BAN #465: Goodbye SYFY: I’m going freelance

September 26, 2022 Issue #465

September 26, 2022

Subscribers are the best. Period.

Personal Stuff

Because I’m a person

I have some big news. It seems bad at first — and it is — but with your help I think it can become good news. This directly affects this newsletter and those who subscribe to it. That’s you.

So, jumping right in:

SYFY Wire has laid me off.

The article I’m posting this Friday, September 30, 2022, is my last for them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this sucks. I wrote my first article at SYFY Wire on February 1, 2017, and over the next 5.6+ years I wrote nearly 1,500 articles that weigh in at about 1.5 million words. It’s been a good, long run.

But it’s over now, and that puts me in a bind. That gig paid my mortgage and health insurance, fed my family, and generally kept us and our menagerie alive.

I’ve been looking for other platforms for my writing. I’m getting good feedback (and I’ll have links once things are real), but this work will be freelance, writing once or twice a week for different places, so it’s part-time. In the end that means a pretty severe pay cut.

So that’s the bad. But there’s good, maybe, too, and this is where you come in.

One thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time is expend more effort on the newsletter, and this presents an excellent chance to do that. So here’s my plan:

Starting this week — tomorrow — I will write at least one more article per week on this newsletter, and it will be available to paid subscribers. The Monday issue will still be free! But paid subscribers will get at least two additional issues per week, the usual one on Thursdays and one on Tuesdays. I may add more if a) something special happens like a big time-sensitive discovery or other breaking news, and 2) my schedule can accommodate it given the work I will do for the other venues.

Not only will I not charge more for this, to encourage you to sign up I’m offering a sale on subscriptions!

For the next two weeks (until noon Mountain US Time on October 10, 2022) a monthly subscription is just US$4, and the annual subscription is $40. That’s a 20% discount off the usual US$5/50 rate.

If you like my writing, and want to see more, I would truly appreciate you signing up for a paid subscription.

Not only that, but I’m also adding a premium subscription level, called the Galaxy Class level, for people who really want to support me and my work. This level has significant perqs. Here’s what you get:

            Everything paid members get, plus

  •    A quarterly 50-minute live video Google Meeting with me and other Galaxians where we can do a Q&A, chat about current topics, or discuss whatever is on your mind (within reason of course);

  •   I will send new Galaxians an actual fell-from-space meteorite with a description written by me (yes, seriously — and note: you’ll have to send me your physical mailing address);

  •   A short personal “thank you” video from me to you;

  •   And, once per month, a free Monday BAN issue will go out with a “Special Thank You” section with your name and a link to your website (again, within reason and at my discretion). At the moment that means 8,600+ people will see it, but that number will increase.

The Galaxy Class level is choose-your-own-price: The minimum is anything more than the $50 annual price, but you can choose whatever price you want. It defaults to a suggested price of $100 but you can edit that field and put in any amount above the minimum. Do whatever you think is fair.

[NOTE: I’m hearing from some folks that the price field for the Galaxy Class signup isn’t allowing them to edit the amount. I have a ticket in with Substack to look at that. If you DO get it to work, please leave a comment below, and please let me know what browser you’re using!]

But if you can subscribe at any level, well, I’d appreciate it mightily.

Moreover… when I wrote for Slate.com I covered a lot of different topics that were and are important to me: Attacks on science, anti-vaxxers, climate science, politics, and more. SYFY Wire wasn’t the right venue for those, and I became so infuriated at the current state of the world that writing about them here became too taxing on my psyche.

But I’m ready to tackle them again. So you can expect more firebrand articles covering a wider range of topics. I have opinions, and I try very hard to base them on facts, and it’s time for me to share them once again.

You can also comment on them, another perq of being a paid subscriber. On top of that I plan on doing more discussion threads, where I bring up a topic and y’all can join in to give your own opinions and thoughts (like this fun one about what music you’ve had the longest or this one about what weird habits/processes you have). I have lots of notes for more…

One more thing: I’ve written three books, so if you’ve been wanting to read them, why, now is a good time. Bad Astronomy, Death from the Skies!, and 2^7 Nerd Disses are all available at various booksellers (those are affiliate links for Amazon but your favorite store probably has ‘em).

And if you can’t sign up for the paid subscriptions, hey I get it and that’s fine. But if you could spread the word and let others know that would rock. I am very happy increasing the free subscription circulation numbers, too: The whole point here is I love astronomy and science and I want to share them with as many people as I can.

Every person who gets this newsletter is another person who may find their own love of the Universe.

Thanks. And I mean it: THANKS.

(the penultimate) Blog Jam

Thursday 22 September, 2022: Happy September equinox!

Et alia

You can email me at [email protected] (though replies can take a while), and all my social media outlets are gathered together at about.me. Also, if you don’t already, please subscribe to this newsletter! And feel free to tell a friend or nine, too. Thanks!

Reply

or to participate.