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This is it! After months of writing articles and making podcasts steeped in geography, we’re turning on premium subscriptions. And this comes with a bunch of exclusive benefits! But first allow me to explain why this newsletter is going premium.
This is a full time job
I don’t know how many people know this, but this newsletter, the podcast and the YouTube channel are my full time job. I made a conscious decision earlier this year to leave my previous job as a city planner and follow my passion in geography. Unfortunately, however, passion doesn’t really pay all that well. So while I love making content everywhere I do it, I also need to find ways to make it sustainable.
Up until this point I’ve been relying entirely on YouTube to make ends meet. And while that’s been great and I’ll continue to leverage YouTube to help me pay rent, it’s also inconsistent. Some weeks a video performs well and makes me a bit of money. Other weeks, a video doesn’t “hit the algorithm” and I make almost nothing on it. The podcast is also not a money generator as of now.
With this newsletter, though, we can build not only a community but also a consistent stream of funds to help pay expenses related to everything we do. And that’s honestly the most important part of all this: money we can depend on every single month. This will help us better plan content well into the future.
I’ll be honest with you, this is scary. I’m personally far more comfortable sitting behind a camera and letting ads pay me money. Bringing a value to you that’s worth $5/month is a big ask, especially in today’s world. Because of that fear, I’ve held out for as long as I could in turning on premium subscriptions. But this is also one of those things where you kind of just need to do it, and figure how out it all works after the fact. And so, here we are!
Why you should subscribe
Paying money for something you’ve typically gotten for free is not an easy thing to overcome, but we’re not just going to be delivering the exact same content, we’re beefing up the effort a little bit. In fact, the goal is to provide you with content every day of the work week, even if it’s just bite-sized morcels. Here’s the schedule I’m working with right now (subject to change depending on what works and what doesn’t):
Monday: A weekly discussion thread for new Geography By Geoff YouTube videos. This is exclusive to premium subscribers. I will be answering questions and replying to comments in these threads as well!
Tuesday: An article steeped in geography, available to everyone for free for the first two weeks. These articles explore different geographic ideas, places, concepts, or stories.
Wednesday: An ad-free podcast episode from the Geography Is Everything podcast. This is exclusive to premium subscribers. Free subscribers can still listen to the ad-supported podcast episode on all podcast apps (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).
Thursday: A “Geography in the News” article. These articles usually surround some sort of current event and are designed to explore the geography of the world as its happening. This is exclusive to premium subscribers.
Friday: A Substack exclusive bonus podcast episode. These are episodes that are only for our diehard fans and are not made available anywhere else barring special occasions. This is exclusive to premium subscribers.
Weekend: Sometimes something, sometimes nothing! Sometimes for subscribers only, sometimes for everyone! Weekends are wild.
Tuesday’s article will remain free for everyone to enjoy. So if you’ve been enjoying reading about my normal geography articles, you don’t need to pay to keep enjoying those. Everything else (aside from some occassional weekend stuff) will be exclusive to premium subscribers however.
And for the first 100 subscribers, I will personally mail you a “Geography is Everything” sticker and thank you note!
Future plans
Ultimately, my goal with this newsletter is to really lean into the community aspect so everything I’m doing is with that in mind. As we get more and more paid subscribers, additional benefits will open up.
While I don’t want to share too much about what we’ve been brainstorming, one thing I can say for certain is that, once we hit 100 paid subscribers, we’ll open an exclusive Discord channel.
Aside from that, we’ll be sure to include paying subscribers on what we have planned down the road. It’s most important for us to ensure you’re getting value out of what we’re offering and we have no intention of doing that in a vacuum.