Money, Money, Money
Substack sets up a system where you can publish your writing and folks can pay if they want. Usually writers offer some stuff for free to anyone who wants to pay attention, and they offer other/more stuff to anyone who wants to pay not only attention, but money as well. (Why am I explaining this thing you already understand?)
My motivation for starting this Substack was twofold: 1. To promote Candy Macabre, and 2. to write an associational memoir composed of little essays on my pet obsessions. The latter does not lend itself to a paywall situation, as I would like the reader (when more of the posts are up) to bounce among the essays nonlinearly and trace the connections; it would defeat the purpose to regularly smash your head against the pay wall (apologes to Sebadoh for the distortion of their album title!). Plus, I’m not looking to maximize revenue, so I haven’t been sure what to do.
A good friend (who reads the Substack! shout out, Sarah!) made a suggestion, and I’m going to run with it. Starting next week (on Tuesday, April 2), paid subscribers will get a digital image of one of my collages delivered EVERY WEEKDAY MORNING! I have a big backlog of these, so it feels feasible to keep this up for a pretty good while. Most of them will be in the Animal-Headed Pin-up Model series that I’m doing for the album release—a unique original collage will come with each vinyl copy of the record—along with other fun stuff—but I’ll also cycle in some other collages. The plan is for these to go out at 5:30 AM EST each morning, so as you’re waking up you can enjoy a sometimes-NSFW collage with your morning routine.
Think of it as A Collage Of The Day Program!
But That’s Not All
I set up a phone line (828-367-7136). Call it the IC Hot Line. I’m leaving new outgoing messages somewhat regularly. Whenever I record a new greeting, I’ll post the previous one as a “podcast.” These archival recordings will also be available to paid subscribers.1 These recordings will be updated “somewhat regularly” and therefore less predictable (for now) than the collages. You can also leave me voicemails at this number. My vow to you is that I will never respond to any of them. But I will listen to—and appreciate—them.
I’m sure I’ll also do other paid subscriber stuff as I think of fun things or people make suggestions, so LMK what you might like.
Also, some of you who know me IRL, unbeknownst to you, got complimentary paid subscriptions, and I’ll be rescinding those. Not because I don’t love you, but because an NSFW collage hitting your inbox every morning MIGHT not be for you!
See you out there!
Obviously I stole this idea from They Might Be Giants and their legendary (and now defunct?) Dial-A-Song services: 718-387-6962. I owe you an essay on this band. It’s coming.