Restarting Paid Subscriptions

Fair warning, in case you want to re-evaluate your life choices.

Hey all — especially the sixteen of you who inexplicably pay me hard-earned cash money to write.

Some months ago, I had a bit of burnout, and drastically cut back on the amount of writing I was doing. Between the steady erosion of the rule of law, my own life-things (moving, work, cats, speaking), and everything else, I managed to catch a case of not just writers’ block, but idea block. I had nothing to write about, and so, I stopped writing.

This made me feel profoundly bad, despite the fact that I am neither Catholic or Jewish. So, to clear my conscience, I turned off payments.

Anyway. Now the tap that emits the substance of my brain on the digital page is back on, and in two weeks, I’ll be turning payments back on. I want to give all of you time to make the choice that is right for you.

Content will remain free. I don’t want to hide content behind a paywall, because that sucks, and the goal of this little adventure isn’t to make money (I still have a day job). I am primarily turning payments back on because:

1. Substack penalizes publications that do not turn payments on by down ranking them in the app (which is lousy, but not surprising);

2. I genuinely enjoy telling people at parties that I get paid to write snarky blog posts;

3. It will be fun to have a little money to go into my retirement account.

I’m also going to take a page from Karen Spinner and come up with a few ideas to reward those of you who support me (e.g., access to some of the tools that I’ve created and havent’ released yet, and maybe another meetup or two). Also, my offer still stands — if I’m ever in your city, I’m happy to meet up and buy you a drink to say thanks (alcoholic or not, no judgment).

Anyway. Paid subscriptions will start back up on the 25th of January. Now, here’s Octopus. She has exactly two braincells in her tiny, fragile little brain, and she insists on sleeping like that.