Some thoughts...
Hello folks! This is the author speaking. I’ve been trying to keep myself busy with more content on my substack as of late, seeing as I’ve broken my right leg (on Valentine’s no less)!
I’ve been thinking a lot about life lately, and wondering if I’m going down the right path. I’m good at my job, but it certainly isn’t where my passion is. I would like to devote myself full time to writing, and especially writing more set inside and about the Sunlock universe, but as we all know, writing is a notoriously hard profession to make a buck in.
Don’t worry, I’m not coming for your wallet, and all my stuff will continue to be free on my substack for everyone to view. That’s not a promise I’m going back on. In fact, I’m thinking about disabling the option to have paid subscribers on my substack and return it to free-only. Nobody seems to be using the paid option, and substack immediately prompts for your money once you visit the website.
Instead, I’ll probably set up a Patreon account so that my content and my paid subscriptions are far apart. I haven’t done the research on what this entails though, so that’ll be a ways off.
To go full time on substack, if I were to charge everyone five bucks a month at the least paid tier, I would need at least $950 = 190 subscribers to cover rent. I would probably need an additional $300 = 60 subscribers to cover food (which is being conservative) To cover medical debt monthly (for at least two years), I would need $500 = 100 subscribers. To cover utilities, I’d need about $250 (this fluctuates) = 50 subscribers. Altogether, this comes out to 190 + 60 + 100 + 50 = 400 patrons. And this isn’t beginning to go into things like saving for my older years.
The task ahead of me is daunting. And, as of now, I have about 28 readers on my substack (with about 14 of them regular readers). Part of me wants to give up and go home, but this is my substack, and my world that I’m writing about. To be able to work and live on my own terms, rather than have to sell labor that I’m good at but am thoroughly depressed by, is what I need in my life. And at least until chatGPT can write entire novels, this is what I aspire to.
So, I’m in the early stages of planning a podcast to support this space. A good friend of mine and myself are looking into what platforms we want to publish on, what the flavor of the podcast will be, and how we will draw in new people into the Sunlock fandom, and expand our base of potential patrons. I’ll give you guys an update once I’m further along the road with this. These past few months have been especially hard on me, so I’m hoping you’ll stay tuned to this space and keep me going with all of your support.