My wife and some good friends have decided it is past  time I get pay for my work, and they remind me when too much time has gone by without my mentioning my subscription/payment plan for the blog, the centerpiece of my writing life now. A primary source of my income. I’m overdue. My ides about this are changing.

This month, I agreed to charge my writing students $25 to take my class, several said they wouldn’t continue unless they could pay me. Okay, okay, I get it. Having declared bankruptcy a few months ago to clear all the debt from the four-year long sale of the first Bedlam Farm, I am not in a position to be a big shot.

Besides, it is good and right to get paid for your work. I love my blog, and work hard at it. The big shot does die hard. But I am on board the train. When I started the blog in 2007, it was meant to support my books. Now, the blog really is my work. The books support it.

In a few weeks, I’m shifting from a subscription program to a payment program. The big thing about the change is the name. Payment is a more accurate term for my getting paid for my work, the term subscription does not really apply. All payments are voluntary, the blog will always be free to chose who choose not to pay or can’t pay. It’s a good time to “subscribe” because the rates are going up slightly soon.

The other change will be a small rise in prices. You can save a few dollars by authorizing payments now.

Now, there are three choices (all voluntary). You can pay $3 a month, $5 a month, or $60 a year. In a week or so, those options will go up in price slightly, the first raise I’ve given my blog since I started accepting payments. The new options will be $5 a month, $10 a month, or $75 a year. A good price, I think, the costs have gone up way more than that. Any of the payment options – I’ll be calling it what it is, a “payment,” from now on can be cancelled anytime. If you have subscribed at the lower rate, or sign up now at the current rate, that rate will remain in effect for a year from the sign-up date.

You should know if you decide to pay me for creating and writing the blog:

• That  your payments can be cancelled at anytime. It’s very simple.
• That you will be notified a week in advance of your payment renewals so you can renew or cancel with the click of a button.
• That no financial information of any kind will be stored on my website or servers, both are already protected by two different security companies.
• That I have no access to your account information, for your protection and my sanity. I can’t authorize, renew, cancel or check on payment or subscription plans, Paypal or your credit card companies can do that. You can pay with either of those options.
• I understand that there are still many people who choose to keep their finances off line. If so, you can send you payments by s-mail to me c/o Bedlam Farm, P.O. Box 2502, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
• You can subscribe to the blog for free at anytime by going to box on the upper left of the Farm Journal Page and inserting your e-mail address. That will not change.

My blog focuses on a number of things: animals, rural life, spirituality, my own life, and my life on the farm with Maria. I share much of my life openly and as honestly as i can. I do not spend much time proofreading, good grammar has little to do with good writing and I don’t have lots of time to work on my subjunctive clauses. I’d rather write and take photos. I like the authentic feel of some typos, that reflects the pace of my life and the nature of my mind. Apologies to the many English teachers who read my blog and write to me often. I love you all.

In recent years, I have also started exploring and writing about the future of animals in our world, and the failure of the animal rights movement to adapt to the new realities of animals. They have, in some sad respects, become a coalition of hate groups, their very extreme ideology is driving animals out of our world.  We need a wiser and more mystical understanding of them than we currently have.

There is a backstory to this payment business, and it is this. For almost all of my life, I was well paid in advances and royalties for the 28 books that I wrote. I am a New York Times best selling author. I’m not sure what means any longer in the world, but I like it.

Publishing has changed, there aren’t many royalty checks and more, and they are small. So are the advances. Most mid-list writers like me can no longer make a living writing hard cover books, and the new corporate publishers have fallen out of love with us. We are no longer worth the trouble we cause.

So I am working to pave the way for the new life of the new writer. I intend to be relevant. I accept change as the cornerstone of creativity. I do not ever whine about Amazon or the good old days, I do not speak poorly of my life, it might be listening. The blog suits me, I consider it my great living work.

There are about four million visits to my blog each year, about 300,000 to 400,000 individual (unique)  people. If two or three percent of those people pay me for the blog they read, I will have established one way for writers to cross the bridge of the digital revolution. I’m excited about that, I’m getting there. I am not there yet. It’s called macro-marketing, and I never imagined I would be practicing it or even knowing what it is.

So there we are. I thank those of you who have already decided to pay me for my work. I appreciate it, it makes a huge difference. It is expensive to take photos, more expensive to maintain a blog like this, which is custom-built by Mannix Marketing of Glens Falls, N.Y. Very good people, my partners in this great experiment.

You can pay me by going here. And thanks. You can save a few dollars by signing up now. The current rates will apply for one year from the starting date. I am excited to be exploring a new way for writers to work. I know too many good writers who are gone from publishing, it breaks my heart sometimes. I am grateful to not be one of them. I don’t intend to be one of them.