Teaching Computers How To Talk Now Officially Accepts Donations
As an independent writer, I spend quite some time researching and crafting my articles and I’m always striving to be better.
Over the past year, I’ve had many people come to me and say why don’t you monetize your newsletter? And I’ve always given people the same answer: I don’t like the idea of selling subscriptions and creating gated content. I want my articles to be freely available, to anyone, always.
Instead, I’d much rather have a donation-based system, where you could, if you wanted to, show your support in the shape of a donation. While that’s not technically possible — as the Substack doesn’t offer this functionality yet — what I’ve done is used the existing functionality and transformed it into a donation system myself.
Pretty smart, huh?
Please don’t donate
I know at the top it says ‘Teaching Computers How To Talk Now Officially Accepts Donations’ and from today, going forward, you can totally support the newsletter with a monthly donation. But before I explain how that works, I want you to know that nothing changes if you don’t.
Let me explain:
Promise #1:
Whether you donate or not, I’ll continue to put out my best work and write articles you won’t read elsewhere.
Promise #2:
Every single article will be freely available to everyone. Don’t donate if you don’t want to or don’t have the means. I’m grateful to have you as a reader, regardless.
Promise #3:
You can pause or stop your donations always, anytime. Tomorrow, next week, or next year.
Why do I say this?
Because I want to make it clear this really is a donation, no more, no less. It’s a way for you, as a reader, to financially support me in continuing to expand this newsletter and taking it to the next level.
Here’s how it works
If you’re a regular reader of the newsletter and you find value in what I write, you can arrange a donation here:
It literally takes less than a minute to set up. For now, I can only offer fixed amounts, so if you’re looking to make a odd-shaped or sized donation, just reply to this email and we’ll work something out.
Since I’ve got quite a few readers who work in tech (maybe that’s you!), it might not hurt to remind you that this stuff is often completely write-off-able as a business expense to your employer. Convenient, huh?
Finally, if you do end up donating, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Not ready to say goodbye yet? Here’s a small round up of the month March:
I like your donation idea & might ‘borrow’ it if you don’t mind! Although I share your feelings about gated content, I respect that others may want or need to monetize their writing. I’d prefer to keep my own content free if possible. But it *would* be great to know that readers value my writing enough to donate, and to have a small pool of income I could share out to other writers without guilt about impacting my household’s cash flow :)