Updates to Substack and Patreon (2023)
Hello, everyone! I decided to make some major changes to my Patreon and my Substack in order to be more consistent and practical. My youngest child is now over four months old, so I have more energy. In addition to writing, I also do contract work for a program called Spokes Hub, which involves teaching and putting together courses for people involved in the sex trade/s. Due to ongoing online harassment, I am no longer able to openly discuss whether or not I am personally involved in the sex trade at the present. However, I will continue to publish work related to the trade and whatever else I feel like writing about. This post will detail the changes and show you the plan moving forward. I hope that you will see the improvement and decide to become a paying subscriber or patron. Even if you decide not to, there will still be great free posts available as well! However, in order to continue creating, I have to be able to pay my bills and buy groceries.
Substack Updates
The first thing you might have noticed is that I changed the banner and the name of my Substack. Instead of PLANTATIONOCENES, the blog is now simply known as cotqueanity thotscholar. (I was going through my planned posts and realized I wasn’t feeling the new name as much as I thought, so I changed it, and this is the final change. Sorry.) I will be posting at least three times a week. My free Substack posts will be cross-posted to Patreon. My paywalled Substack posts will be cross-posted to the corresponding tier on Patreon. Everything is pretty much the same until you get to the $10 tier, which has a special segment only available on Patreon called “Lists of 10.” My Substack is $8/month and $80/year. There is a special Founding Member plan, which I named G.O.A.T., that is $150/year.
Here are the kinds of Substack posts that you can look forward to, some of which are already written and scheduled:
Lists of 5/Lists of 10
Lists of 5 will be available both here on cotqueanity thotscholar, and on the $5 and above tier on Patreon. I will create a list of 5 interesting things and write about a paragraph about each. This is a recurring segment. The Lists of 10 segment will only be available on Patreon at the $10 level, and will also be recurring.
Essays and Nonfiction
I will continue to publish essays, cultural criticism, and speculative nonfiction about the sex trade/s, racial and sexual ideology, gender ideology, genre (See: Sylvia Wynter, Tommy Curry), socioeconomic status, feminisms, history, and more. I will also be doing more etymological and language posts, and I think I’m gonna post more about things I see on Twitter, because I would rather do some of these in longform than in tweets. I will also expand on some of my threads.
Fiction and Poetry
At some point later this year I will begin to publish excerpts from my published fiction and/or poetry here. I published a short poetry book in 2018 called libra season, so that’s where I will start. I also have two novellas that I am digging up to share. I write every day and I work on fiction concurrently with nonfiction, so I will polish some of these pieces and publish them here. It is also my goal to write some stuff solely for Substack. I will keep y’all updated on this.
Patreon Updates
I don’t know if any of y’all remember, but I originally began a Patreon at the suggestion of a Twitter user, because I was a cartoonist. I had published a comic independently and wanted to make money from my art. At the time I was a single mom. However, after my writing started popping off and I started publishing articles and getting paid, I put my comic on hold. That was in 2017. I also used to be much more comfortable on camera as a camgirl, but now I’m more reticent to do videos, although I do videos for the Struggle Love podcast that I also post on Patreon. However, as a mother of three and a freelancer, I no longer have the time or energy to do much more than that.
To reflect this shift, I decided to update all of my tiers on Patreon. I have over 500 subscribers here on Substack, and I’m not sure of the exact number of patrons I have on Patreon because anywhere between 70-100 of them keep declining. The number of paying patrons I have has dropped below 200 for the first time in about four years. In 2019 I reached my peak, a height of about 270 patrons. Since then it has been a struggle to maintain, partly because of my inconsistency and the fact that I am always searching for gigs to make ends meet, and also because of the emotional and economic effects of ongoing online harassment. I have updated my tiers on Patreon, and I capped the $2 tier at 40 people, since about 65-70 of those have defaulted. The $5 tier is now my lowest tier, and those who are legacy patrons will remain on the $2 tier unless they decide to switch.
Here is a complete list of the tiers and their updated descriptions:
Starter Pack ($2/month)|This is sold out, I capped it at 40 people because too many of the folks at this tier are declining, which makes it difficult to gauge how many people are actually engaging my content.
Description: Your heart is willing but your wallet is light. No big deal, this is the tier for you. I capped this tier at 40 ppl, so get it while it's hot. There are less than 10 slots left! With this tier you get to support a struggling artist-writer-mother, and you'll get to see all the free blogs and the Struggle Love podcast videos (which are also posted on Youtube), as well as cross-posts from my Substack, cotqueanity thotscholar.
Creative Boost ($5/month)|There is no limit to this tier. As it is my most popular tier, I tried to load it with value.
You looked at the $2 tier and decided you want more bang for your buck. I got you. The $5 tier is perfection. It's a balance between free and paid rewards, including the paywalled posts from my Substack, curated Lists of 5, AND a 20% off coupon for any of my offerings or publications-- just a lil' razzle dazzle. Plus you still get everything in the $2 tier. This is my most heavily populated tier. I’m considering adding a shout out reward, which would entail me including a page thanking everyone who has supported me in my next publication.
Ten Toes Down ($10/month)|There is no limit to this tier. The most unique thing about this tier is the List of 10, which is only available on Patreon at this level (and above).
You smart, and you loyal. Plus you like a little sum'n extra, so you decided to sign up for the $10 tier so you can read my curated Lists of 10. Ten what, you might be wondering. Ten books, ten thoughts, ten songs, etc. Ten things, and a paragraph for each thing. It's worth it, I promise. Plus everything from the $2-5+ Tiers.
Dubmaster Flex ($20/month)|This is capped at 20 people. You get the biannual e-zine that I will curate and put together from the content I create for both sites for FREE.
Twenty dollars is a lot and a little at the same time. For this tier, you will get a free PDF copy of my curated biannual E-Zine. The E-Zine will be full of your favorite or most relevant essays and articles, the Lists of 5 AND the Lists of 10, and 1-2 additional new essays or lists, all in one convenient place. Plus everything from the previous tiers. I capped this one at 20 people, so get in where you fit in!
Deep Pockets ($50/month)|This is limited to 12 people.
This tier is limited to 12 people. Each one of y'all can ask me a single question (not about my personal life), and I will answer one question per month. I will post the answer for everyone, but I will not disclose who asked the question, so don't worry about that. Plus everything from the previous tiers.
Baller ($100/month|I only have one person on this tier, and they are awesome for it.
You are clearly the G.O.A.T. Thanks so much for the support! This is buying diapers, office supplies, paying self-employment taxes, etc., and your investment means the world to me. You get everything from the $20 tier and up. If I can think of any other reward, I will add it later on!
Thank you so much to those who have supported me throughout all the mess. I’m sorry that I haven’t been consistent in the past, and I have created a plan for myself in order to correct this moving forward. I am excited to see what y’all think of the new content! Please like and share this post, and leave a comment if you feelin it.