The daunting task of using poor-quality email software finally make it too hard to publish True by email every week, so I came up with an idea: publish it every other week.
I was still writing it every week, only in part because it was running in a number of newspapers as a paid feature. It was the online tech in what was still the “Dark Ages” of the Internet that was failing me.
Unfair to Real Fans
But what about the true True fans that really wanted to read every week’s installment?
After several months of reduced delivery, I come up with a solution: the “Premium Edition” — for a small fee, Premium subscribers would get the column every week, and with no outside advertising.
And since Premium subscribers would be, by definition, the most supportive readers, I also instituted a permanent 20 percent discount on True books.
Reaction was immediate: total and complete support — and a huge number of checks sent in the mail. (I didn’t have secure online ordering yet!)
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Years later, a writer in the Huffington Post theorizes “It might be the first example of an online ‘fre[e]mium’ business model.”
I was finally able to go back to weekly in October, after moving distribution to what I think was the first Email Service Provider, which was able to handle my huge list of recipients …which they could only do after they upgraded their servers.
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This page is an example of my style of “Thought-Provoking Entertainment”. This is True is an email newsletter that uses “weird news” as a vehicle to explore the human condition in an entertaining way. If that sounds good, click here to open a subscribe form.
To really support This is True, you’re invited to sign up for a subscription to the much-expanded “Premium” edition:
Q: Why would I want to pay more than the minimum rate?
A: To support the publication to help it thrive and stay online: this kind of support means less future need for price increases (and smaller increases when they do happen), which enables more people to upgrade. This option was requested by existing Premium subscribers.