I made a mistake

When you lose sight of your values, it doesn’t feel good.

I wrote just one freelance piece this year. It was an essay for How I’d Fix Atlanta — an argument in favor of removing paywalls and making local news accessible for everyone.

Most of my freelance earnings came from consulting and copywriting gigs. In 2023, I took on contract work for The Carter Center, News Revenue Hub, Report for America, the Poynter Institute, and The 19th. Out of all my gigs, the News Revenue Hub is one of my favorites, in part because it’s consistent — this year marked my fifth working with the Hub as a freelancer — but mostly because I believe so strongly in their vision: to remove paywalls and build trust through accessible, community-centered journalism.

The remainder of my income — roughly 12% of my annual earnings — came from this newsletter. 

Out of all the work I did this year, writing My Sweet Dumb Brain was the most fulfilling and rewarding. It was also the most discouraging, at least financially. Throughout the year, I’ve experienced a slow and steady trickle of people unsubscribing from the paid tier of this newsletter. Since June, when I announced that I’d be reducing the number of essays I wrote and paywalling the rest, I’ve lost 40 paying subscribers. Since March, I’ve lost nearly 90 paying readers.

There is a ton of advice out there to not equate the number of subscribers and amount of revenue earned to the quality of your writing. Some days, I’m good at following that wisdom. Other times, that’s a lot harder. I dream of being able to take on less contract work and devote more time to my writing, but lately, that vision feels further and further away as my subscriber numbers — and money earned from personal writing — continue to dwindle.

So, I panic. I operate from a place of scarcity. I do things that don’t align with my values, like putting up paywalls on my writing.

I know that writers — and artists of all sorts — deserve to get paid for their work. I know that we live in a society that often undervalues the work of creatives. I know a lot of these same struggles are true for journalists and newsrooms. 

I also know that life is really damn expensive right now and that it’s frustrating to bump up against paywalls and be asked for money everywhere you turn.

And I know what matters to me: I care about writing words and creating resources that help others. And I want to help as many people as possible.

If it’s not obvious by this point, I really do love the weekly intentions guide that I’ve created as an offering for readers. I pour a ton of time and energy into putting together a beautiful and useful guide; it’s a resource that I think so many people could benefit from.

I’d estimate that Becca and I spent between 20-25 hours making this year’s intentions documents — doing everything from creating the graphics and writing monthly prompts to copy-editing every single version and triple-checking dates. At least two of those hours were spent going to a coffee shop to buy a latte and take a photo of the intentions guide for this morning’s big reveal.

At 9:00 a.m. today, an hour after that reveal hit readers’ inboxes, I texted Becca: “I feel terrible right now. I haven’t even recouped the cost of that latte.”

By this point, we’ve gained six new subscribers. I paid off the latte, but not much else.

Becca kindly listened to my reasons for feeling discouraged and embarrassed. She also told me how much she truly values the intentions guide.

“I literally talked about it for a half hour with my therapist this week!” she said. “The thing I talked about the most was how I appreciated that it has so much grace built into it.”

Overall, today was one of those no-good days that falls off the rails from the start. I spent it alternating between beating myself up for not being better at this newsletter; hitting refresh on my dashboard, hoping a surprise influx of subscribers would come in; and trying to concentrate on all the other work on my plate. I battled a low-level headache for hours, got into a fight with Billy, and cried harder than I’ve cried in a while. By the end of the day, I wasn’t even sure what exactly I was so down about — I was just plain sad and disappointed in myself. 

Then I remembered Becca’s comment about grace. It’s something I’m pretty good at giving to others. It’s something I remind Sweet Dumb Brain readers of all the time. It is not something I often give myself.

As I put my daughter to bed, I reminded myself that grace was what I needed at this moment. And as I softened and forgave myself, I realized how silly — and how against my values — it is to paywall off a resource that I truly believe in. Part of why I felt so disappointed and embarrassed today is because so few people would get access to something I created out of a place of sincerely wanting to help others.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that I’ve removed the paywall from this morning’s post (in other words: the intentions documents are available to everyone!) and will likely remove paywalls from here on out. I need to spend some time trying figuring out some semblance of a business plan, but I no longer want to let scarcity cloud my judgment. I don’t want to lose sight of why I began this newsletter in the first place: to help myself heal and to hopefully help others along the way. That’s a lofty and important goal — and it’s one best achieved by reaching as many folks as possible.

Earlier today, I shared that I’d be taking a holiday break. Now, I hope that’s the case. This post — written late at night and without a second pair of eyes — isn’t how I typically operate. But I wanted to end my no-good day by correcting my course and giving myself some grace in the process.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for reading and giving me the opportunity to learn along the way. I sincerely appreciate all of you (including you six who subscribed today!) and I’m excited to keep writing and learning alongside you in 2024.

xoxo
KHG