The Bigger The Risk, The Bigger The Failure
My new daily Substack paid member exclusive podcast is here. So is my paywall. Here goes everything.
*There is a FAQ at the bottom of this post if you need the TLDR.
I started 2023 burned out and without an idea of what was next. I had just come off finishing a TV series, and for the first time in a decade, my schedule was wide open. My schedule had to remain wide open to finish the series. A new project I was attached to changed their writer’s room from virtual to in-person in Hollywood.
I had nothing booked, and nothing planned.
I turned to Substack to empower myself and to put my writing somewhere that allowed me to control the process, the creativity, and the output. I quickly discovered Substack was perfect for me - I could work as much or as little as I wanted, I could stay home to raise my family with my partner and not live on the road in hotel rooms, and I could take the creative risks I had been wanting to take next in my career.
Substack is unique because its membership program allows writers to gain monthly support directly from their readers. So here we are.
I always intended to have a paywall here. It’s an awkward feeling. Those who know me know that paywalls and capitalism run against my nature and my core beliefs. Also, those who know me know I have a growing family, and my kids must eat.
The New Daily Paid Member Substack Exclusive Podcast Is Here
The first episode of my new Substack paid member exclusive daily podcast dropped today. It’s called JOKE TALK YELL WRITE. PODCAST. TODAY. It’s a lot of fun to make; I think I landed on a format and a version of this I can be happy with.
The plan for the podcast is to record a 10-minute podcast episode every day. Some of them will be funny. Some will be expletive rant-filled diatribes about moose meat and colonization. Some will just be me being where I am, wherever that is, in your ears, talking.
You can listen by clicking the button below.
My Final Pitch To You, Dear Reader
The pitch is pretty straightforward: I need your monthly paid support. When you join the membership program, you get everything I post on Substack - my curatorial journalism, essays, short fiction, personal reflections, and the first pages of new projects and books I pitch. You’ll have access to my full of archive. You’re going to get the daily member-exclusive podcast here. You’ll get video and live-stream content in the future.
I aim to make Substack my job. That's what I'm doing. I want to be a writer for a living. I would like not to have to hit the road and tell jokes to disinterested drunks at the Legion in small-town anywhere Canada.
I would like not to have to print 600 words that are sanitized by White Editors and Producers at the CBC on the next devastating trauma Indigenous people face.
I want not to be asked to produce work for the curious and trauma-hungry White Gaze.
I could freelance, sure. But I don’t want to have to freelance.
Traditional media is dead, okay? The model is changing more and more every day. The media we knew just a handful of years ago is no more.
With Bill C-18 in Canada, pounding the final nail in the coffin of Canadian news media online, and with the way the social media companies are throttling traditional news on social media platforms, what’s the point anymore? I'm not saying I don't like media. I love journalists. I'm a journalist. I want to do journalism, but I can't do it the way we used to do it.
I want to make work. I want to publish the work. I hope people like the work. I hope people share the work.
I'm not going back to social media. You're never gonna see me on social media. Substack is as social as my social media will get. I don't even have the chat function turned on in my Substack.
Instead of opting to pour my creative energy and time into Twitter threads that grab me a few hundred thousand views and a few hundred retweets, only to eventually be pursued by an editor seeking to transform the thread into a 1200-word column for their newspaper in exchange for too little money, I'm choosing to write right here, exclusively for you.
I’m here on Substack to try to make this my job.
If you appreciate me doing that, I will ask you to come and support me in my membership program here. Yearly memberships are 20% until Monday, September 4th, 2023.
Frequently Asked Questions
This daily exclusive paid member Substack podcast is different than your other podcast? How
Yes, the podcasts are different. JOKE TALK YELL WRITE. PODCAST. TODAY. is the exclusive paid member podcast and is only available with a paid membership here. You can learn more on how to add the RSS feed to your podcast apps here. My regular podcast, JOKE TALK YELL WRITE is available everywhere you get your podcasts. Occassionally some of the content may overlap, but I’m working hard to ensure that is very very infrequent.
How frequently are you going to publish? What if I don’t want to get emails from you every day.
Fair enough. I get too much email too. You can change your settings to not receive daily emails from Substack and instead you can receive a weekly email that brings you your subscriptions once a week.
Where is the paid support going?
I’m going to pay myself. I’m going to find an editor to help make this work better. Once I am able to accomplish these two things I aim to bring video content and video podcasting to this space. Right now, these are my main priorities in increasing my paid memberships here.