Paratus has been live for just over a month now, and things are going swimmingly. I had many reservations and concerns about the rebranding process, particularly about it being disruptive. It took considerable time and effort to build Gunservant to where it was, and I didn’t want to alienate and lose my hard-earned readership. However, I can safely say that the entire journey has been a resounding success. The presentation of our articles is at a higher quality than ever before, and we managed to gain a crowd of new subscribers. The site also attracted the attention of a Member of Parliament, Dianne Kohler-Barnard, who tweeted one of our articles. I think it is safe to call this a win.
So, where do we go from here?
My plan is to continue providing quality content, as well as constantly improving what is on offer. As I have mentioned numerous times previously, this is an entirely self-funded publication. I am not yet in any position to remunerate my contributors, bar inviting them over for a braai. For now this model is working alright enough. But I will need to investigate options to cover hosting and development costs. As well as paying my writers eventually. But more about that later.
In addition to the articles, we have a dealers classified section on offer. You can find it here. The purpose of it is to provide dealers with free advertising space for their latest stock. If you are interested in using it, simply send me an email to the Paratus address and I will oblige.
Another thing we are looking at is starting a webstore selling merchandise. We have a few exciting things in the pipeline in this regard, and we will keep you updated. Should you have any comments or suggestions about what you would like to see on offer, please don’t be shy: let us know what you want and we will try to make it happen! The same goes for article suggestions and submissions.
Lastly, we have set-up a Patreon page. Basically, if you like what we do, you can now throw $1 a month at us. Patreon is a safe and easy-to-use donations platform, and once you set your contribution you can effectively forget about it. Apart from letting me pay my writers, your funding will put us in a position to grow the brand and take on projects that would be either too expensive, complex, or time consuming to afford doing ourselves. I am also planning a special reward for the higher-tier contributors, which will be available early in 2018. If my clumsy sales-pitch has miraculously convinced you, you can sign-up and donate here: https://www.patreon.com/paratus
There are still going to be a few exciting articles before 2017 is over. Coming next week we will publish an in-depth analysis of Gun Free South Africa. Believe me, you don’t want to miss that one.
For those of you who have stuck around since the start, thank you for being awesome. For those of you who are new to Paratus, welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Let’s roll!
Written by Gideon Joubert
Gideon is the owner and editor of Paratus.
Zoo Keeper
•8 years ago
Keep up the great work Gideon!
Hopefully you can attract more parliamentarians, especially after GFSA’s gumphf has been published in the working papers. They are a number of steps ahead.