August Update and Some Changes

Hey folks!

Apologies for the slow down in posting this summer. 

I’ve been dealing with some personal issues that have gotten in the way of being able to write consistently. And because of those issues (and also a bit of an intervention courtesy of some very good friends) I’ve needed to take some time to consider how to make sure I can keep writing for this blog in a sustainable manner, and avoid burn out.

First thing’s first, weekly posts will be returning! But things will be a little different. Starting this month, posts will be coming out on Monday mornings, not Friday evenings as they have in the past. This is to accommodate some shifts in my schedule, as well as hopefully avoid posts getting lost in the weekend shuffle. This will also help with consistency – this allows me to have the weekend available for each upcoming post (as well as some other projects that I hopefully will be able to announce in the near future, knock on wood) if I have a particularly busy week.

There will also be some changes to subscriptions, and I’m going to be honest, this is the most uncomfortable part for me. As a part of the aforementioned intervention, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that this is a lot of labor that I am, for the most part, doing unpaid. A single post can take anywhere from 10 to 20 hours of work from ideation to research to drafting to editing and finally publication. I essentially make just enough from this blog to pay the monthly hosting fee. I’m currently between full time jobs and am cobbling together multiple part-time gigs to try and meet the bare minimum of basic needs each month, which means that I simply cannot spend that much of my working time going almost entirely unpaid. Thus I’ve needed to really reevaluate how to make this project financially sustainable. Now, prices won’t be going up, don’t worry about that but I think the changes I am making are ones y’all will hopefully be on board with!

The biggest realization in this process is that the current structure of the subscriptions is not offering enough value for those of y’all who are already paid subscribers, nor is it enough for some of y’all who might want to subscribe to be able to justify paying the $5/month. I totally get that, literally everyone has a blog with a $5/month subscription tier now. So here is what we are doing moving forward:

For paid subscribers, you will still pay the same either $5/month or $55/year. Previously this got you access to comments and the archive older than one month in addition to every post going into your inbox.

Now your subscription fee will get you:

• 2 paid-subscriber exclusive posts per month, in addition to 2 posts per month available to all subscribers, for a total of 4 posts a month. These will alternate, so this week’s post will be all-subscribers, while next week’s will be for paid-subscribers only.
• A once-monthly bonus “What Kat’s Been Reading/Listening to” post, with book, article, and podcast recommendations related to what I’ve been writing that month.
• Access to comments.
• Access to the full archive.

For free subscribers, things are going to look the most different for you. Previously, signing up for the email list got you every post into your inbox, plus website access to all posts for one month.

Now a free subscription will get you:

• Two free, all-subscribers posts per month.
• Website access to the all-subscribers posts for two months, at which point they will go behind the paywall. Because your number of posts are going down, I wanted to make sure you still had access to them for longer.

The goal here is to make this something that can actually last long term. And it turns out you wind up hurtling towards burnout much faster when you’re constantly worrying about meeting basic needs like rent and groceries. I like writing this blog, and I think people enjoy reading it based on the feedback I’ve gotten. I’ve never run a project like this before so there are some growing pains involved in figuring it out, but I am so grateful for everyone that has been along for the ride for sticking with me through it. Hopefully these changes will lead to consistent, high quality content for the long haul!

If you want to help further without having to spend any money, please consider sharing my blog on your socials! I moved from Substack to Ghost for ethical reasons, but it does not have the same discoverability because there isn't an algorithm showing my posts to new people. So if you like something I've done, feel free to share it!

That’s all for now folks! Keep an eye on your inboxes for tomorrow’s post: “Was it Worth it?” in which I look at how decades of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops aligning itself with the GOP and mega conservative politics has worked out (spoiler: poorly), and why it’s a cautionary tale for the future of religious liberty in the era of Trump.

-Kat