Housekeeping: Referral Program, Premium Perk Refresh, Thank Yous

This is boring and you don't have to read it.

It’s been over two years since I moved to Substack and posted De Civitate’s About original page. It was largely copy-pasted from the old Wordpress blog, and I have never really cleaned it up since then. Today, I cleaned it up and split it into two pages: an About page and a Subscriber Perks page.

Blah blah blah who cares. As a free or paid subscriber to De Civ, there are exactly three changes you should be aware of:

• On the advice of Substack Corporate, De Civ has a referral program now. Ooo, ahh, &c. If you refer a friend (or enemy) and he or she subscribes to De Civitate (even to the free list), you get a free month of access to all De Civ’s paid articles. More referrals = higher rewards. I don’t know whether anyone will actually make use of this, but it’s there if you’re so inclined.

  • More details on the Subscriber Perks page.

• When I started on Substack, Substack Corporate said I should have a $150/year “Premium Subscription tier” for people who really wanted to support De Civitate. In a blind panic, I scribbled down the first “premium” reward I could think of: we could be Facebook friends and argue about politics there. I never really expected anyone to sign up for this, but then multiple someones did (thank you!), and the posted reward is super-lame. (Also, Facebook has gone way downhill in recent years.) So I’ve finally changed the reward:

  • Henceforth, $150/year “premium” subscribers can “Put James to Work!” I will (once a year) treat you like my editor and let you assign me a topic to write about. Maybe you just want to ask my opinion on something. Maybe you want to know more about a topic and want to make me do the research. Maybe you just want to make me watch a movie and write a review about it! Then I’ll write about it. I’m guaranteeing a minimum of 750 words, but you know me—I may sprawl. More details on the Subscriber Perks page.

  • If you’re currently a premium subscriber, expect a separate email in the next few days asking what you want me to write about (if anything; this obviously isn’t required and I’m very grateful for your support).

• I have added significantly more effusive praise / thanks for all paid subscribers on the Perks page. More than anything, it’s you guys, the pay list, who keep me writing this blog. I’ve written more words in the past seven months (176,751, about the same length as The Fellowship of the Ring) than I think I wrote in the entire period 2011-2016, and it’s because I knew there were people who wanted it so much they were willing to pay me to have it. Thank you. It means the world to me that you think I’m worth any of your hard-earned dollars.

• Mike W: it turns out, I can add footnotes to the perks page, so I did that! Just because!

Thank you for reading De Civitate, and we will now return to our regular programming.

Next up: something for the pay list (probably Worthy Reads, because I have a few links burning a hole in my pocket). After that: Letters to a Growing Catholic #3, finally. Or a post on home AI tools, maybe. Or I can finally rake the Supreme Court of Minnesota’s decision in the Trump Disqualification Case over the coals, even though Trump v. Anderson means it doesn’t matter. I’m never good at planning more than one post in advance.