🧁 Happy Two-Year Dohiversary!
🎉 Stats + special swag and live AMA if you upgrade your subscription in July 🎉
;TLDR: Paid subscriptions are now just $5/month ($4 if you upgrade to annual billing)—less than the cost of a New York City donut! Although that’s probably not saying much 😭
Scroll down for the July upgrade bonuses . . .
Today marks my 14-year biziversary and two years of Rolling in Doh. In honor of both, I’m making it even more accessible to read paywalled posts moving forward, with some fun birthday swag and bonuses if you upgrade your subscription this month :)
But first . . .
🍩 A little behind-the-scenes background 📊
As I shared in last year’s reflection, this Substack wouldn’t exist without you. When I started it, after years of business losses,
I was throwing myself a lifeline. A rope braided with your help, witnessing and reading, strand by strand, essay by essay.
“Here,” some wiser part of me said. “Grab on to this.”
This being capital-T Truth. What I was really going through, rather than trying to paper over it with people-pleasing optimism, as I used to do.
Here, I offered back to anyone else who needed to hear it. Take this rope with me. Let’s talk about what’s happening and how hard things feel—at least for me. Maybe for you, too.
I priced purposefully high in the beginning, $11/month ($108/year), for psychological safety, to make sure that I was spilling my business guts only to those who most wanted and needed to hear those stories. It felt good to put sensitive posts behind a steep paywall; without that, I wouldn’t have written or shared them at all, and I certainly didn’t want them Google-searchable (and now AI-ingestible 😡), as I am still running my business, not just telling a neatly resolved tale years later.
To get the ball donut rolling when I launched in July 2023, I comped close friends and my private Free Time membership community, about 100 people total, in a stealth launch that I dubbed “a secret Substack summer pop-up,” reserving the right to shut down after a month or two. Later that year, I made the tough decision to close my private community after nine years and focus here, and I’m deeply grateful to see many of those OG community members still reading and commenting.
Until now, I’ve been comforted by the relatively small reach of the most nerve-wracking posts. Out of 3,408 current subscribers, only ~166 even have access to paywalled posts. Amidst general inbox chaos, a far lesser number will see or open these posts, let alone read them . . . enormous thanks to those of you who do!
I was surprised and delighted to be featured by Substack one year in, May 2024, which led to a spike in free subscribers, doubling the base from 1,625 to 3,100, and now at a gentle climb thanks to word-of-mouth sharing and other publications’ recommendations, hovering around 3,400:
Now that I’ve been consistently publishing here for two years, and because I know how tight budgets are (mine included!), I’m lowering the price. Hopefully, that means more of you who previously read for free can access the full archives and paid posts moving forward (if you want to).1
I don’t offer subscription discounts, i.e. 30% off through Labor Day, because it’s unfair to the generous, long-standing subscribers who pay full price just for subscribing at the “wrong” non-discounted time. It annoys me when the tables are turned!
In a similar vein, as I started preparing for this two-year Dohiversary announcement and lower pricing moving forward, in June, I emailed Substack support asking them to retroactively adjust the price for all currently paying subscribers—it didn’t seem fair to offer a reduced rate without lowering it for them first. The chart below, showing gross annualized revenue, pretty much sums up my post-COVID business trajectory, too: 😂
To those who generously supported Doh during these first two years: your investment has not only been a financial boon; you gave me the confidence to keep going and stay on schedule as I watched every one of your payments go through month after month. You gave me hope and fledgling confidence that I could earn even a small part of my living from writing online, something I have been doing off-and-on for twenty years for free.
Once again: Doh wouldn’t exist without you. ❤️ Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here.
🎉 Want to join us?
🍩 Step 1. Upgrade in July for these bonus goodies:
Then scroll down below the paywall for the next steps — all current paying subscribers are eligible for these too :)
Monthly:
Formerly $11/moNow just $5 a month! In addition to twice weekly personal essays about the stickier sides of running a small business, you’ll get your very own sparkly Doh pin, pictured above (*if based in the U.S.—sorry that international shipping is prohibitively expensive 😢), and a live group AMA on August 21, recorded in case you can’t make it. 🔗 The link to register is below the paywall of this post.Annual:
Formerly $108/yearNow just $48 for the year! That’s a 20% discount at $4 each month. Annual subscribers will get the pin (if based in the U.S.), an invite to our group AMA, and the chance to submit one question that I’ll answer via private voice memo—just for you!Founding:
Formerly $321Now starting at $108 — anyone who joins at this tier in July will get all the above plus two signed copies of Free Time (collector’s edition hardcover if based in the U.S., a $64 value; audiobook edition if international).
🙏 All tiers include my endless gratitude and great creative karma! ✨
🔓 Upgrading will give you access to 100+ paywalled posts
Including the comment sections of our community Doh threads and greatest hits like:
👾 I’m an alien (4 parts): Fish out of fancy client water, with a surprise plot twist!
🍔 Hot Messes: 🍬 Is giving up your favorite vice good for business?, 🥴 Bob the Neck Throb (7 parts), 🏐 Cast Away Confidence, 🥼Chekhov’s Crème Clothing, I AM DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN! and 🃏Decorating My House of Cards
🌱 The Lucky Seedling: On landing my first new licensing client in seven years, starting with 🏊🏻♀️ The Daily Ritual I Refuse to Do Without
👻 The Ghost Self Series + 🧟♀️ Am I running a Zombie Business?
📚 The Free Time Afterword I Never Wrote and Publishing Pivots
💭 Early hits like Reflecting on one year of Rolling in Doh, The Suspense is Terrible, and Critters and Cash Flow
For the full menu . . .
After you upgrade—or if you’re already a paying subscriber:
📆 Step 2. Register for the AMA (Ask Me Anything)
Join us for the first-ever live Zoom with fellow Dohnuts! It will be on August 21 at 12:30 p.m. ET., and the session will be recorded and shared with paying subscribers in case you can’t make it live—though, of course, I would love to see you and connect in real-time :)
📬 If you are a paying subscriber based in the U.S. and haven’t received a pin yet, please make sure to register below to let me know the best mailing address for you.
🎙️ Annual subscribers paying annually (not comped), new and existing: the AMA registration form is also where you’ll submit the 1:1 question that I will answer privately via voice memo in August :)