Aaron Severson has set up a Patreon account for Ate Up With Motor and is starting to provide paywalled content for donors. His first piece illustrates the thoughtfulness of his approach to automotive history — a 4,000-word story that revisits the NHTSA report on the early Chevrolet Corvair. Go here to sign up.
Severson (2024) notes that his goal is not to move his entire website over to Patreon, “which has some limitations I find frustrating when it comes to posting longer articles.” Instead, he is trying to build interest in his new Patreon page.
His frustration with Patreon is understandable because publishers have tended to find other vendors such as Substack or Ghost better suited to their needs. However, those vendors also have limitations, so I don’t see an ideal choice.
Why support Ate Up With Motor? Because Severson has written some of the most indepth histories on the web. Unlike almost every other media outlet, he doesn’t do clickbait — his stories are magazine length and deeply researched. I don’t always agree with his conclusions, but he clearly does his homework.
To give you a sense of how good he is, go here and pick five random stories. Then do the same at other automotive history websites you frequent. Who has the better-quality content? When I have done this exercise, Ate Up With Motor has mostly won hands down.
The key thing to keep in mind is that quality automotive history isn’t free. If enough people don’t support Severson’s work, Ate Up With Motor will eventually go away. And if someone of his stature can’t make it, why should a new generation of writers take the risk of doing automotive history?
Should auto history websites collaborate more?
Since we are talking about auto history media, I would like to share a question that GT recently asked: “Why doesn’t your site collaborate with AR Online? I have made the same proposal at Curbside Classic and Jalopnik but with no answer.”
GT added that the “‘what ifs’ about the prospect of the 1950s independents’ consolidation maybe can act as a model for independent auto sites.”
At least at this point, I don’t see an obvious way to collaborate with AR Online. Our focus is American auto history whereas theirs is British. You could merge the two websites and cover both countries, but then you bump into a variety of practical issues, such as the potentially huge effort to integrate content onto one platform. Major differences in editorial voice would also need to be resolved.
Also see ‘Wheel spinning happens when car buffs and scholars don’t collaborate’
The Great British Car Journey’s recent purchase of AR Online could provide the stability that the website needs. So if we are going to talk about consolidation, there would seem to be greater opportunities among American websites.
My perception is that none of the smaller auto history media outlets have achieved adequate scale. Thus, some level of consolidation — or at least greater collaboration — would make sense. Alas, my experience has been that the prevailing culture of this field is too individualistic to allow that to occur.
One could criticize this mentality as ultimately grounded in ego, but there are legitimate roadblocks to collaboration that range from practical to philosophical.
What about setting up a roundtable as a first step?
Perhaps the easiest first step would be to create an Auto History Media Roundtable. Build a freebie website and perhaps organize occasional Zoom discussions. That could result in more information sharing and trust building.
Of course, that would take at least a little time to organize. I am not in a position to head such an effort but would be willing to provide support. Might someone else want to take the lead?
This could be a good project for one of the major auto history associations, such as the Society of Automotive Historians or the Antique Automobile Club of America. How about it, folks?
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RE:SOURCES
- Severson, Aaron; 2024. “Patronism, Part 4.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted April 25.
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- oldcaradvertising.com: Chevrolet Corvair (1963)
Why don’t the both of you combine resources and merge both sites or at least the ISP, any annual licenses and suchlike? It would be a good collaboration of two excellent auto writers whose websites I’ve spent much time visiting IMO and take the load of doing it all by your self off.
In theory, there would appear to be a variety of potential collaborations. I’m open to conversations about them. That said, part of my professional background is organizational development. One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t force collaboration. Another thing is that what may make sense to outsiders may not necessarily pencil out when the participants delve into the practical details.
I do think that, at the very least, we could all benefit from creating an informal venue for sharing information about the nuts and bolts of small-scale publishing. That could plausibly lead to deeper collaborations — but it doesn’t have to in order to be considered a success.
You can also support Aaron by going to the Go Fund Me page, set up for him.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/helping-aaron-reach-financial-stability?attribution_id=sl:c5fe591b-6c3e-4400-8dd8-32fa94014ae7&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&utm_content=off&utm_medium=copy_link_spp&utm_source=customer