Additional Prizes

Over the past week a handful of prizes have been added to the giveaway:

• Photography prints from Joel Zimmer.
• Mac or Windows licenses of 1Password.
• Mac and iOS combo codes for Day One.
• Signed copies of Patrick Rhone’s upcoming new book, Enough.
• A Fusion Ads Burst campaign.
• Some Symbolicon bundles.

The complete list of prizes is here, along with all the info about who’s eligible to win, and how to put your name in the hat for a particular prize if you’d like.

Reminder About The Members Journal

The first edition of The Members Journal went out today and I think it turned out great. It was lighthearted, fun, and had dozens of promo codes to four top-notch iPhone apps.

For members who want to get The Members Journal (you have to sign up because it is an opt-in list) you can do so on the members info page. Your password for that page can be found in the info email you received from me after signing up for your membership.

Reminder About the Executive Membership

Last week I introducing a new subscription level that gets you all the same benefits as the $3 membership but for $12/month. This is for those who have offered to or who are glad to pay more for their membership.

There are current members who have “upgraded” their membership to an Executive subscription. If you want to do the same then you can cancel your current subscription and sign up for the new one.

Reminder About How Awesome You Are

As always, to all the current members: a million thanks for your support. And to the readers who continue to show up day in and day out: thank you for your time.

Welcome to the 2012, PBS-Style Membership Drive and Giveaway for shawnblanc.net.

Yesterday I kicked off this years Membership Drive by introducing a new members-only perk (The Members Journal) and a new subscription level (the Executive Membership), and recording a new video.

For all the new members who signed up in the past 24 hours: thank you. To all the current members who have kept their membership going or who have upgraded to an Executive Membership: thank you. And to those who are about to join: thank you, too.

Members contribute nearly 50-percent of this site’s income. Needless to say there is no way I could be writing here as my full-time gig without the generous support of the members. It means the world to me that readers are directly supporting the work I do here.

Ideally, you are signing up to become a member because the value and enjoyment you get from shawnblanc.net is worth it to you, and the members-only perks are a nice bonus of course. But my job is to try and sweeten the deal as much as possible. And so, I’ve arranged for some things to be won if you sign up to become a member.

For those of you who have not yet signed up to be a member, there is, as they say, no time like the present.

The 2012 Membership Drive and Giveaway

Anyone who signs up for a membership before midnight CST on March 25 will be entered to win one of the prizes listed below. Current members who have signed up over the past year are also entered to win, so long as their membership is active.

There are a metric ton of top-notch prizes, all donated by friends of the site, with an aggregate value in excess of $4,200.

The List of Prizes

• Jorge Quinteros photography: Two 20×30 prints (winner picks which prints).

• Joel Zimmer photography: Two 11×14 prints (winner picks which prints).

• Doxie: 2 Doxie Go scanners.

• Idea Cafe: An Espresso Bundle and a Cappuccino Bundle.

• Smile Software: 5 licenses each of TextExpander and PDFpen for Mac.

• Fantastical: 7 licenses.

• Haystack Software: 5 licenses of Arq

• Reeder: 10 license each of the Mac app, the iPhone app, and the iPad app.

• Alarms App: 10 licenses.

• Red Sweater: A license each of MarsEdit, FastScripts, and Black Ink.

• Omni Group: A license of OmniFocus for Mac and a license of OmniGraffle Pro.

• Studio Neat: 5 Glif+ kits and 5 Cosmonauts.

• Typekit: 5 Portfolio Accounts (one year long).

• JetPens: A Portable Writing Kit, including: Field Notes Color Cover Memo Book, Red Blooded 3 Pack; Uni-ball Signo (DX) UM-151 Gel Ink Pen – 0.38 mm – Black; and Uni Kuru Toga Roulette Model Auto Lead Rotation Mechanical Pencil – 0.5 mm, Gun Metallic Body.

• Flickr: 5 subscriptions to Flickr Pro (one year long).

• Summermoon Wood Fired Coffee: 1 bag Velvet Blaze, 1 bag Inferno, and 1 bag Tri Roast. (Courtesy of Seth Goldberg.)

• Cuvée Coffee: 1 bag Las Trancas, 1 bag Dead Fingers Espresso Roast, 1 bag Espresso Medici. (Courtesy of Seth Goldberg.)

• 1 bag David Lynch Signature Cup Organic House Blend. (Courtesy of Seth Goldberg.)

• AgileBits: 10 licenses of 1Password from the Mac App Store (Windows license also available).

• Enough: 2 signed copies of Patrick Rhone’s upcoming new book.

