Some of you might remember StoriTell, the website I built for anonymous story sharing? Well, now it needs your help. As you may know, I’m currently involved in a fairly intense, year-long master’s program at Carnegie Mellon University. Which means I don’t have time for a job. Which means I can no longer pay for the dedicated server at Rackspace that StoriTell is running on. I’ve already spent around $600 on what is essentially an experiment in anonymous literature. Every penny of that has been worth it. Some of the stories that have gotten shared have been heartbreaking, moving and all-together some of the most incredible bits of reality I’ve ever seen on the Internet.

Like this one, about dealing with teen pregnancy.

Or this one, about a stay in a mental hospital.

The storytelling power of the internet is often forgotten in the short social media updates we post without thinking every day. I continue to believe that something like StoriTell should exist as a way for meaningful stories to be shared online. But, as I mentioned, I can’t keep paying Rackspace for the server when I don’t have a job.

That’s where you come in.

Over the last few months, I’ve been working on an Android app for StoriTell, letting you read stories wherever you are on whatever device you have with you. It works great on phones and would look even better on tablets.

You can get it here, in the Android Market.

It costs $1. My hope is that enough people buy this app that I can afford the $12/mo plan I currently have. If not, I’ll be moving to a shared host that won’t support some of the current features of the site (like search, for example). I don’t want to have to do this. Not because it’s a pain to do or anything like that, but because I want the experience of using StoriTell to remain the best it can be. I hope you’ll agree. For just $1, you can help make sure it stays that way.

Thank you.

UPDATE: The app now has an ad-supported, free version! Check it out here.