Refocusing and a word on Contributing

Plan for Fall 2024

I'm splitting my Substacks again, between Lifelong Learners and MakingHistory. I think that will enhance what I want to do with the two themes. I'm not really sure whether that will make things easier or harder for my readers to find my stuff. I don't see how it would be harder, since it will still show up in their feed or email inbox when I post.

It will take some time for me to migrate the LL-related content to this site. In the meantime I'll begin posting new content here, at least a couple of times a week (I may step back a bit from the pace I’ve been posting lately, but it will still be at least a couple of times a week on each site). I think I'll begin pulling content together for a new version of the writing manual. This should include the "How to Read" and maybe a taste of "How to Research" that I want to add to the next revision of the book. Also I'll continue thinking about the changes in self-education and decline of higher ed I’ve begun exploring. But probably not quite as regularly, since I feel that's a bit of a chore. I've got a pretty big job ahead of me, especially this coming semester. So I don't think I want to try to force myself to keep up with the stuff that was hitting my inbox every day from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. It was getting to be a drag. And I am NOT going to give them a $10 a month subscription to read and comment on a bunch of not-particularly-original stuff that doesn't interest me or that depresses me.

I think a question that helps clarify it for me is, would I begin blogging about the Civil War every day, if that was what I discovered readers were most interested in? No, I wouldn’t.

On the other hand, I AM interested in the "Great Conversation" and in the things others are doing with great books, whether they're included in the 1952 Britannica collection or some other. Personally, I think there are a bunch of works of speculative fiction (sci-fi or fantasy) that were important to me, that I'll probably want to add. Since the “heading” categories at the top of the Substack apparently weren’t helping that much, I’ll probably begin using tags. That will have the added benefit that any audio or video I post will drop right into a single “podcast” for the whole site.

As I have in the past, I’ll be posting regularly for “free” subscribers and a lot of my content will continue to be available for everyone to read, for a month. Then it will go into the archive and be available on an ongoing basis for contributors. But beginning with this shift in August 2024, when I split my focus between the two sites, I’ll also begin writing expanded content that will be available only to contributors.

Regarding contributing, I’d be happy to have people join with an annual contribution or even a “Founders” gift (which means we will be talking via Zoom). But typically, the way I subscribe to most of the Substacks to which I contribute is monthly. Yes, $50 once a year is less than $5 a month. But I’m only getting a better value if I continue reading all year. Sometimes I don’t, whether that’s because I find myself in a time crunch or the author drifts into topics that don’t interest me as much. It’s also a lower bar to get over, paying someone the equivalent of a cup of coffee rather than a bag of groceries.