Dear readers, Luke is looming over me threateningly with a face like thunder. He’s pushed a piece of paper in front of me and is insisting I read it out to you. His knuckles are white with the intensity of his grip on an articulated Reconquista-era Andalusian rosewood and brass shoe horn which he is brandishing over me like an executioner’s axe. He has the kind of mad look in his eye that I would usually associate with him partaking of four bottles of Summer Lightning in front of Lovejoy. He is beginning to froth at the chops slightly. I had better submit to his wishes.
“You have helped us survive. Now make us thrive.”
He is, of course, completely right. At first when the site started occasionally crashing about seven years ago, I almost felt like it was a badge of honour. We would carry on publishing no matter what obstacles fell in our path. But then the outages got longer and longer, the site got glitchier and glitchier, until more recently we were off line for an entire calendar month over the course of the year. We realised then that this was an existential threat which would become a final reality for us sooner rather than later.
Thankfully, a while ago, we were introduced to one of our readers who felt so strongly that we should continue, they helped with providing the funding and contacts that allowed us to build a new site and transfer our massive archive across, allowing us to utilise a team of people who were themselves dedicated readers, and understood exactly what it was we were trying to do. The investment, which didn’t come with any editorial strings attached, has allowed us to carry on doing exactly what you want us to do, but now with a site that actually works and doesn’t just fall over for a week because someone has looked at it a bit funny. To the reader who stepped in to help, we owe a great deal of thanks – doubly so, when this is considered against the backdrop of so many other magazines and websites closing down or downscaling over the last 12 months. The environment for independent publications has become so harsh recently – especially for the few who still provide a solid platform for and a context to countless bands, producers, writers and artists who would otherwise be roundly ignored in the conservative mainstream digital marketplace – that not only do we feel grateful to still be here but that it is absolutely necessary we continue.
But also we owe you the same level of thanks. A year ago I wrote to you all saying that we needed another 350 subscribers to stay afloat. And you mobilised, signing up, allowing us to stay alive, to survive, until the project of relaunch finally came to fruition. For that you have my undying thanks, but I am here to repeat the request today. The site redesign and relaunch was a one shot project which we needed to get right – and we used every single penny wisely – but we still need to boost our subscriptions to pay the day to day running costs and our great writers. We envisage a safe future for the site where we can start planning improvements to our coverage of the music and culture we all love without having near constant stress over our precarious financial position.
My request to you is simple. I would like to aim, over the next year, for 1% of the people who read the site, to take out a subscription and contribute directly to the running of tQ.
At the moment only 0.65% of our readers (these are our most recent figures) have a subscription. An extra 500 people by our 16th birthday in September would see that figure rise to 0.85%, or 2000 people, and another 400 on top of that would take us up to 1% by this time next year. This would not only scare the wolves from the throne room, it would repel them from the door, in fact it would give those handsome, long-nosed but ultimately terrifying lupine goat-killing machines something to think about, driving them entirely off the property!
The mad look has returned to Luke’s eyes, he has a keen ear for when the wolf-metaphors are being stretched beyond breaking point, so I will leave it here: “You’ve helped us survive. Now make us thrive.”
Below you can see the ridiculous discount (over a third on the top tier!) we’re offering on subscriptions and the masses of amazing perks you get in return for joining the one percent. All our subscriber perks are now in one helpful page on the website, with everything in its own section – you can catch up with all our Low Culture Essays, hundreds of hours of music in our monthly playlists, the Low Culture Podcast and the Organic Intelligence newsletter. Top tier subscriber plus members will be sent three exclusive releases as soon as they sign up. Become a subscriber via the Steady checkout below:
