The word “free” has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Our brain hears the word free and translates it to “I get something that costs me nothing!”

The only problem is, it really isn’t free. Nothing is.

I can hear some of you mumbling already but hang with me here. I’ll make this free article as painless as possible.

That free bag of baits you got at the tackle show cost someone something. There is always a cost. I’m not breaking any new economic theories with that statement. You get it. Someone pays, just not me.

The cycle of free is often short lived though. In order to continue to get free things, something has to be given in return by someone, somewhere. If you are a Field Staff person who gets some free baits from a manufacturer, you will most likely be asked to talk about the baits in public settings and social media. You are giving message, endorsement, and sharing of resources in exchange.

That brings me to my situation.

The Kayak Fishing Blog and Kayak Bass Fishing Magazine are free. At least to you. Between the contributors, editors, and my own time, each issue of KBFMAG takes about 200 hours to put together. We heard the desire for Free. We heard the desire for fewer adds. We heard the desire for fresh, new content. Those are pretty big asks. We delivered.

I’ve long been a stickler for the 70-30 rule in the magazine (and even more so on the blog). I want to have 70% content at a minimum. 30% or fewer ads. I have actually been running closer to 80-20. I think stories shouldn’t be broken up by ads. I’m picky like that but it’s the way I want to read a magazine and so I built it like that.

I don’t want the readers of the blog or the magazine to have to tolerate ads on everything. You get that everywhere else in your life, you shouldn’t have to suffer through it in your hobby.

Here is my ask. I want to continue to do the blog and magazine for free. There will continue to be a 70-30 rule. In order to do that, I need help. Not from money but by your clicks.

If you have Facebook, a like and a share on two pages will go a long way.

Kayak Fishing Blog on Facebook

Kayak Bass Fishing Magazine on Facebook

Like the page and then share it. Let others know what you like about it. That number, the number of page likes, determines what the few advertisers we do have are willing to pay. That covers our costs and eventually can get contributors paid.

On Instagram, I run everything off of my personal account.

@paynefish

If you could go and follow me, I’d be happy to give you a follow back. That number gets added into the “Social Reach” calculation from advertisers as well.

On YouTube, you can click to subscribe.

KBFMAG and KFBLOG on YouTube

This will be the home of many of the EVERYMAN Series Reviews. It also houses all of our ICAST Product Showcase Videos AND, will soon house user submitted videos.

That’s it.

That’s the pitch. A few clicks and the magazine and blog can stay balanced. If you feel like buying some swag, that helps too. You can click here to go to our store. We have decals and shirts available. Decals ship out pretty fast. Shirts are about two weeks from order.

Thanks for reading, liking, sharing, and contributing so we all get better as a sport and as a community.