Money and donations for LLP

My production company's website gets about 100 unique visitors and thousands of hits each month. However, it earns no money. In an attempt to get the site to be able to at least supprot itself ($7 a month), I offer everything I have for free (movies, and- coming soon- royalty free music) and ask for donations...no one has donated.

I never wanted to leave a thread like this, but if it's possible I would appreciate anyone who would donate...even if it's just $1!!! If enough people donate a dollar or a few bucks each, the website will be self supporting, and any extra money (there will be no extra money, but if there is) would go toward production costs for future movies (which is $1,000s) and would never go in anyones personal pocket.

There are donation buttons on most pages of my site: http://LoganLProductions.com

If anyone has a better idea of how to earn money back, let me know. Also let me know if you think donations are stupid or whatever you think!

I thought about selling advertising, but I'm not so sure advertising on my site would honestly get very much attention.

I havn't done it yet, but I'm going to

You have to have something to sell, something that people want. Perhaps you can write to the people that sell software like Final Cut to the shops and ask them if you can sell some at your website. You would have to pay them some money up front for a certain amount, say 50, and then advertise it for a knock down price on the site that you will profit from. What you get would cover your costs enabling you to buy 50 more and enabling you to profit. Find out what software people want, and what film writing or film making books people want and see if you can buy them in bulk. If you keep selling 50 of them you'll profit enough to finance a short film. Over here in the UK we call the sellers `wholesalers'. Also buy and sell what people want at certain times of the year, hot weather items in the summer, cold weather items in the winter, it doesn't have to be film related. Sell them tee shirts with the latest blockbusters printed on them.

Some people apparantly can ask for donations and get them. Others contact people that have money and ask them for a grant. I know how ridiculous it seems, but we've got to do it. So take out a PayPal account and email everyone you can think of that might give you one, with a short and to the point message.

That's not really what my site is for (software). Right now it's there for entertainment, and it will also eventually be a resource for indie filmmakers. Thanks for the suggestion. If I wanted to do that, I would probably want to start a new website and then promote it...a lot of work...It's a good idea that would probably work though...but not on my site. I can't even sell what's already in the shop section!

I think what I will eventually do is build up the traffic to my site and then sell ad space for very cheap. Although, if people won't even donate a dollar, I'm not sure what they'll spend money on.

Oh well, I'll learn through experience, I suppose.