“Snide Remarks” used to be nothing more than a dumb weekly column that I wrote for my college newspaper. That was in 1997. Today, it has grown into a dumb weekly column that I write for the Internet! Like you, I marvel at how far we have come.

But with this progress has come change — change to the journalism industry, change to the way people access information and entertainment, change to my hair. I make a living as a freelance writer, working almost exclusively online. As a freelancer, it’s not feasible for me to spend time and energy writing something — even something I love, like “Snide Remarks” — without getting paid for it. I don’t have a “day job” that keeps me afloat while I dabble in side projects in my spare time. For someone in my situation, there’s no such thing as a side project.

At the moment, no reputable outlet is interested in paying me to write “Snide Remarks.” I know, I know: this is an outrageous affront to all decency, etc. Let us leave the remedying of that deplorable state of affairs for another day. In the meantime, I have found a way to circumvent the traditional publishing model and to keep “Snide Remarks” a-churnin’.

Basically, instead of convincing a publisher to pay me to write “Snide Remarks,” I seek to convince you — the readers — to commission the work. I’m crowd-sourcing.

We did this about 18 months ago, and it was a smashing success. I put in a bid for how much I wanted to be paid to write 50 columns; you guys passed around the metaphorical hat and raised the non-metaphorical money; I wrote the 50 columns.

Now it’s time to do it again!

For $6,000, I will write 50 more “Snide Remarks” columns. They will appear approximately weekly on Tuesdays starting Sept. 4. They will be marvelously funny and insightful, or at the very least will make fun of PETA.

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