Thanks, Sol. As I mentioned in my first post, it was my understanding that you didn't feel you could keep running both sites indefinitely.
Combine that with the fact that the New Books (new chapters) scroll is virtually at a standstill, and that we keep losing long-term members without converting new ones to permanent membership, something has to change. Add in the lack of bug fixes (not many needed), minor enhancements (even fewer needed), and quick turnaround time for user support, and there's no obvious way to hang on to trial users. Contests may help, but to the best of my knowledge, we've kept almost no one who joined following the last one. Naturally the crash cost us users as well, but the trickle out has continued since then. And the more experienced users (among the best reviewers / mentors) we lose, the less value-add we have to offer over bigger sites, including Booksie.
I don't know yet which extra support functions you're going to transition to me, but I hoped we'd find a way to transition user support (or at least make me a first contact for the easy stuff, and I could escalate to you if I don't have the ability to help them).
The rest is out of my control, although I've been discussing with other members what we could change to gain and keep more users. In addition to the things above, it includes policy changes you didn't want to make in the past (e.g., a 30-day trial so people really get to know us and the site before being asked to pay money, 30 points up front so trial users can post roughly 3 chapters and get reviews (to assess the quality of them and compare themselves to those reviewers) before they're forced to do them too (which can be quite intimidating), and making it easier for everyone to gain points or spend fewer points). Those of us who have been around a long time (not many left) have enough points to post War & Peace several times over, so it would most help new/newer users to make it easier to gain points to post.
As we all know, the real way to succeed on this site is to develop and maintain a network of reciprocal reviewers, and you can't do that unless you get to know people here and consistently trade reviews with them (something trial users need to understand going in). To do those things, you don't *really* need points. As a result, they're largely irrelevant, so why not make it easier for everyone who needs them to get them?
EDIT: I just checked the ratio of how much it costs to post a work vs. how much that work pays. It's currently 5:1, and Alan some months ago mentioned that it seemed like it took more effort (points) to post after the crash. Sol once told us in the forums (some years back) that he thought it was 4:1. Since the feed of new work is at a standstill and most people have left, why don't we overcompensate and make it 3:1?
Marilyn and I were just talking about a system yesterday that has a ratio of roughly 3:1 (3 points to post a piece of writing of any size, 1-2 points paid to each reviewer depending on length of review, although, I believe, full points are only paid for a short time (maybe a week?) while the posted piece is in an active queue; after that it pays less. But their "inline" comment system is a joke/painful compared to ours. Still, they claim that 85 users were on the site when I checked (no clue if they count those who are always logged in) and 650 the day before.
Why not lure some of that traffic this way, with a great up front trial, faster support, timely fixes/minor tweaks, a terrific inline comment system, and a points system that is less onerous than others? Add some advertising from Sol and a few contests, and if the site still doesn't pick up, then we can at least say we did everything we could. I'd be very surprised if the above changes didn't have a strong positive impact on permanent membership.