One Year!

plus Book Club announcements

Friends, it’s your captain speaking, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of starting this newsletter, which is in a couple days on March 1st. I’m using this opportunity to do my twice-annual subscription ask. Oftentimes annual subscription services see dips at the one-year mark, as some number of people who signed up at the onset fail to resubscribe. I’d like to ask for you to renew if you’ve been on an annual plan, and to consider subscribing if you haven’t yet done so. I think there’s a lot of great stuff going on here and I’m eager to continue to watch the newsletter grow in 2022.

I care very deeply about making your $5 a month or $50 a year the best value I can. I do that in part simply by writing a great deal. Lately I’ve fulfilled my goal of making subscriber-only posts more like a twice a week thing than once a week, but I never fail to have at least one. Commenting privileges are always restricted to subscribers, which has helped result in a remarkably civil conversation here. I have also had a great deal of fun with the Book Clubs. We’ve now done three books and I’ve enjoyed discussing them immensely. (More on that below.) I’ve started a research methods series for subscribers, done a little video, have a plan to share a little more fiction…. I just want to find ways to make this newsletter worth your coin, in large measure because I’m so grateful for the opportunity.

For me personally, this newsletter was a lifeline. I was broke, directionless, and deeply depressed from Covid lockdowns early last year. This project has enabled me to make a comfortable living as a writer, even in New York City, and that’s a remarkable privilege that I never take for granted. I am grateful to Substack for reaching out and making this happen. As of Tuesday I am no longer on my Pro contract and will be collecting the standard 90/10 split. I’m thankful that they’re bending the dates on my contract a bit and letting me collect that percentage then rather than on March 5th, which was technically the term of my contract. The Substack team has been remarkably helpful to me in general, and in giving me that contract they put faith in me when I was persona non grata in most of the industry. I am proud and happy that I earned enough to pay back their advance and for them to make a little money on top. I think it was a win-win deal for both parties, and I look forward to continuing on the platform.

To broaden out a bit… for the first couple decades of the internet era (for the broad public I mean), the essential business plan for selling writing was “give it away for free and hope for the best.” I’ve been very gratified to see that some publications, like the Washington Post and New York Times, have seen a reversal in financial fortunes through direct monetization. I of course understand that there’s a lot still wrong with the written internet, and the thicket of paywalls we all encounter these days can be frustrating. (I still think we need a universal à la carte system so that somebody can pay a quarter or similar for a particular essay or post. I’d certainly take advantage with, say, ESPN Insider content.) But the simple fact of the matter is that there are now more intuitive, easy-to-use tools for writers and readers to connect with each other financially, so that writing can live on as a professional endeavor. Whether that’s Substack or Patreon or Ghost or rolling your own, I think it all represents a real victory for writing as a profession, despite all the weird anti-Substack sentiment you still encounter.

I am someone who has an unusual history when it comes to my financial condition - I’ve had a solid middle-class upbringing, I’ve had nothing in a very dark sense, I’ve been broke in the enjoyable way that’s only available to the young and free, and I’ve had a good union job with an income that could pay the rent if I stretched a little bit. Now I find myself firmly in the upper-middle-class. I know that I’ve worked hard and earned it, but I also know how lucky I am, and I am keenly aware that it can all go away at any time. But I intend to make the most of it while I am so fortunate, and I can tell you that I sincerely and deeply appreciate the contribution of every single subscriber. You have my thanks.

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So! Though all of the choices for the next installment of the Book Club attracted sufficient votes that there was no option that got a majority of the votes, A Confederacy of Dunces was a fairly decisive winner, so we’ll do that book next. Please note that there will be future opportunities for us to do the other books, if I think it makes sense. I will have an introductory post on Wednesday, March 9th. The first reading assignment will be included in that post, and you’ll have a week before we discuss that selection. The book is the longest we’ve done so far, so the selections will be longer, but I will adjust as needed based on your feedback. I’ve never read the book before and I look forward to doing so with you. The book is widely available at libraries and in cheap used form.

However! The level of interest in William Gibson’s short story collection Burning Chrome has really made me want to do a short story. So first we’re going to read “New Rose Hotel,” my favorite from that book and indeed one of my all-time favorite short stories, period. It’s a perfect expression of what cyberpunk can be at its best, deep and reflective and cracklingly real. Copies of Burning Chrome should be easily had, and the collection is well worth the $9 Amazon is currently charging. I also note, in purely academic terms, that someone has reprinted the story here, though I would not call it particularly readable in that format. In any event, go ahead and read the story and we’ll discuss it together next Monday afternoon, March 7th. It’s brief and cool and so sharp. That post will run in our Book Cub selection, so either sign up for those emails in your settings or just check out the website that Monday.

That’s it. I feel good. I’m excited about what’s next. There will be a post first thing tomorrow, 9 AM, right on schedule. Cheers.