Four years ago on this date, my birthday, Linda M.,a reader of the blog and my writing messaged to say she wished to give me a birthday present, would I accept it? I thought about this generous offer and replied, saying I did not need gifts or wish her to go to that expense, if she wanted to honor my birthday, I said, she might consider helping to pay me for my work by supporting Bedlamfarm.com, this blog.
I was deeply touched by Linda’s sense of ethics and responsibility, at the time few people believed in paying for digital art or content. Most people still don’t.
She was the first person who ever told me I ought to be paid for the work I do in this new form, just as people always paid for my books. She read the blog regularly, she said, I should agree to be paid for it. Since I am not willing to ever cut the blog off from people who can’t afford to pay for it, the payments had to be voluntary, I said.
Linda sent me a check for $60, which she said was a very reasonable payment for a year’s worth of my blog posts and photographs. I agreed to cash it, the history of the blog and my work changed instantly.
This became the blog’s subscription program, now called the voluntary payment program. It has changed my life, perhaps saved the blog and my own career as a writer during a time of great change for publishing.
Getting paid for my work was a radically new idea for me at the time, I had always refused to consider accepting any kind of payment for my work that did not come from a publisher or a book buyer.
I was a New York Times bestseller and we all know about pride.
Such hubris and rigid distinctions have been largely dismantled since the great recession and the revolution in electronic and traditional publishing. Change or perish is the new anthem for writers, so I have changed, and happily so thanks to Linda.
The voluntary payments – the stepchild of Linda’s very ethical sense of responsibility – have permitted me to focus on the blog and my photography, to offer my words and photographs for free, to maintain the blog (it needs about $5,000 of upgrading for mobile users, plus annual fees and maintenance) and continue to build my new life as a writer in the new publishing world.
The voluntary payments work in this way.
People can go to the accounts page on the blog, it is quite simple to use and you can cancel at any time, and quite easily. You will be reminded a week before the annual renewal date, so you can choose to cancel or continue. I have no access to your money, none of your financial information is stored on my site, I cannot, for your protection and my sanity, start payments or stop them, only you, Paypal or your credit card company can do that.
Please save your user name and password.
A suggested one time annual voluntary payment is now $75, there is also the option to contribute monthly, $5 or $10, depending on what you can afford. You can use Paypal or major credit cards or sent a check to Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Some people prefer traditional ways of contributing or sending money. I love my post office box.
The blog began in 2007 as a way of supporting my books.
Now, in so many ways, it as become my book, my living work, my ultimate memoir.
It is the story of a life.
I seek to share my life faithfully, openly and honestly. I work very hard at it, I think of it all the time.
The blog is no longer just about my life on a farm with my animals, it is about our lives, my life with Maria and the animals and people we both love. I have given away more than 20,000 photographs on the blog, they are all free, I do not bookmark or copyright them. The focus is on animals and my life in this remarkable community, but the blog is always growing and evolving. I write about things today I did not imagine writing about just a few years ago, it is the perfect medium for me as a writer, it fits me like a glove.
The photographs have helped immensely to support the integrity of the blog. Almost everything I write about, I photograph, you can see for yourself who these people and animals are.
Nothing makes me happier than to hear my words and pictures are being used, shared, enjoyed. They are all my angels, setting out into the universe to live or fade away. I think of the many writers who refused to change, few of them are writing now. I am grateful.
So on my birthday, and the birthday of this payment idea, this new way for writers to live in a changing world, it is especially fitting to mention Linda and to thank her for her very important idea. We are both part of history, believe it or not, paving the way for what comes next.
The payments do not support my life, I pay for that. They support the blog and my pictures. Simple as that. By contributing, you support my work and the time and effort it takes to produce it, just as you, hopefully, have been and are being paid for your work and your time. You do not, of course, get to buy me or my ideas, or to tell me what to do and how to live. That is not for sale.
That is the beautiful boundary that has, so far, worked very well for me and almost all of you.
I am utterly committed to the blog, to keeping it free and authentic and true and meaningful. If it is meaningful to you, please consider supporting my work. There are several easy ways to do it, and that is a wonderful birthday idea all around.
Happy birthday to this idea and thanks to you Linda for seeing what I could not see and starting what I could not bring myself to start. You were right.