Launching a New Project, Changing Some Things Here

I'm ready for the next thing. Are you?

I have an announcement to make.

After thinking about it for months, I’ve decided to take the plunge. I started a new Substack today called Black Sheep. It’s for all of the critical thinkers and questioners out there who see what’s going on in the world and are tied of being lied to and treated like we’re all idiots.

Yeah, it’s a bit tropey, but there’s simply no metaphor I can find that’s a better fit for being the odd man out in a world that seems to be going the other way. Even when that means opposing your own side.

It’s for folks who don’t conform to the status quo. Who stand out from the herd, whether they want to or not.

We’ll be tackling culture and politics and current events and tech and the issues that are threatening our way of life.

The first post at Black Sheep will go live as soon as I’m done with this post here at The Skojec File.

I’m not going to explain it all here, because the introductory post (which I will update this post with a link right here when it goes live) does that.

Now, when I was setting things up, I was asked to import my existing email list, and without thinking, I just uploaded the list from this Substack. Which means all of you will get the emails unless you opt out. I didn’t do that on purpose, but it was early and the coffee hadn’t quite kicked in yet. Mea culpa. It’s a free email list, and I’m happy to help anyone who needs to unsubscribe get off the list. But I do hope many of you will stick around. I suspect it’s going to be more active than TSF currently is, because we’re going to be covering a lot more current events.

As for The Skojec File, when I’ve polled readers in the past, you have consistently given me the feedback that you want to see me write about religion and deconstruction and the personal healing journey I’ve been on. One of the reasons I’m launching Black Sheep is so that I have an appropriate (and non-eponymous) venue to publish work — both my own and that of other writers — that is about other topics than are covered here.

Since The Skojec File is so much more personal, I have also decided that with the launch of a new, public project, I am going to be taking this Substack private. Except for the occasional public post, everything here will be going behind the paywall. This gives me more freedom to let loose here with difficult subjects, knowing that the audience I have is the one that’s interested in all this messy sausage-being-made stuff.

I’m also going to be increasing the price. The cost of everything has gone up, and my writing work has become something of an expensive luxury because I don’t have enough paid subscribers to justify the time I spend on it. The new ‘stack will be monetized but will need time to grow to any kind of real revenue, and will start out with 100% free content.

That said, the standard pricing for new Substacks that turn on the paid feature is $8/month or $80/year, and that’s the pricing we’ll be moving to here at The Skojec File on October 15th. People who are already subscribed at the $5/month or $50/year price will be able to continue with that pricing indefinitely as long as they maintain their subscription. So if you’ve been thinking about a paid subscription and want to get in before the price goes up, you’ve got two weeks to do it!

That is all. Wish me luck! I’m not 100% sure yet what I’m getting myself into…