Now accepting voluntary donations (no paywalls on new posts)

New voluntary donation policy! Subscribe, or buy me a tea, or don't. All new posts will be free to read (and comment on) right away, with no voiceover paywalls.

Some people have asked me when I’m going to start monetizing my 3 newsletters. I want to keep my new content free, though.

• I’m still operating on a shoestring as a new full-time writer. As a reader, I appreciate being able to read content for free. I’d like to return the favors.

• I know times are tough for many people (even in the AI and software space I live in and write about). People who were laid off & are job-hunting have enough financial and other stress. I don’t want to add to it by paywalling any of my content that might help them learn and land their next role.

• Since Stripe (Substack’s payment processor) doesn’t handle payments in all countries, paywalling could mean some folks worldwide would be left out.

At the same time, accepting payments would put me in a better position to improve my newsletters for you. Examples:

• paying artists for work that enhances my posts,

• buying licenses for ethical AI tools that save time or produce better work, or

• subscribing to other writers for technical insights and advice. 🙂

Some articles about “succeeding on Substack” suggest paywalling the audio voiceovers or comments. In the interests of accessibility and community, I would rather not paywall either of these features.

Other advisors suggest limiting early access to newly published posts to paid subscribers, and removing the paywalls days or weeks later. I don’t feel right about delaying free subscribers from fast-breaking news in the world of AI and technology, though.

What to do?

Solution

I’ve come up with a two-part solution that I think meets all of my requirements above.

Part 1. One-Time Donations

I’ve now set up “buy me a tea” for one-time, spontaneous donations. This link will go at the bottom of all future posts I author. Check out the page and let me know what you think! (Thanks to

Kristi Keller

for the encouragement 😊)

Part 2. Voluntary Subscriptions

Following

Jurgen Gravestein

’s inspirational example, I now accept voluntary “donations” for my newsletters via Substack subscriptions.

• All new newsletter posts authored only by me will continue to be FREE to read, the minute they are published, with no delays. (Older archives may eventually be paywalled - we’re talking months down the road, though.)

• No matter what ‘tier’ of subscription you choose (free, monthly, yearly, founding), you’ll be able to comment on all of my new articles.

• If I add voiceover, you’ll be able to listen to it without a paywall.

So any monthly or yearly donations are truly voluntary. I second the 3 promises Jurgen stated so well in his announcement:

Looking Forward

I’m excited to announce this and I hope it works well for you, regardless of what options you choose now or in the future. I’ll note 3 caveats to this donation policy:

1. If the comments on my posts start getting flooded with spam or disrespectful content, I might have to restrict comments to paid subscribers only. This would be to protect your mental health and time, as well as mine.

2. I’ll have to reconsider keeping my posts open to all if I start getting harassed or stalked or doxxed. It happens to way too many women and marginalized people in tech and on social media. I’m not expecting to ever become famous enough to attract that kind of unwanted attention, though.

3. I won’t rule out possibly making some bonus resources, data files, book PDFs, or special chat threads or calls available only to ‘paid subscribers’ or ‘founding subscribers’ in future. No promises, though.

If this donation policy ever changes, I’ll offer complimentary subscriptions on request for any person who needs one, no questions asked (seems to be common Substack practice). Fair enough?

OK, let’s all get back to enjoying some good reading and writing 😊 Thank you so much for being part of this community and supporting my work!

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