So I have some big blog news (and news of my life and future) to share. It’s been three years, it’s time to raise the price of the voluntary payment options for the blog. The blog will remain free forever to those who can’t afford to pay for it. For those who can afford to pay for it, the payment options will change in a few,  hopefully in small and gentle ways.

In a few weeks, the $3 a month subscription option will go up to $5. The $5 subscription option will increase to $10. The $60 a year option will rise to $75 a year. These are voluntary. Like you, my costs have gone up, the blog and the photography are expensive to maintain, and have become the centerpiece of my work and creative life.

If you have subscribed at the $3, $5, and $60 options, they will remain in effect for you for the full year of your subscription. Your payments will not go up unless you decide to raise them.  In a couple of weeks, new subscribers will not be offered the current options, only the $5, $10 and $75 year options. If you are a bargain hunter, you can get the lower rates for awhile.

There is no pressure for existing subscribers to raise their payments, a deal is a deal. In a year, the existing payment structure will be phased out.

I’m also changing the terminology, I’m dropping the subscriptions and calling the payments what they really are: voluntary payments for my work. I balked for years at the idea of being paid for my work, I understand that it is necessary and appropriate for me. It feels good, it helps me keep the blog free for those who need that, and gives people the option of paying me for the work I do.

I was surprised to learn that many people appreciate the opportunity to contribute to my work. That is humbling. In the past several years, not a single person has complained about being asked to pay for my work, that is a wonderfully affirming thing for me. But the idea of payment for online work is still new, only a small fraction of my readers – four million hits a year on bedlamfarm.com – pay at all.

I would love to keep these rates as low as they are, but that is not how our world works. The experts were right, the $3 option drew a lot of people into my subscription program, but it isn’t enough to support the work over the long haul, much as I appreciate it. They tell me $5 is the new $3. But if that is the option you selected, I thank you, it will stay the same until it expires.

If you care to choose the lower rates now, you have a few weeks to do that. By next Thanksgiving, the payment change- over will be complete, you can cancel your subscriptions or choose one of the new rates.

Why call them payments rather than subscriptions? Because that’s what they are. You don’t need to pay a thing to subscribe, you just go to the “subscribe by e-mail” bar at the top left of the Farm Journal page and you can subscribe anytime for nothing. The money is really payment for work done, not a subscription. I believe in being transparent, I believe in plain labeling.

When this changeover occurs, the subscription page will become the payment page.

I want to mention a couple of things. First, no financial information of any kind is stored on my website or its servers, no one can access your account or manage it but you and/or Paypal and your credit card company. This is for your protection and my sanity. Hopefully, there will one day be thousands of accounts, I don’t want to go anywhere near them. Managing accounts is simple, you can change your payments or cancel them at any time. A week before your subscription expires, you will be notified by e-mail and you can cancel it with the click of a button or renew it.

You can make these payments by Paypal or credit card. Or by check (see below.) Just hit the “subscribe” button at the top right of the Farm Journal Page and then go to “manage your account.” You control it, nobody else can see or touch your money.

I don’t want anyone feeling trapped in my world, I want it to be simple to get in or get out. A few people cancel subscriptions regularly and depart  in a huff when I write something they disagree with. If you can’t stand being disagreed with, I’d think about reading andpaying for another blog.  I can almost guarantee it will happen from time to time. I think of it this way, people are paying for my work, they are not buying me.

I started my blog in 2007 as a way of supporting my books, and to my amazement and satisfaction, the blog has become the book, my living memoir, my great adventure into the new world of writing and publishing. My world has gone online, I am following. Creativity is about change, and I will never whine about Amazon or the rise of the e-book universe or the demise of my royalty payments. More people are reading more books than ever before in human history, and if I can’t make this work, I should find a trailer to rent and go live there with the dogs and donkeys.

My photography has become as important as my writing, many of you know that photography – like animals on a farm –  is an expensive pursuit, there is no proper way to do it without spending a lot of money. The blog needs continuous modernizing and updating, this is a custom blog, it needs maintenance as the reading universe changes.

The blog is not just about my work, it is also about my life. I update it daily, usually more than three or four times. It has evolved, it is about dogs and donkeys and horses, but much more than that now: it is about Maria and my love and admiration for her, and about the remarkable journey the two of us have undertaken to live creative and meaningful lives. I am dipping my toes into spirituality and philosophy as well, I like it. I write broadly about animals and their future in our world.

I love working on my blog, and I love the challenge of being an author who is learning how to cross over into the new and exciting world of publishing. I still write books and love them, but I intend to be relevant, I work hard on my blog every day of my life (just about) and will continue to do so. I plan on challenging you, entertaining you, uplifting you and making you think too. I want to do good, I want to keep getting those letters (and e-mails) from people telling me how much the blog means to them, how faithfully they read it every day.

They come from over the country and some of the world. I mean to keep earning that mail.

If paper books are declining, digital blogs and online reading are soaring. I am there.  I love being a writer and an author, it does not matter to me as much in what form people choose to read my word.  Change is the one constant in our lives, I embrace it. So thank you for subscribing and/or paying me for my work. These payments are very important, they matter.  Royalties and fat advances are vanishing in the publishing world, your support of my work makes it possible for me to do it.

For those of you who do not do online commerce, you can pay me by check or cash, P.O.  Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

And payments/contributions/subscriptions will always be voluntary, many of you have stayed with me from the first, and I will never abandon you. So thanks, whatever you choose to do.