Here's an interesting chart, prepared by a friend of mine. It takes some sophistication, perhaps, in reading scientific percentile graphs to understand since my engineer brother was baffled by it but it is interesting and relevant.

http://deirdre.net/fun-data-from-the-author-earnings-spreads...

Hugs,
Erin

We're a almost halfway through the month and more than a third of our goal. Thanks, everyone.

First of all, Merry Christmas to all who want to celebrate that holiday and Happy Holidays to those celebrating some other day and Seasons Greetings to everyone else!

After a minor repair to the database, Tuckerspawn is back up. It went down because of the brownout at our ISP in Denver last week.

Have fun!

Hugs,
Erin

I had one of those tedious dreams last night.

Contributions to the Hatbox continue to be what keeps Piper and I able to keep this website and a dozen others used by the TG community active and running.

Angela Rasch's "Voices Carry Over Water" is now available to contributors to the Hatbox and we will soon have the revised version of "To Alleviate Suffering" there, too. Thanks very much, Angela. :)

Okay, Christmas is just around the corner, and I am still designing the official Contest page. My medical condition has worsened and money is very tight. I am currently offering $400 in prizes as of the moment. It may increase depending on what I can do between now and the end of submissions.

Here are the basics to get you started:

We're going to try a new capability here after a recent request. Now you can subscribe to your favorite authors to be notified when they post new stories. :) At least, we hope this works. Consider it to be in test mode right now.

Much too hard to do this on the phone, see you all in the morning.

Hugs,
Erin

We're halfway through September and have half of our goal received for August. All gifts are appreciated and the money is being spent to either pay our ongoing hosting related bills, pay down debts accrued in keeping the site running for the last 14 years or pay Piper enough that she can forego other paying jobs to keep BC and related sites functioning. Some goes into the Server Fund intended to upgrade our hardware next year and what little is left over I probably spend on comic books and In-N-Out burgers. :) I also share donations received with other TS/TG sites and causes.

I've made this twice recently, it's good hot weather food and it comes out differently every time so this recipe is just a guideline.

We made our goal and thanks to everyone who contributed. I have a couple of checks here still to deposit that didn't get done because last week I was sick and the week before I was on vacation.

Too tired to post photos tonight, but I have a few.

Here's one of some inventive cosplayers:

We got in a big check for the server fund in June but other donations for the Hatbox are very behind. The way this is going to work is that when we make the goal for the month, I will donate $500 to the server fund from the Hatbox. Also, donations that come in marked for Server Fund will go there.

So, anything you can chip in will be good. We will probably be using the server fund around October/November to upgrade at least one of the servers to a 3 to 5 year life machine. The other machines may have to wait till next year.

Thanks to everyone.

Hugs,
Erin

Not to put too fine a point on it but there's less than four days to go in the month and we are still short about $700 of our goal. (There's known money in the mail.)

Really, we're still testing it. So for now, using the search box will be limited to logged in members. If all goes well, we'll go back to allowing anonymous visitors to use it also and members can use some advanced features.

Category browser in the right column is available also and Google can be used to search the site using Site:BigClosetr.us in the search bar with your question on Google.

Hugs,
Erin

I was having difficulty yesterday in accessing an older story with many chapters, so took my older computer and connected it and using AOL Version 1 instead of 9.6 that is in my newer computer, was able not only to access Authors, select the Author, and open and read all the chapters, in "Rules...." by Kaleigh Way, and even the page headings were in full colour like BCTS was until the Problems began.

Perhaps if others simply returned to earlier versions of their internet service providers' programmes, they too could find access easier ?