Thank you!

An open letter to ALL of my Subscribers...just because.

I want to say thank you to all of my Subscribers. I mean it.

Let me tell you what I mean, and why. A few of the Subscribers here actually worked with me once upon a time, and they know how much I’ve always enjoyed writing, and they, probably more than any others, understand how I came to this as a form of therapy. I remember once, a long, long time ago, I gave someone something to read; after, he gave it back and shook his head. He told me not to bother ever giving him anything to read again, because it was shit. He didn’t use those exact words, but he told me to never give him anything to read again. Ever. And now he’s signed up. I don’t know if it’s him, or his wife reading me, but he reads me. (I mean, you DO KNOW that we have stats, and graphs, that tell us if we’re being read or not, right?)

Anyway, when I started here, I was coming from a very dark place. I was shattered, and had a broken heart. Someone sent me a story in an email, with a link here, and I was reluctant to open it. But I did. At the time, it was late May of 2022, and I was not working because there’d been an industrial accident and one of my longest, dearest, and bestest friends, died as a result of sliding on a sheet of ice and falling under the wheels of the machine I was driving.

There, I’ve said it.

I came here with a pocket full of stories I’d written and never bothered to try and publish because they were simply too long. I’d send them out, and get a rejection slip in return. That’s why putting my stories up here seemed like such a long shot. But I thought, if I can make it here, and actually have people following me, or better yet, subscribed to me (there were no “Followers” when I first got here,) I’d be a hppy camper. When I started, there were no “Notes,” and the only way you picked up subscribers was through “word of mouth,” basically. It was slow going. But I had three friends who went PAID two days after I started this. I told them I had nothing to offer them, and they said they didn’t care, they just wanted to support me because they believed in me.

Wow.

Do you know what that did for me? No, of course not. Well, those guys that used to work with me know. I worked with people who told me to give it up and that I’d never amount to anything. I was a failure and would never make it as a writer. Nothing like a little bit of positive re-enforcement, right? Those who believed in me though, actually read my stuff. And yes, they liked me. (I guess I was getting better.)

So when I came here and put up my first story, I put it up all at once. I didn’t understand how things worked here, or maybe I should say, what worked best. It took a while, but I figured things out. But to be honest, I worked out that I wouldn’t have to write anything until about March or April of the next year, I had that many stories I could break up and send out bit by bit. But I did start writing.

I started writing a serial novel for those PAID readers, because I didn’t know what else to do. Besides, I’d joined another platform and had started writing a serial on there. But they were too strict with their “Moral Code of Conduct.” So when I came here, I started the story over again, and wrote it the way I wanted to the first time around. And then I wrote for the NaNoWriMo challenge (Write a novel in a month, of 50,000 words.) And then I wrote a story that turned into a novelette. And then I started a story I had from when I was a teenager. It was a King Arthur story.

In the meantime, I had my paywall up, and then down, and then put it up again, telling myself I didn’t care if anyone read it, the paywall was staying up because I deserved to be paid for it. I still feel that way about it.

There are a lot of people who feel that they shouldn’t charge for their stories, and I don’t have a problem with that. I will always have my STORIES, AFTER EIGHT up for free. I never want to charge for those. And that’s where I put up stories I challenge myself to write. THE TRUTH OF WHO WE ARE was my latest, and I wanted to tell it on three different timelines. I also wanted to write it about a homosexual love, because, as my wife said at the time: Love is love. And I believe that. My daughter told me I couldn’t write a story about gay lovers because I wasn’t gay. That made no sense to me at the time. It was “Cultural misappropriation” she said. I’m not gay, so I can’t write about gay men. Once again, Love is love. So I wrote it. And people liked it. Some even Commented on the story. No one was negative and said I shouldn’t be writing about something I didn’t understand.

So…that being that, I wanted to thank EVERYONE that reads me. It has pulled me out of the heartache I was lost in. It had given me a new lease on life. I am, as of my writing this, sitting at 935 Subscribers, and a total of 3351 Followers. 27% of you are actually Subscribed, and 4% of you are PAID. (That’s a total of 39, a few of whom are comps.) The thing about being on my PAID list, is that I don’t give out names. I did once, and got slapped on the wrist by my friend, and haven’t done it since. I say that, because I have such a different crowd. I have college professors here. What? I have celebrities. Again…what? I have such a strange mix of readers, it blows my mind. There are real writers here, too. People that sell books, read me.

I don’t think I’m going to be reaching 1000 by my birthday in March (early), and I’m okay with that. I wanted to hit 100 PAID for this year, but I can see that’s not going to happen, either. I had hoped that people would actually want to up-Grade so they could read THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY. (It’s finished now and I’m editing it as I put it out.) But hey, I’m sitting at around 4% with my PAID — and I’ve dropped the prices down as low as I can — so I have to accept that maybe Locksley isn’t what people are looking for.

At the moment, I’m trying to get a story up on Apple Books, (I want to charge $5 for it) but I can’t get the page to accept my banking information of all things. It’s driving me crazy. But, and here’s the big but, I’m going to offer it to my PAID subscribers for FREE when I do get it out. All you have to do is send me a post card from wherever you live, with your return address on the back, and I’ll send you a copy…or however that works. If you’re not a PAID subscriber, you’ll have to buy it the regular way. I figure, 40 books, I’ve got that with the money I’ve saved up with the little bit I have coming in. (I’m making $58 a month now.)

And that’s why I want to say THANK YOU to everyone here!

I never expected more than 100 people to sign up and read me. It took me nine months to get to 100…(Oh damn, I just lost someone, even as I’m writing this.) Well…people come and people go. That’s the way it goes around here. Hopefully, some of you will up-grade, or maybe RESTACK my stories, or RECOMMEND me and SHARE what I write.

Oh yeah, and when I get my Videos up, I’m calling it BTC-TV. It’s a mockumentary-style station. I want to play with stop-action animation, continue with my readings (those will be free, of course,) and open up THE CELEBRITY DINER, where I don’t know what we’re going to do, but it will be the wife and I, out and about in Vancouver. That has to go behind the PAYWALL though, because that’s the deal she made with me.

So, thank you for all you’ve done for me, up-grade if you can, and let’s see how long it takes to hit 5000!