We are often asked who funds us? For example, UKSG responded to one of out tweets, asking “When will you be more open about who you are and who is funding you (if anyone, indeed). Just out of interest.“
Our response to that tweet was
“Yes we will [be more open], please see x.com/fake_journals/. We are just making the final preparations. Also, there is one paper accepted, and been through the final proof stage (we are done with it, it is with the journal now) and we’d like that paper to be available online before we go public as we feel that it is important. Please bear with us for just a little longer.“
We have always planned to be more open and transparent, and always – from day one – said that when we reached 10,000 X (Twitter) followers we would reveal who we are. We have now reached that number, so will explain about our finances – slightly ahead of going public, which we plan to do on 17th August 2024.
So, what costs do we have?
Here are the major costs that are associated with running this Twitter account and the accompanying web site. We won’t give exact figures as i) they change over time, ii) the aim is not to provide a full financial statement but, rather, provide information about the costs we have incurred for the past six years, and will continue to incur.
- We have the domain costs for the web site (http://www.predatory-publishing.com). The domain has been active for about six years and we recently renewed it for a further few years. If you have ever registered a web domain you’ll be familiar with the costs involved but we are talking several hundred dollars.
- We do subscribe to a number of services to support our web site. For example, we use Elementor
as our web site builder. We could have gone with a free option, but we wanted to take advantage of some of the paid for features. We also use a #PHP plugin that enables us to provide more dynamic content. For example, when we display lists of publications, this is being serviced via PHP, as it would be difficult (at least for us) using raw WordPress, if not impossible. - We have a “blue tick” X (Twitter) account, which we have to pay for. We decided to go for the blue tick option not really for the blue tick (it’s nice, but does not mean what it used to mean) but mainly so that we could post longer content – such as this. We are glad we went down this route as many of our most popular posts exceed the standard 280 character limit.
- You may notice that we post regularly. To do this, we utilize a queueing app. We favour Buffer, as it is what we know and we are familiar with the way it works. We are currently on their legacy plan but are thinking of upgrading as it provides more functionality but (surprise) it is more expensive. The one hesitation we have (apart from the cost) is that fact that Buffer has an API, which they stopped making available to new subscribers a few years ago unless you were an existing user (which we were). We have asked if we upgrade, will we still be able to use the API – they have said yes, but we are still hesitant as using the API is an important element of our workflow.
- We are NOT graphic designers but we do recognize the importance of images when posting (and video, but we have not even considered that yet). To support our (very limited) capabilities in designing graphics we subscribe to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. This gives us access to tools such as Photoshop. Okay, we could use a variety of free tools but we know Adobe’s tools and use them in other parts of our lives, so we bite the bullet and subscribe. Not all the costs of Creative Cloud can be attributed to this X account and our web site but it is probably what we use these tools for the most.
- Our time: We probably spend (on average) two hours a day on this Twitter account and the accompanying web site. This is obviously a cost to us, but we do not recoup these costs.
Income
We set up a Patreon account (and regularly post about it on our Twitter feed) a couple of years ago. You can see it here: patreon.com/predatorypubli
In the time Patreon has been running it has generated about USD $170. We are very appreciative to those that have supported us via Patreon. This is an area we would like to further develop as we do not think we are doing a very good job of offering the right incentives. If you have any ideas/thoughts, we would be glad to hear from you.
We have also experimented with display ads on our web site. We have mixed feelings as, in our view, it really detracts from the look/feel on the web site. At its high we were getting about USD $25 dollars a month. We have taken off many of the ad placement places and we are down to about USD $2 a month (yes, a month, NOT a day). It is almost not worth doing and are thinking of removing display ads completely. Since we started experimenting with display ads, we have raised about USD $350 (over a 2-3 years).
So, who else funds you?
The short answer is nobody. Everything we have done so far, we have funded ourselves. Indeed, the Patreon and display ad funds, still sit in those accounts. We have not drawn on those funds yet.
The future
We would like to make this initiative at least sustainable. We have a few plans/ideas that we’ll share in due course.
Finally
We are very grateful to our patrons and to all those that have supported us (albeit unknowingly) when they click on a display ad. But. it’s not all about the finances. We have received fantastic support from the community, in a variety of ways. It has to be said though that we have also received some negativity (which is one the primary reasons why we did not go public from day one), but generally we have felt support from the community. Thank you to everybody who has supported us and we look forward to the next few years with excitement.