Want War Is Boring to Keep Publishing?
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by DAVID AXE
War Is Boring at Medium turns two years old in May. They’ve been a busy 24 months for us. We started out publishing one story a day, expanded to two in late 2013 and grew that to three — and sometimes four or five — in 2014.
Today our mix of front-line war reporting, military news and analysis, pop culture reviews, history writing and comics — written and drawn by roughly two dozen regular contributors — racks up nearly two million views per month.
We believe we’re doing good work. And we’d like to keep at it.
But we need your help. More to the point, we need your money. Just a little bit of it.
For two years we’ve subsisted on a combination of donations, Amazon ads and, most importantly, the generous support of our publisher, Medium.
Now it’s time for War Is Boring to become a truly self-supporting so that we can keep doing what we do … well, forever. It’s not like there’s ever going to be any less war to write about.
Starting on April 10, every day two of our stories will be free to read. But the third story will be available only to subscribers via a special e-mail newsletter. Let’s call it Super WIB.
For $5 per month, you will get access to the third story plus other perks — including, to start with, access to our initial batch of War Is Boring merchandise, including t-shirts, mugs … and more to come. We’ll also send you a fun little gift.
Full disclosure — War Is Boring costs many tens of thousands of dollars per year to operate, pretty much all of which goes directly into the pockets of our writers and artists. In subscribing to War Is Boring, you’re really just sponsoring our hard-working staff, including:
Robert Beckhusen, our tireless managing editor and Latin America specialist;
Matthew Gault, who does some editing and writes about Pentagon waste, fraud and abuse — and is also War Is Boring’s main media critic;
Joe Trevithick, a master of the Freedom of Information Act request, whose document-based research digs up priceless nuggets of Cold War history;
Kevin Knodell, a young reporter with a passion with Chinese military history and the writer behind most of our comics;
Paul Huard, a teacher, historian and editor with a particular fondness for profiling iconic weaponry;
Steve Weintz, our resident expert on all things nuclear;
Kyle Mizokami, a close observer of developments in East Asia;
Adam Rawnsley, who never met a drone he didn’t like;
Thomas Newdick, who understands warplanes;
James Drew, who also understands warplanes;
James Simpson, our man in Japan;
Peter Dörrie, our Africa correspondent;
Zack Baddorf, our man in Ukraine;
Matt Cetti-Roberts, our guy in Iraq;
Vager Saadullah, our other guy in Iraq;
& Blue Delliquanti, one of the best indie comics artists working today — and the person, along with Matt Bors, who is most responsible for War Is Boring’s unique look.
You can subscribe by clicking here or on the ad you see below. The same kick-ass A-10-themed ad will also appear on all of War Is Boring’s free stories. So if you don’t subscribe today, you’ll get two more chances every day for the foreseeable future.
Basically, we’ll keep asking you to sign up until we meet our budget. The alternative is cutting back our coverage … or folding altogether. We don’t want that to happen. And we believe you don’t, either.
Subscribe, and we’ll keep working hard to bring you the insightful, empathic and entertaining combat dispatches, news and analysis, reviews and comics you’ve come to expect from War Is Boring.
