author = "Dan Brown"
slug = "bookstack-in-2024"
draft = false
-date = 2025-01-02T12:35:00Z
+date = 2025-01-06T14:02:00Z
+++
As we cross over yet another year boundary we look back at the progress, maintenance
but are much more consistent compared to last year which reflects the increase of sponsorships
and monthly donations via this method, yet fewer large one-off donations.
-Our main source of revenue though is from our [support services](https://www.bookstackapp.com/support/), which have over doubled
-in average revenue compared to 2023, and for the first time has provided income across
+Our main source of revenue is from our [support services](https://www.bookstackapp.com/support/), which have over doubled
+in average revenue compared to 2023, and for the first time have provided income across
every month of the year! A number of "Enterprise Support Plan" sales have really helped boost this,
along with a base of new and renewing "Professional Support Plan" customers.
Now that there's some breathing room in the funding, I can now look to increase the financial support that gets
forwarded on to the projects & services BookStack depends upon.
-This is something I started when initially accepting donations, but I put further growth of this mostly on pause in late 2021 when leaving my job
+This is something I started when initially accepting donations but, for the most part, I put further growth of this on pause in late 2021 when leaving my job
to focus on BookStack full time.
After sorting my taxes a few months back (to ensure I still had some income left after paying the government) I started going back
-over our dependencies and cover those where donations are accepted, as well as increasing donations to many previously set-up sponsorships
+over our dependencies to cover those where donations are accepted, as well as increasing donations to many previously set-up sponsorships
via GitHub. My monthly GitHub sponsors bill has increased from $90 in September, to $226 in December.
Upon this, I've increased a few larger one-off donations to projects/people that don't accept donations via GitHub.
### Website Usage & Audience Reach
-TODO
+Looking at our [website analytics for the year](https://analytics.bookstackapp.com/bookstackapp.com?period=custom&keybindHint=X&from=2024-01-01&to=2024-12-31&comparison=previous_period) (which we track via self-hosted [Plausible CE](https://github.com/plausible/community-edition/)) visits & views have increased further by about 10 to 20 percent:
+
+
+
+This is a similar increase to last year, and makes sense since I've again done almost no additional promotional work, outside of talking about
+BookStack [on a couple of podcasts](/blog/project-update-september-24/#talking-on-podcasts).
+It's good though to see this steady growth remain despite fewer releases & new features this year, which has provided fewer opportunities for
+social posts, interaction and sharing.
### Project Maintainership
-TODO
+Over the last few months I've been thinking more about how we can scale project maintenance.
+This has been particularly on my mind as I've added large chunks to the codebase this year, mostly via the new
+WYSIWYG editor and the added ZIP import/export format.
+
+I don't want to chase growth for the sake of growth, and scale out the project to as big as possible,
+but I do want to ensure we remain in a healthy state in regards to being sustainable and not over-encumbered
+with maintenance work alone. Also, as time goes on and more people rely on the project, it can be more important
+that there's other people involved so that the [bus factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor) is less
+of a concern.
+
+Therefore I'm starting to think about how I can more actively engage other longer-term maintainers to help out with
+particular parts of the platform. The growing funding unlocks some extra options here, in potentially being able to
+pay others, but I just need to evaluate and understand the potential complications and requirements of going down that route.
### Going into 2025
-TODO
+As mentioned above, this year I'll be thinking about methods of potentially getting other maintainers involved.
+
+With the new WYSIWYG editor added in 2024, that should hopefully mature quickly in 2025 to become the
+default option, and I'm excited about how we then evolve that core element with the extra control
+we have over the codebase.
+
+In July we'll hit the 10 year anniversary for BookStack which is quite the milestone.
+For this it'd be nice to refresh the project website which, despite many subtle changes, has remained
+much the same since the original release. It'd also be great to release a meaty new feature for
+that event, but we'd have to see how things pan out.
+
+### A Big Thanks
+
+I mentioned it above, but I want to re-iterate a big thanks to all those that have donated, sponsored, or purchased official support from the project.
+These contributions have really helped ensure we're sustainable in a healthy, free and open manner.
+
+Also, thanks to all those that contribute in any non-monetary ways. Whether that's contributing code,
+contributing translations, providing input/feedback/comments via issues or Discord, or even just
+sharing & talking about the project on social channels such as Reddit; all this helps so much.
-- Decade of BookStack
+A special thanks to those who spend their time to help out others within our communities.
+Tim, randi65535, Script, B1t5murf, ibanez450, root-node and thedoctor0814 are examples that come to mind, although I'm sure there's many others that I've missed!
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projects / website / commitdiff
