An update, regarding some plans for the future.
After a long period of sort of floundering around trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life after a weird and intense impromptu career as a crowdfunded political commentator consumed my time and brain for about half a decade, I'm coming to some decisions based in part on what I have figured out works for me and in bigger part based on what I have figured out doesn't.
One thing that definitely isn't working now is a split web-presence, with a newsletter and Patreon and some stuff on Ko-Fi. I spend a lot of time dithering about what I should be writing or creating to put where, debating with myself about what I should be focusing on or what I've been neglecting, and the end result of all of that is a lot of time and energy expended with very little to show for it. Instead of dividing my attention between my platforms, I wind up neglecting all of them equally, and that doesn't do any good for anyone.
So, I've made the decision to focus on my creative career and to focus my money-making efforts on a single platform, which is going to be Patreon as it has better commercial possibilities than a newsletter site.
I'm not shuttering this newsletter, but I intend to turn off the ability to make new paid subscriptions... I would like to have done so already before sending this out but I'm encountering some technical difficulties and will be contacting the site's maintainer.
The change of my newsletter's account settings should not change anybody's subscription status. If you have a paid subscription, it will not be automatically canceled on my end. You're free to cancel it or let it expire, as you always have been. The newsletter has always been free to read and paid subscriptions have always been in my eyes a way of creating a recurring tip or pledge of support; deeply appreciated but not expected.
And while a big part of my business philosophy in running an operation that is funded voluntarily by fans ands upporters has been to make it easy for people who choose to support me to do so by accepting payments in as many places and forms as possible, one thing I have learned from hearing from you over the years is that this can be more daunting and complicated than having a single point of contact.
Patreon has had its ups and downs in terms of the platform's policy direction, but it's a better platform for accepting payments than Buttondown is at its current stage of development.
To be clear - I'm not asking anybody to move their payment over to Patreon. Please feel free to do so! But don't feel obligated.
So, what's going to happen to this newsletter itself?
It'll still be around. But instead of trying to make it a weekdaily endeavor and failing, I'm going to be both more deliberate and more sporadic.
One thing that will come out here are digests of my Patreon updates, so if you want to keep up with what I'm doing but aren't interested in joining Patreon or learning how to navigate a new site, you will be able to see when I have a new story or poem or other creation, with links and short descriptive sumaries. I anticipate these digests being once or twice a month, depending on how active I am... but the real schedule will be "as often as seems necessary and useful", which is to say it's To Be Determined.
I anticipate including some brief personal updates in the digests, because I have also been hearing that people would like a clearer picture of what my life is like and how I'm doing. The first few decades of my life left me with a pronounced tendency towards bottling things up and hiding them away, and while I recognize that this is not healthy or helpful, it's taking effort to chip away the armor.
And when I have thoughts that feel like they're worth developing into an essay, I will probably put them out here, as I'm making an effort to disentangle my thoughts and feelings more from Twitter.
So, to sum up:
1. The newsletter is not going away.
2. I am dropping the pretense, which may only have ever mattered to me, that it's a daily practice.
3. I will be refocusing a lot of my time and energy away from other internet platforms to my Patreon.
4. I am instituting a "soft sunset" on the paid version of this newsletter; I will be turning off the pay option for new subscribers as soon as it is possible to do so. Existing paid subscribers are welcome to keep the payment active as long as they wish. I will be encouraging future supporters to join me on Patreon.
Oh, another thing: I have decided to end my practice of putting pseudotags (AE.Whatever) in the subject heading of newsletters. Figuring out how to characterize each one I send out is more work than you might expect; it's certainly more work than I had expected. And while it theoretically makes it easier to find specific ones, I haven't found it terribly useful.
Anyway. I want to thank everybody who followed me here from Substack and everybody who came along after. I'm not done newslettering yet, but neither my money woes nor my frustrations as a creator are going to go away if I don't refine my focus and concentrate on finding what works for me, and doing it.
Hopefully you'll be hearing from me soon.
-Alexandra