabling facets of Print on Demand technology make us all potential publishers. As such, we should *all* be concerned about Amazon's attempt to monopolise the industry at this early stage of its development."

How is this relevant to readers of The Daily Grail? Put quite simply, the continuation of TDG depends on the success of my self-publishing projects such as Darklore - otherwise I can no longer justify the time and money required to keep the site running. Amazon have just thrown a fair sized spanner into those plans - thankfully, I have not been directly affected yet, but it might be just a matter of time...

(To be absolutely clear, there is no April Fool's joke hidden within this story. You can revisit old AFD stories here: 2005, 2006, and 2007)

Us! When the Daily Grail audience is mobilised, we bring teh power. Thanks to all those kind folks who got their voting shoes on, TDG has won the 2007 Zorgy Award for "Best Website (News Summary)" (and also we were the only nominee in any category to top 1000 votes). Appreciate the love you've shown us here, which I think is mainly a testament to the hard work of all our TDG admins, not to mention all the Daily Grail members who post thought-provoking comments and blog entries to make the site a fun place to hang out and discuss weirdness of various colours and flavours.

Make sure you scan the entire list of nominees and winners - there are some cool sites and resources in there, worth a long night of browsing through.

I'm slayed with a flu at the moment, so apologies if updates are a bit scarce this week. New briefs should continue as normal, but some features I had planned for this week may have to wait until I can handle the glare of the monitor...