In March my ad revenue basically quadrupled, and in April it nearly doubled again. This appears to have been the result of Google AdSense running some experiments with its Auto Ads system. I paid it little mind because I use an ad blocker and don’t see the ads that appear on my websites unless I make a point of doing so. At some point I realized that this was not a good practice, that I ought to turn off my ad blocker and see what Google had done to generate such returns. Oh. Wow. Ads thick on the ground, with interstitial ads that popped up when you clicked on a link. Sorry about that. I turned off the more obnoxious methods, blocked out some areas to keep ads out of the content area as much as possible, and dialed back the number of ads per page to Auto Ads’ minimum. Daily ad revenues dropped by roughly two-thirds, but are still several times what they were at the start of the year.

Now, if I don’t like the ad experience on my own website, that’s a problem. To say the least! I’d actually prefer it if The Map Room could go ad-free even for visitors who don’t use ad blockers. But, on the other hand, I do need to generate revenue. I’m not a map professional: this site isn’t a loss leader to drum up business for the day job. I don’t necessarily need it to provide a living on its own, but I’d like for it to pay its own way (I very nearly ran a loss last year) and maybe just maybe also pay me for my time and effort.

Since The Map Room restarted in 2016, display ads (i.e. Google) have provided slightly less than half of my website revenues, with affiliate links (mostly Amazon) also making up slightly less than half. The remaining few percentage points came from occasional contributions to the Ko-fi tip jar. So far this year, with the uptick in AdSense revenue, and fewer book-related posts, the breakdown is more like 70 percent Google, 20 percent Amazon, and 10 percent Ko-fi. If I can generate enough revenue from recurring contributions, I can retire the ads.

So for the first time, readers who would like to support The Map Room can now do so via monthly payments. You can sign up at either Ko-fi and Patreon. Each has three tiers of support (you can specify a different amount at Ko-fi). Ko-fi is priced in CAD, Patreon in USD. The highest tiers do not have additional bonus material, at least at the moment (I’m still working that out); they’re mainly there for those who want a higher rate to support the site at.

I’ve set a goal of $400 CAD per month (just under $300 USD): When monthly payments across the various platforms reach $400 CAD, I will turn off ads for everyone. (That number represents a low-end estimate of The Map Room’s ad revenues if I were to go full Dark Side and let Auto Ads just rip.)

There may be other announcements and enticements as this gets a bit further along. I don’t want to promise members-only content at this point—as an old-school blogger whose longstanding M.O. is to point to content elsewhere, I don’t have a whole lot of my own material to hold back for paying customers—but I can say that I’m thinking about something. Watch this space.

If you’re more comfortable making a single one-off contribution, you can still do that via Ko-fi. I appreciate any level of support, and am deeply thankful to everyone who has contributed over the years.

In the meantime, until this funding goal is reached, you can have an ad-free experience on The Map Room by using the ad-blocker of your choice—I will never, ever prevent you from using an ad blocker on my websites—or by subscribing to the RSS feed in your preferred feed reader.

The rule of thumb is that an item is vintage if it’s more than 40 years old, and antique if it’s more than 100 years old. (That tan-coloured Replogle globe with South Sudan on it? Not antique.) Time runs faster on the web, though: something 20 years old feels geologically ancient. Running a 20-year-old blog in 2023 feels like keeping a pet coelacanth: you’re keeping a living fossil alive.

As social media approaches what may well be its extinction event, there’s been a lot of talk about “bringing back blogs.” Um, blogs never went away: Kottke.org just marked its 25th anniversary, and there are still plenty of websites out there powered by WordPress or something similar that don’t call themselves blogs. What faded away, I think, was the idea of, and self-identification as, a blogger. Lots of people started blogs in the format’s early years but didn’t keep up with them; social media was a better fit for what they wanted to do. Not many people start a blog qua blog to be a blogger nowadays. But institutions still post updates in blog form, and experts share their insights on platforms that blur the lines between blog, social media and newsletter.

(Certainly the map blog never went away: we still have general-interest blogs like Maps Mania and Lat × Long; industry and academic figures like Matthew Edney, Kenneth Field and James Killick regularly post commentary and links; and plenty of working cartographers share their latest creations on blogging platforms as well.¹)

The Map Room is not an institution, nor am I an expert. No really: I’m not. The idea that someone with an intense interest in a subject but not much knowledge could start a blog as a way to explore the subject—“an exercise in self-education” is what I called it—was something that made sense in 2003. It might be a bit more archaic now.² I am also, twenty years on, rather more self-educated: I understand what I’m linking to more than I used to, and I’ve seen enough to know when to be skeptical. I’ve called bullshit on more than one occasion. I still can’t make a map of my own (there’s an alternate universe in which I’m making a perfectly happy living as a freelance cartographer), but my appreciation for them is all the richer for having spent two decades at this.

