Support The Quarterly Conversation
Bad news though: that great cultural coverage you love is a horrible business decision. The Atlantic Monthly? Loses money every year. Harper’s? Heaps of debt too. The Nation? Millionaire owner. Heck, after breaking the Abu Ghraib story and owning Malcolm Gladwell for nearly a decade The New Yorker only managed to break even a couple of years ago.
In a world where giving smart people coverage of art and literature that doesn’t condescend to them is a recipe for financial ruin, we’re trying to stay afloat without piles of debt or deep pockets to fund us.
So first off, thanks for reading The Quarterly Conversation. Just by paying attention to us and telling your friends about how much you like us, you’re already helping by giving us a reason to keep delivering the writing you read here.
But now you’re taking the next step and actually want to give us material support. That’s awesome, and we really appreciate that.
We’re dedicated to keeping the magazine free, and we rely on donors like yourself to help us do that. Here are some of the places donations go:
- Regularly develop and improve the site design
- Pay for server space, domains, and the rest of the technical back end
- Pay for rights to some serialized and translated materials
- Pay to mail review materials
- Occasionally acquire difficult-to-find books
- Pay writers (though we had to temporarily put this on hold because there just wasn’t enough money to keep doing it)
This is what you’re supporting:
- In 2009 alone, over 100 in-depth reviews of high quality literature that is largely not getting covered elsewhere. Our reviews average 1500 words per review and are widely looked to for their quality and professionalism.
- In 2009 alone, hundreds of pages of essays that are reconsidering established authors like Cormac McCarthy and exposing audiences to new authors, like Mathias Enard. These essays help develop audiences for new, important authors, and they help re-evaluate classic authors while exposing them to new audiences.
- Original translations of authors not widely known in the U.S., and serializations of important fiction and non-fiction from forthcoming books
- Interviews with authors, translators, and industry professionals, and reports on what’s happening in the worlds of literature and publishing
How to Help
#1 Donate directly. There are lots of ways to help. The simplest thing to do is donate directly to us via PayPal. No amount is too small—even a donation of $1 will help us keep delivering the content our readers value. Just click the link and enter your donation:
#2 Buy from Amazon via our links. Readers can also help us every time they buy a book from Amazon. By clicking on any of the Amazon links found throughout this website and then buying something without leaving Amazon, The Quarterly Conversation will get a commission. You can browse around as much as you want, just so long as you enter from one of our links and purchase something without leaving Amazon. Or you can just click to start right here
Or use these searchboxes. We’ll get a cut each time you use them a buy a book (even if it’s not the same book, so long as you don’t leave the site first).
#3 Advertise. If you are an author or publisher, or simply someone who wants to sell a product or service, you can also place an ad on The Quarterly Conversation. The ad will appear on each of the site’s hundreds of pages and will be seen by thousands of unique visitors each week. For full details, click here.
You can also place an ad on The Quarterly Conversation’s editors’ blog, Conversational Reading. An ad on Conversational Reading can be set up in minutes at this link and will reach thousands of dedicated readers, publishers, and publishing insiders each week.
#4. Read us on your Kindle. If you have a Kindle, consider subscribing to The Quarterly Conversation and/or Conversational Reading on your device. You get the convenience and ease of having our content delivered regularly and we get a small, recurring donation.
#5 Write. Lastly, keep in mind that we’re always on the lookout for skilled writers. If you think you have something to add to what we do, don’t hesitate to send us a query or an article. Even if you don’t want to write for us, a short email letting us know how we’re doing will be greatly appreciated. And if you like what you see, then let your friends know that they should check us out.