Last week  I announced an important step in the life of this blog, a voluntary but paid subscription program. There are now four ways to subscribe to the blog. Through Paypal, you can subscribe for $60 a year, or for $5 a month, the payments automatically deduced by Paypal (and they can be cancelled any time). Beyond that, people can contribute one-time amounts of any amount they choose, and of course the blog remains free to those who can’t afford contributions or payments.

A number of people – scores, if not hundreds – reported problems subscribing on Paypal. After some investigating by the good people at Mannix Marketing, there seems to have been an error in the code on the Paypal side that affected some people but not others. I am happy to report it seems to be working now for everyone, and I am grateful to the very good people who kept at it and contacted me about it. Facebook is useful in that regard also.

More than anything, people seem comfortable, even happy,  to find a coherent and inexpensive way to pay for the blog. I have come far on this issue, as on others, and I am comfortable, proud and happy to be getting paid for the blog. It makes me work all the harder at it and take it all the more seriously, (Maria says this is not possible). I love the blog and of course it is right to be paid for the work that goes into it. I often wrestle with the demands of new technology, but it is important to be reminded that it also connects me to many good people who support my work. There are several hundred subscriptions so far, I haven’t counted them all yet.

Perhaps more surprising is learning that so many people prefer to pay for it, it perhaps increases its own value to them. Most people say “it’s about time. What were you thinking?” And I think it is the right thing to do on both ends. I am not a noble cause or charity, I am a writer and photographer and blogger and I need to be paid for my work – more and more this blog is becoming my work – just as anyone reading this does. People get that, long before I did. The subscriptions and contributions support the blog – the photography, podcasts,  ideas, Web maintenance fees and time. My blog is becoming my great work, my living memoir. I think for sometime I thought I was too important to move towards subscriptions – I am a New York Times Bestseller, I had a hard time imagining John Updike asking for subscriptions for a blog. This is, of course, hubris on my part and I am learning that part of authenticity is acknowledging your own worth and accepting payment and recognition for it. There is no virtue in false humility.

Some people write and say they can’t afford any contributions of any kind, and I take them at their word. I appreciate the small contributions as well as the large ones. And $60 a year or $5 a month is hopefully a small enough amount so that people can afford it. I got a contribution last week for $3 from a 10-year-old girl and I appreciate that very much. They all keep the blog strong and evolving.

I am grateful to the many responsible people out there who recognize that even though the free things on the Internet are precious and wonderful, there will be no writers and artists and creative people to read and appreciate if they don’t find ways to get paid for their time and good work. Paypal makes it easy to do this, I see. So for those of you who could not subscribe earlier, it is possible now, and I thank you. I won’t get wealthy on blog subscriptions, but they may soon contribute as much as royalties used to, and it does offer a new and important way for me continue to be a new writer in the brave new world, something I love, and something hopefully that you will love also. I believe this is the direction good blogs are going in.

Thanks. You can read about the subscriptions here.