• Day One: 5 sets of Mac and iOS app codes.

• Fusion Ads: A one-week “Burst” campaign spot. (Winner must have a relevant product / service to promote on the Fusion Ad network.)

• Symbolicons: 5 licenses for these icon bundles.

• Writing Kit for iPad and iPhone: 10 licenses.

How to Win, Etc.

• Anyone who signs up for a membership before midnight CST on Sunday, March 25 will automatically be in the runnings to win something.

• If you are already a member with a current membership, you are eligible to win.

• You do not have to live in the United States to win — international members are most welcome and most eligible (though some prizes are not available outside the US).

• The drive ends at midnight CST on March 25, and the drawing will be held sometime around last week in March. It will be random and I will email the winners at their PayPal email address.

• If there is a certain prize in particular that you’d like to win over another, please fill out this form. I will check it once the winners are drawn to try and get people a prize they prefer. You do not have to fill out the form to win, only to request a particular prize.

This time last year I was sitting at my desk with MarsEdit open and my mouse pointer hovering over the “Send to Blog” button. I remember my palms were clammy, like when you lean over a ledge, and I just sat there, hesitating, for what seemed like the entire morning.

The article was my announcement that I was taking shawnblanc.net full time. So long as that article stayed in my Drafts Folder, then things could continue on as they always had. But once I hit publish, I knew that I was committed.

Publishing that article was like announcing that I was jumping off a cliff and hoping to make it to the other side. And my only hope to make it was to humbly ask that you guys — the readers — be willing to support the site directly by becoming members.

I have been shocked and humbled by the incredible response to the membership — thanks to the direct support from the readers, I’ve been able to write this site day in and day out for the past year. It has been fantastic. And I’d very much like to keep writing.

Current Members

For those of you who have signed up for a membership in the past year: thank you. With no exaggeration, I mean it when I say I am honored and humbled by your support. As your membership renews I hope you will continue to stay on as a direct supporter of this site.

Two points of note for current members:

• Current members who want to subscribe to The Members Journal: it is an opt-in list. If you’d like to sign up you can do so on the members info page. Your password for that page can be found in the information email you received from me after signing up for your membership.

• Regarding the Executive Membership: I’m introducing a new subscription level that gets you all the same benefits as the $3 membership but for $12/month. This is for those who have offered to or who are glad to pay more for their membership.

If you want to switch to the Executive Membership you’ll have to cancel your current subscription and sign up for the new one.

New Members

Excluding last year’s membership drive, I have done little to promote the membership over the past year. Primarily because, in my opinion, storing up all the attention of the membership for a big annual membership drive is more fun.

And so, for those of you who are new to the site, or who perhaps are long-time readers, but have not signed up for a membership, this is the time of year where I humbly ask that you consider signing up for a membership.

The direct support that comes in from readers makes up for nearly half of this site’s income. I literally could not continue to write here full time without the support of subscribing members.

Membership Perks

The primary membership benefit is that you’re allowing me to spend my full attention working on this site.

There are of course, some additional, members-only perks:

• Shawn Today: The member’s only broadcast. It’s short, uncut, fun, and often involves coffee. It’s intended to be a daily show, but it averages out to about every-other day (in the past 12 months since starting Shawn Today, I’ve recorded over 175 episodes).

• The Members Journal: This is a new-in-2012 perk that I’ve just launched. The Members Journal is an email sent out on occasion. It’s not a regular email (as in every week or every month) because I don’t expect to regularly have content for it. But, when it does go out it will contain things such as:

• Giveaways and promo codes for apps (developers often send me these to give away to the members).
• Links to apps, articles, videos, and other things which never made it onto the home page of shawnblanc.net for one reason or another. This is affectionately known as The Cut List.

* * *If the value and enjoyment you get from shawnblanc.net is worth that to you, then I would love to have your support as a subscribing member.

A membership is just $3 a month — like a good cup of coffee — and you can sign up here.

On Friday I picked up the Tools & Toys t-shirts from the print-house and they look fantastic. Over the weekend Anna and I arm-wrestled PayPal, printed shipping labels, folded shirts, and packed the shipments. I am going to the Post Office this morning to drop everything off, which means the shirts will be arriving at your door within the next several days.

If you ordered a large shirt, they are unfortunately back ordered from American Apparel. The local shop that printed my order is expecting the shirts to arrive from American Apparel later this week, and as soon as they do your shirts will be the first to get printed.

Again, thanks to everyone that ordered a shirt. Wear it often, and wear it proudly.

— Shawn