A Briefly Slightly Awkward Request

I’ve been writing this newsletter for a year now.

Eleven thousand of you read it.

Five hundred and twenty-four of you pay for it.

I think about that gap more than I should.

I’m not going to tell you the paid version is wildly different. It isn’t. It’s more of this — a bit deeper, a bit longer, the parts I wasn’t sure whether to include. The observations that needed more room.

This month I also published a short ebook about Jess —It was never Just a dog

If you’ve been following the grief pieces, it’s all of that, gathered properly. It’s on Gumroad for readers who want to go a little further with it.

I’m also not going to pretend I have a countdown timer or that the price is going up on Friday. I find that sort of thing mildly insulting, and I suspect you do too.

One small thing, while I’m being direct: a handful of people cancel their paid subscription every month citing the need to streamline their outgoings.

Entirely fair. Life costs money. What I’ve noticed, though, is that most of them carry on reading every post. Free, naturally. I find this quietly fascinating, in the way you find a magician’s trick fascinating once you’ve worked out how it’s done.

What I will say is this: I sit down most mornings and write something as honestly as I can manage.

About getting older.

About retirement being nothing like the brochure.

About the slow discovery of who you actually are when the job stops defining you.

If that’s been worth something to you, I’d be grateful if you’d consider upgrading.

Yearly works out at less than a decent box of Yorkshire Tea per month. Which, as metrics go, I find oddly comforting.