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My name is Mark Armstrong, and four and a half years ago, I created Longreads.

What started as an afternoon project has now grown into something much bigger—a global community of readers, sharing what they love, across both nonfiction and fiction. Along the way we’ve built Longreads into a trusted service that recommends the best stories on the web, and tracks down stories never before published online.

Our service is self-funded, built by four people (and many contributors) who have worked nights and weekends to create something we believe in.

Now we need your help to keep this service running. We want to make good on our vision to build Longreads into a truly global hub for readers, writers and publishers.

Today, we’re announcing the Longreads Member Drive: A new way for you to support this service and give the entire #Longreads community a stake in our future.

You can sign up for as little as $3 a month or $30 a year or make a donation via PayPal.

Our goal is to reach 5,000 Longreads Members—right now we’re at just over 1,000 paid members, so if you are thinking about joining, now is the time to show your support.

We can get to our financial goal faster if you contribute more, and Top Contributors to Longreads will also get special recognition for their support.

Here’s what your Longreads Membership pays for:

  • Our site, plus weekly emails, and RSS & Twitter feeds that link directly to the original publishers’ work.
  • Open access to Longreads from your favorite reading apps.
  • Editors who recommend only the stories they truly love, from hundreds of publishers and writers across the web.
  • Rights to exclusive stories from publishers and writers.
  • Future expansion of our service—more details coming soon.

Our business model relies on both memberships and advertising, but the bulk of our support needs to come from you, the community.

Your support is critical for our survival.

It would be an honor for us to continue to keep this service running and keep building. Join us.

Mark Armstrong

Founder, Longreads

Join Longreads now and help us keep going.

Photo by Dorothy Brown; Special thanks to Walden Pond Books in Oakland.