No Escape's operating costs for 2023

Hello! My name is Kaile, and I am the chief blog person and editor of No Escape/No Escape Magazine. I want to tell you my story and why I'm turning to crowdfunding.

No Escape started in April 2019 as a personal project, a blog about video games and the video game industry that I maintained between work shifts and on lunch breaks. After an unexpected bump in popularity in 2020, I began taking contributor pitches with the view of helping to improve the lower, smaller end of the video game media industry. I didn't want folks coming up to have the same experience I did: writing for places that paid in "experience" and "exposure" only for that experience not to matter because they ultimately had to do other things to pay the bills.

I started a Patreon in July 2020 to help offset the cost of paid contributors; I'm happy to say it has a small but very dedicated support base now. Throughout the latter half of 2020 and 2021, I was able to support over a dozen writers from different levels of the games media industry. Some of the work published during this time remains my favorite work on the site, like Ruminations on a World of Horror and Descending the Lighthouse.

In 2022, I decided to put some of my (amateur) desktop publishing experience to use and started a bimonthly magazine, No Escape Magazine. The first two issues of the magazine are currently live on itch.io. This has increased the number of contributors I've worked with by 100 percent, and I'm proud of the work that we are doing. 2022 has been the best year for No Escape by far.

So why am I asking to crowdfund No Escape in 2023? Well, there are two reasons. First, I don't know what the next year will throw at us economically. 2022 was bad enough, with my job reducing the number of hours I could work for September and compelling me to take on a decent amount of debt to get through it. Crowdfunding No Escape would help remove some of the pressure off my bank account in the event of a future emergency like that. Second, crowdfunding No Escape would introduce some stability and consistency to the site and magazine on the back end, both in terms of day-to-day operations and in the standardization of the bimonthly magazine's runsheet.

Why is my goal $4200? This is the minimum amount I am looking at spending on operations in 2023.

Why am I using GoFundMe? Because even if I don't make my goal, something is better than nothing, and any offset to what it costs me personally will help keep things running here. I want to be clear that I'm not currently in dire straits, and that I don't need this money on an emergency basis. Rather, this is to futureproof No Escape, so that even if I personally have something come up, the site can keep going for at least another 12 months.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! If you can't donate, please consider sharing this campaign! Help keep independent critical media alive and kicking in 2023!