The Cost of Simplification

This one’s about money.

I don’t like talking about money because it’s not the reason I write. But, for some people, writing is about money. If that’s you, more power to you. Me? I want to write and share ideas with the world.

There was a time that I was a full-time writer. I had clients and employment taxes. The money was the reason then. As a result, I also had a lot of anxiety and depression. Go figure.

Those days are, thankfully, well behind me. But one thing they don’t tell you about with businesses is that once you do all of the things to have employees and sales tax and everything else, you can’t just really turn it all off.

I’ve been filing quarterly employment taxes without any employees for over two years. Not to mention state sales tax reports and other things. I’ve also been paying for various services that I frankly don’t need anymore because I’m not an employer.

I’m trying to simplify everything this year. That means a change of legal structure and the shutdown of multiple things. It also had me taking a good hard look at the ancient Writing Cooperative Patreon.

Patreon is a strange platform that never made sense to me. Their monthly cut is never the same, which is just a little bit suspect.

In an effort to further simplify things, I chose to shutter the Patreon. That meant I turned off paying subscriptions for 21 people. I’ve made them multiple offers to switch to a subscription directly on my website, but no one did.

Which, again, I don’t write for the money. But losing the approximately $100 a month kind of stings.

Writing, unfortunately, does cost money, especially when you own your own website (which every writer should).

Each email I send costs a tiny little fraction of a penny, and those tiny fractions do add up. Not to, you know, a lot, but they add still add up. There are also server costs, tax payments, and all of the other behind-the-scenes costs.

But, money aside, there’s the notion of a supporter — someone who is behind what you do and cheers you on. I’m grateful for the supporters I have and all of you who interact and respond to my writing.

Call it vanity, call it pride, but losing those 21 subscribers is a bruise to the ego. It hurts a bit. I know that it shouldn’t, but it does.

The best way to boost my silly ego is to keep replying and hitting the little thumbs up button at the end of emails. That tells me you’re there, and it really means a lot. It’s the only real engagement metric that I keep an eye on because it means I’m connecting with amazing people all around the world.

I really enjoy writing online and while this last week kind of sucked, I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Thank you for being a reader.