Announcement Reminder: We're Moving To Substack!
Gather 'round, friends!
Darling Dames Nationals, we’re so excited to share that we’re moving on up to a new and improved home for this newsletter: Substack. TinyLetter has been great to us, but as we inch ever-closer to their subscriber cap (already generously extended for us once before), we’ve had to think carefully about where we could move to keep Two Bossy Dames growing. We believe Substack (which you may have heard of already, thanks to Mallory and Nicole) is the right place for us.
Unlike TinyLetter, Substack puts no limit on the number of people who can subscribe to our newsletter for free. They can afford to do this because they ask their writers to charge a subscription fee, which is the primary reason we’re discussing this move with you. We were hesitant to move to a paid subscription model: we write Two Bossy Dames because we love it, and the thought of losing any of you by charging up front for our work is both scary and sad, even when many of you have already been voluntarily generous with us by supporting our Patreon. But we have thought it over carefully, and it’s the best way for us to keep doing the work we do here without burning out.
Once we make the switch, around half of our issues will still come to everyone who wants them, completely free of charge, without you taking any additional action at all. But to receive _everything_ we write, it will cost either $5/month or $50/year (or a special Early Bird price of $45/year if you sign up by May 31st.) It was so important to us to learn, when we started our Patreon, that some of you thought our work was worth paying for. Through Substack, we are hoping to learn that more of you see it that way, too.
Our final issue on TinyLetter -- guest written by Sarah Wendell & Amanda Diehl of the iconic romance webiste Smart Bitches, Trashy Books fame! -- will go out tomorrow, February 23. We’ll start publishing on Substack on March 2 and, at the beginning of April, we will wind down our Patreon campaign and switch to a paid model on Substack.
So, What’s Next For You?
You have options! Check ‘em out:
If you want to come along on this fantastic voyage with us, great! You don’t need to do anything - your access to free content will continue unabated.
If you want full access, you’ll pay just $5/month or $45/year (if you sign up by May 31st) and $50/year (if you sign up on June 1st or later).
We’re going to send our full subscriber list to Substack on Monday, February 27. If you’re not interested in our free issues and you don’t want your email address shared with another service, no problem! Go on ahead & unsubscribe by February 26.
We’re going to remind you about that February 26 stick-around-or-unsubscribe deadline twice next week - once in the newsletter and once right now, in this special Extra, Extra, Read All About It! issue for folks who tend to open the newsletter at a more leisurely pace.
What about the archives, though?? We’re moving them over to Substack, too! All of our old issues will be available for free, and we think they’ll feature more attractive and stable formatting than we’ve been able to accomplish on TinyLetter.
Because Substack will be hosting the newsletter and taking subscription fees, we’re going to wind down our Patreon crowdfunding campaign in April, taking our final pledges on April 1 (no fooling). If you’re waiting for rewards from us, you will get them by then! Bonus: our quarterly podcast (begun as a Patreon Reward) will continue, and be immediately available to all subscribers when each episode is released.
We believe this change will be good for us, and will be great for our output here at the newsletter. We hope most of you darlings agree, and thanks for being part of this project (going strong since 2014!) either way.
XO/Your Dames