THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY

chapter 32...in my ongoing serial dealing with the end-days of Arthur's Camelot.

Yes, this is PAYWALLED…

And I’m always going to tell you that. Every time you open your email, you’re going to see that, but rather than just, say, buying a Subscription, you’re not going to do anything. Oh, sure, you’ll read this introduction, maybe even thinking I’ll slip up and forget to put the wall up. But I won’t. (It’s already up waiting for me to stop writing.) I don’t even think I’m letting you buy your way in through your email; I’ve blocked that, too…and on purpose.

If you want to read this, what’s wrong with paying 8¢ a day?

Let me tell you why I’m like that. Honestly, I don’t really care if you want to read my serial for free, or not. I have a couple of dozen PAYING readers who are subscribed to me because they want to support me and feel I deserve recognition, and I’m happy with them — all 30 of them. You probably thought I had more, didn’t you? These people, they respond; they comment; they restack, and they like my work. They’re the main reason I won’t let the PAYWALL down. I have to give them something.

You, I suppose, not so much?

You read what you can — or listen to what you can — but you’re unwilling to make a commitment to my writing. I get that you just won’t buy into the story, and that’s your choice; like I said, I get that. Not giving it away, that’s my choice. This story, as dirt cheap as it is, took a long time for me to write. And I’m going to have to write a sequel to it, as well. As much as I love to read out my stories for Sunday’s STORIES, AFTER EIGHT, I love my serials, too. This story, when I’ve finished putting it up for my PAID peeps, will be published. It’ll probably end up being self-published, like a great many books throughout the years — I mean, from Paradise Lost to Fifty Shades of Grey, and The Martian — and I’m going to pull out all the stops when I do finally publish. It’ll be edited, with a proper cover, and made into a hardcover. It will probably be somewhere between 750 and 820 pages, depending on the size of the font I choose.

As of this moment, I have 3500 followers. Pretty good numbers as far as I’m concerned. I also have, among that number, 939 of you who have Subscribed, but only 32 are PAYING Subscribers, with a total of 6 Complimentary and 1 Free. Don’t ask me who they are, because I don’t namedrop. That means, I’am making a whopping $633/year, or $52.75/month (It was higher, but some people forgot to renew, or else their cards expired, and, well, I don’t chase after people when they leave, because I feel everyone has their own reasons for leaving.) I’ve had so many people coming and going this past month, I’ve lost track. Let me just say I haven’t made it past 940 subscribers yet, and I’ve hit that number twice, since the beginning of March.

Getting subscribers is still mostly through word of mouth. That’s how it was when I first started here. It took me 9 months to get 100 subscribers, and less than 15 of those were Paid. When I hit 100 subscribers, I was over the moon — Substack even congratulated me. I doubt if I even know 100 people. In June, I’ll be starting my 3rd year. Did I tell you about my 5 year plan? That’s when the wife is supposed to retire. I had hoped, that by year 3, I’d have more than 32 Paid subscribers. By year 5, I was hoping I’d be in triple digits.

Those numbers don’t look like they’re going to work for me, do they? Well, that’s the way it goes, I guess. You win some, you lose some. Me? I just turn the page and start a new story. I try to think of new ideas and places I want to visit in my imagination. I try to think of what I can offer you in the way of entertainment. And then I say to myself, I’m not supposed to try and entertain you, I’m just here to write stories I like…because if I don’t like them, how can I expect you to like them?