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anamardoll · 05-11-2011, 01:33 PM

I have to say I love the idea of a donation button, especially if it was centralized somehow (i.e., every author on a "free ebooks" site like, say, GoodReads had a donation button - assuming they participated). I like the idea of a standardized way of giving a little more to an author.

My husband is a bedroom programmer and last year released a "reviewer analysis tool" for dedicated Amazon reviewers like myself to use. We were shocked and surprised when people started writing in DEMANDING that he add a "Donate" button so that they can send him money! Some people have donated multiple times as the program has grown and evolved.

We've seen this also with the Google app market. If an app has a paid "ad-free" version, I'll usually keep the free version because I don't feel the need to pay to get rid of ads. But if the author of the app has a "donation" version (full functionality as the free version, but with a small fee), I almost always buy that one if I like the app, because I ( a ) can afford to do this (very important caveat), and ( b ) I like and respect the author's attitude and I feel good compensating them.

Sometimes I get books for free online from GoodReads or Smashwords or whatever and I enjoy them so much that I would LIKE to send the author money, but there's not currently a great easy way to do that. Similarly, sometimes I read library books that I don't really want to buy at $7 a pop because I didn't like them THAT much and I don't intend to read them again, but if there was a way to "tip" the author a dollar or two, I probably would.

I really don't see a Donation button as begging - it's more like giving people the option to say thanks and even (what they perceive as) a social debt. (i.e., you brought value to my life, now I want to bring value to yours to the tune of X monetary compensation)

05-11-2011, 01:33 PM	#74
anamardoll Chasing Butterflies Posts: 3,132 Karma: 5074169 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: American Southwest Device: Uses batteries.	I have to say I love the idea of a donation button, especially if it was centralized somehow (i.e., every author on a "free ebooks" site like, say, GoodReads had a donation button - assuming they participated). I like the idea of a standardized way of giving a little more to an author. My husband is a bedroom programmer and last year released a "reviewer analysis tool" for dedicated Amazon reviewers like myself to use. We were shocked and surprised when people started writing in DEMANDING that he add a "Donate" button so that they can send him money! Some people have donated multiple times as the program has grown and evolved. We've seen this also with the Google app market. If an app has a paid "ad-free" version, I'll usually keep the free version because I don't feel the need to pay to get rid of ads. But if the author of the app has a "donation" version (full functionality as the free version, but with a small fee), I almost always buy that one if I like the app, because I ( a ) can afford to do this (very important caveat), and ( b ) I like and respect the author's attitude and I feel good compensating them. Sometimes I get books for free online from GoodReads or Smashwords or whatever and I enjoy them so much that I would LIKE to send the author money, but there's not currently a great easy way to do that. Similarly, sometimes I read library books that I don't really want to buy at $7 a pop because I didn't like them THAT much and I don't intend to read them again, but if there was a way to "tip" the author a dollar or two, I probably would. I really don't see a Donation button as begging - it's more like giving people the option to say thanks and even (what they perceive as) a social debt. (i.e., you brought value to my life, now I want to bring value to yours to the tune of X monetary compensation)