Rated Reads is turning 18 in January, and in those years it has grown to contain more than 2,800 book reviews. All have ratings for content, with four color-coded ratings — High, Moderate, Mild, and None, roughly corresponding with movie ratings — together with details about exactly what content is in the book. If you as a reader or as the parent of a young reader would like to know what potentially undesirable content (like sex/"spice", violence, and profanity) a book has before you read it, Rated Reads is here for you.

Over the years, I have personally funded all the costs of creating and maintaining this website. It's not just a blog — it's a fully searchable, very large website with a lot of great functionality. You can search by book title and author, of course, but also by genre or rating, and you can check boxes for combinations of those items and narrow down your search to very specific terms. In these nearly two decades, I have listened to reader input to try to make it ever more useful.

This past couple of years, I've tried some different ways to help the site pay for itself, at least in covering all the costs that make it what it is: hosting (for a large site), regular maintenance and fixes, and all the software/plug-ins that are involved in the design and functionality. It even has to feature a privacy policy (which is an annual cost).

Last year, I tried adding a donation button, but that turned into a whole fiasco when bots used it to charge small fees to stolen credit cards. Aiiiieeee! I was scrambling.

This year, I've been working on using social media more effectively to drive visitors to the site and increase clicks on my Amazon affiliate links (which I added a couple of years ago). But it hasn't yielded sufficient results.

I've added Google ads this year. But, as it turns out, I've had to pay someone to incorporate those and fix all the little things that pop up because they're on there. So I've actually ended up more in the red!

I'm working on some new plans for 2026. I've talked with some folks who have some ideas and will work with me to implement them. So anything you donate now will not just keep Rated Reads functioning in the amazing way it does already, but will contribute to some new and cool content this coming year.

If you've used and appreciated the information Rated Reads has provided you, please consider donating just a few dollars even to keep it going. Thank you so much.