Every year, Southern Fried Science and our related outreach campaigns churn out hundreds of articles about marine science and conservation, coordinate innovative, multimedia outreach campaigns, and produce both educational tools and actual open-source hardware to help protect the ocean. These efforts aren’t free and our authors volunteer their time and expertise to help make Southern Fried Science one of the most visited marine science and conservation websites on the internet. Server costs run in excess of $3,000 per year, and that not including tech support and website development, all of which are voluntary and occasionally offset by funding campaigns. We don’t run ads. We don’t charge for access to our content.
So how can you help support Southern Fried Science?
- Read, discuss, and share our blog posts, videos, articles, tweets, and other projects. That’s why we do this.
- Contribute to Andrew’s Patreon. Website Overlord Andrew David Thaler runs a Patreon page to help offset the bulk of the cost of running Southern Fried Science, cover his tech support time, and fund new and interesting projects. The big stuff – keeping the website running, developing open-source hardware, buying capital equipment – all happens through support from his Patrons. This year, two peer-reviewed publications are slated to come out acknowledging financial support from Patreon.
- Use our Amazon Affiliate links. On some projects that involve buying hardware (or book reviews), we provide links to the parts we use. These links are Amazon Affiliate links, a small percentage of you purchase through that link goes back to us. It’s a simple, no fuss way to show you support.
You could also buy one of Andrew’s books – which are outreach efforts in their own rights, but those profits aren’t directly earmarked for Southern Fried Science.
Full transparency: It’s no surprise that both the full financial burden for running this site falls on Andrew’s shoulders and, conversely, all of the revenue generated so far has gone to him (though those who think running a popular blog is a sure-fire path to extraordinary wealth should not that over the 7 year life of the site, we are far from breaking even. This year is the first time we’ve come even close).