Previously: Mastodon for Mappers; The Map Room on Mastodon.

I have no plans to shut down any of The Map Room’s other social media presences (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter)—not at this time, anyway. And you can always subscribe via RSS or email—no intermediating platform required.

It hasn’t been a continuous run: it was on hiatus between June 2011 and January 2016 (the map content I posted to my personal blog during that time has since been brought over). But still, it’s been a lot: approaching something like 6,200 blog posts as of this writing. It’s kind of staggering, in hindsight.

If you’re moved to support The Map Room financially, you can do so via Ko-Fi or my hosting provider. It’s very much appreciated, and will help keep things going.

Meanwhile, for even more titles, see Matthew Edney’s Map History Books of 2021.

From now on, email subscriptions to The Map Room will involve a summary of the week’s posts written by me, rather than an auto-post of recent blog entries. If all goes to plan, it will mostly come out on Fridays (if I’ve posted that week), plus there may be occasional announcements at other times.

In the end I decided to go with my own internet service provider’s announcement list tool. It’s very old school and a bit less easy to use than a third-party email marketing service, but far better, I think, on the privacy front. I don’t even ask for your name. Your subscription is between you, me, and my mail server.

Current subscribers were emailed on Wednesday about this change and invited to subscribe. I got a lot of bounced addresses, so it may be that some of you reading this via email did not get Wednesday’s messages. Note that the Feedburner-powered digest will be shut down after this post goes out; if you want to continue (or start) receiving posts by email, visit this page to subscribe to the weekly digest.

(Let me know if you encounter any problems. I’ve gotten reports that people aren’t getting their confirmation messages, so do check your spam folder.)

They’ll probably have to come back at some point, because while I like the site without ads, it does cost me money to host this site, and time to work on it. If you like what I do here, this wouldn’t be a bad time to send a few dollars¹ toward The Map Room’s hosting bills, or to me directly via Ko-Fi. (Both methods use PayPal; minimum of $10 and $3 respectively.)

As always, your support is not necessary, but it’s greatly appreciated, and I do not take it for granted.

I’ve given the Map Books of 2019 page another update. At the moment it lists 31 books that have come out or are scheduled to come out this year. This list is always changing as publication schedules are adjusted and I learn about new books. As always, if there’s a book that should be on this list, let me know.

The Map Books of 2019 page lists all the books scheduled to come out this year—at least the ones I’m aware of. If there’s a book coming out in 2019 that should be on this page, let me know.

So far there are not many books listed, but that will change as the year progresses. Also keep in mind that publication dates shift all the time: keeping on top of those changes can be a sisyphean task, but I’ll do my best.

Five most popular posts published in 2017: (1) The Medieval Fantasy City Generator (27 Jul); (2) World Life Expectancy (28 Dec); (3) ‘They Just Wanted to Fix Some Things About the State Borders’ (13 Oct); (4) Mapping the August 2017 Solar Eclipse (21 Jul); (5) The Territory Is Not the Map (27 Sep).

Two posts from 2016 that would have made the top five: Streetwise Maps Is Apparently Closing (31 Aug 2016); Mapping Star Trek (15 Sep 2016).

Least popular post published in 2017: Deadline Extended for Corlis Benefideo Award Nominations (4 Apr).

Books reviewed: 5.

Books received in 2017 that are still in my to-review queue: 1.

Bestselling book: Picturing America by Stephen J. Hornsby (my review).

Top five countries by page views: (1) United States; (2) United Kingdom; (3) Canada; (4) Netherlands; (5) Germany.

Countries generating a single page view in all of 2017: Afghanistan, Åland Islands, Angola, Bhutan, Côte d’Ivoire, Faroe Islands, French Polynesia, Grenada, Guyana, Liberia, Sint Maarten, Somalia, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vatican City.

There was a small hiccup: initially the VPS was housed at my web host’s Oregon data centre while the MySQL server was in Virginia: this led to pages hanging for about seven seconds before loading unless you loaded a cached version. But that got sorted out late Friday night (or early Saturday morning, depending), and now everything is snappy and fast and not at all likely to throw server errors. There’s tons of CPU, memory and disk space to spare on my VPS; The Map Room had been just slightly too much for shared hosting, but now it will have lots of room to grow before I have to upgrade again. Honestly, I should have done this years ago.

Reader contributions to my hosting bills are a big reason why this upgrade was able to happen. Thanks to all who sent money in that direction. Your support is very, very much appreciated.