Contributions
Contribute to running this site? Why would I want to do that???
1) John Steakley does not run this site. He knows of it, approves of it, and sometimes cooperates with us on it, but does not pay for it.
2) For six years now, this has been the only place on the internet where people can find out about John. John's books are not particulary numerous, but they ARE emotional, and have a profound effect on people. A lot of people who read them want to know more. Who is this guy? What else has he written? This is the only place, practically in the world, where you can find answers to such questions.
3) John's novels have never been out of print. His short stories, however, are. You could, if you liked, try to find all 4 of them in used bookstores. Good luck. It took me 3 years to do it. Alternately, you can get them through us. For 6 years, with John's permission, we provided photocopies to anyone who wanted one. With the new site, John has been gracious enough to allow .pdf versions to be posted directly to the internet. When I was charging $6 a set for photocopies, I got 3 or 4 requests a month. Those same $6 three times a month, given as contributions, now that I don't have to pay for postage, would be enough to finance the site.
4) This place is a community. A place for John's fans to gather.
5) This is the kicker. John credits the loyalty and passion of his fans, in particular the creation and longevity of this very site, and it's predecessor, the John Steakley Fan Appreciation Site, for inspiring him to get writing again. In the January, 2004 chat he credited US (and a bunch of sci-fi writers who've been nagging him) with getting him to sit down and put Armor 2 on paper.
6) The John Steakley Fan Appreciation Site was a tiny hole in the wall operation run out of my account space on AOL (shut up). It cannot continue as such. It's time to grow or die. That means getting a real domain, on a real server. And that takes money. I've paid to create this site and launch it, but maintaining it will run around $150-$200 a year. Not so much, but I can't shell out that much of my own money. So I'm asking the fans, 40,000 of whom visited the old page over the years, to help run it. A few bucks apiece will keep it up and running.
Okay. You've convinced me. How can I help?
The most direct way is through a donation. I prefer paypal (I no longer want my home address out on the site). My account is under dalpern@earthlink.net. Please be sure to indicate it's for the John Steakley site, as opposed to my drug smuggling ring or money laundering operation.
You could also buy stuff. Now, we don't have any John Steakley merchandise for sale, but if you were planning on getting something from Amazon.com, go to the ordering section of this site, follow the Amazon link, and do your thing. You'll pay the same exact price you would have anyway, and we get a commission, albeit a small one.