Announcing an overhaul of our paid Steady memberships.

For the past few months, we have been quietly making plans to revive and renew our paid subscription offering, and we’re very pleased to share that big changes are just around the corner.

Despite the consideration, consultation and work which went into our initial subscription launch four years ago, perks which were great in theory eventually ran into problems of practicality. Without a distinct enough commissioning remit for bonus content, it became clear that our lovely writers would rather forego fees to reach a wider audience. We’d also underestimated the number of international supporters we would have, making the postage of our quarterly print artefacts costly, time-consuming, and prone to misadventure. Despite what we readily admit have been diminishing returns, we’re incredibly thankful to the many of you who have maintained a membership in this time, providing valuable mulch for our wild little patch of the internet to keep thriving.

Needless to say that diminishing returns was never what we were aiming for though, and with the help of the brilliant Tallulah (former work experiencee and now, we’re over the moon to say, part-time colleague), we have gone back to the shed to re-plan the plot — and are re-launching memberships in a form that we think will work infinitely better for us, for you, treasured readers, and for writers.

Tiddler memberships (£5 per month) will stay the same. Think of it much in the same way that some people have a “buy me a coffee” button in the sidebar of their website — a worm for the digital bait-box to say you like what we do. You will get a membership card and a pin-badge when you first sign up, and then we’ll leave you to it.

Middlers (£8 per month) will now get access to new, regular, specially commissioned bonus digital content, in addition to their supporters’ card and badge. Rather than leaving the nature of these pieces open-ended as before, under Tallulah’s invaluable hand, they will now have a clear structure, giving extra, in-depth insights into Books of the Month through author interviews, seasonal reflections, and the reading/watching/listening recommendations we call Antidotes to Indifference. The first of these pieces will be published this coming Monday. We can hardly wait to share an interview with the esteemed Nicola Chester, which builds and expands upon on the themes of her astounding new book Ghosts of the Farm — touching on Nicola’s time as a cowgirl, being a ‘farmer of the imagination’, and the changing role of women in farming as we grapple with the climate crisis.

In addition to all of the above, Lunkers (£10 per month) will now also receive a brand new 15% discount in our Bandcamp shop — valid on our full range of merch, books, zines and records for the duration of the membership — as well as retaining earlybird and discounted access to event tickets.

If you already have a subscription to your desired tier, these changes will come into effect automatically, and you do not need to do anything else. Alternatively, you can alter your plan through your Steady account, or take out a new subscription here.

As you likely already know if you’re reading this, we are and have always been an independent publication run by a tiny staff, publishing weird, wonky and full-hearted DIY coverage of arts, nature and culture since 2007, unbeholden to shareholders, advertisers or big media companies. Whilst the main site and newsletter will always be free to read and share, all memberships, past, present and future — alongside purchases from our Bandcamp shop or Bookshop.org page — contribute to our maintenance, independence, longevity and ability to pay for commissions.

In a world that often feels callous, broken and indifferent, we are deeply grateful for the ongoing reader support and enthusiasm that allows us all to keep walking the fields of the mind together; leaping fences and scattering handfuls of hopeful seed.