Encourage my work, and get extra-fun posts!

The Meaningness substack now offers a paid subscription option

If you appreciate the work I do, and would like to support and encourage it, you can now do that with a paid subscription.

Paying subscribers will also get extra paid-only content—which will be quite unlike my free posts. They are mostly material that doesn’t fit any of my other sites, because it is too much fun, and often quite odd!

I am motivated to write mainly by readers’ appreciation. Reciprocally, I appreciate your support and encouragement, whether verbal or financial. These extra posts are one way of saying “thank you.”

Why now?

I’ve had an email newsletter for years, mainly to provide subscribers with news about about what I’m doing elsewhere. Usually those posts go beyond a simple update notification, and also discuss the context, purpose, process, and practical implications of the new work.

Recently, I switched the newsletter to Substack, because the previous platform shut down. I had not considered a paid option. Who wants to pay to get brief announcements of what I’ve done somewhere else? Those posts will remain free—although only paying subscribers can access the full archive to read way-long-ago ones.

Shortly after switching, Substack notified me that several people had “pledged subscriptions,” meaning they would automatically subscribe to a paid option if I set one up. (Wow, thank you!)

That reminded me that occasionally someone sends me a donation, with a note saying that it’s in appreciation of my work. (Thank you!!) For years, I’ve meant to set up something to make that easier.

This is very easy; you just push the button!

If you appreciate my work, and would like to support and encourage it, I hope you will choose to become a paid subscriber.

What do you get?

I aim for at least one paid post per month. These include:

• Exclusive new material, produced just for paying subscribers

• Previews: pretty-much-finished versions of things I expect to make public a month or more later

• Rough versions of things I hope will be public eventually, but that still need work; suggestions for improvements will be welcome!

• Outtakes: bits of large projects that didn’t fit, so I removed them, although they’re interesting or amusing

I’ve got twelve mostly written, so an annual subscription will get all of them.

I’ll post the first paid-only issue, “Getcha boots on!”, later today. It’s an entertaining and instructive tale of meta-rational derring-do. Half of it is free, so you can see an example; you’ll need to switch to a paid subscription to read the second half.

That said, the dozen I have queued up are all extremely different from each other…

Why $8 per month (or $80 per year)?

I have no idea! Those were the default prices in the Substack interface when I turned on paid subscriptions. They probably know what they are doing.

I am a true fan, and would like to give more than $80 per year!

I am deeply grateful for your generosity. You can be a Rabid Supporter and pay any amount more than $80. (There's an arbitrary default, which you can ignore.)

If you are already a paid subscriber, you can change your existing subscription plan to a Rabid one. Instructions here; they refer to Rabid Supporters as “founding members.”

$8 seems like too much!

I’m sorry! You won’t miss anything important by not being a paid member, though.

If you appreciate my work and would like to support it in other ways, you could send links to your friends, post recommendations on social media, or make thoughtful comments on any of the sites.

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Photo courtesy Drazen Zigic.