When I first became a writer more than 30 years ago, I would have been shocked – maybe horrified – if Oprah Winfrey called me. By the time the recession hit and book publishing took a dive, I was having dreams about Oprah calling to talk about my latest book and put me on her show. She sells more books than God. That is the wonderful thing about life, all you have to do is live and crisis and mystery and change swirls all around.

I love learning and growing and change. I am getting a full dose of each.

The writer’s life is humbling, and I have been working hard to make the turn to the new writing world. I think I am getting somewhere. Some days I actually think I will survive in the new world of publishing, and I have the blog to thank for it and the subscription and payment plans I have laboriously put into place.  I thank those good people who have signed up.

Today, something new: it’s called Voluntary Payments. Check it out.

I started calling payments subscriptions, but then realized they are not subscriptions, they are payments for my work. And they are voluntary.

Different things. The blog is free to anyone who wants it, all you have to do is go to the Farm Journal Page and enter your e-mail on the top left hand side. You’ll get the blog delivered daily, and for free. The blog will always be free to those people who can’t afford to pay or don’t care to. Slowly but surely, people are coming around to the idea of paying for creative work online. It has taken awhile. Makes a big difference too, it is wonderful for me to be getting paid for my work again, I used to get paid well and often.

I don’t expect Oprah to call anytime soon, she is pretty big time now, I haven’t heard from her lately. I was on her show once, when I wrote Running To The Mountain, about my first journey to my new life.  Five women who were trying to lose weight were on the show with me, and we were in the Green Room together and they asked me to join them in prayer and tears before they went on. We all  had a good cry and prayed a good bit. The book didn’t sell all that much, she didn’t push books much then.

But the book changed my life, and, I think, a few others. Until Oprah calls, payments are important. They support my work, help pay for the maintenance of the blog and my photography, which are all offered for free. Lots of people have supported me for a good while, I won’t abandon them.

I don’t bookmark anything, you are welcome to my photos and words.  I see both as angels I set forth unto the world, I love to think of them as bookmarks and screen savers and prints on walls.

The new voluntary payment rates are $5 a month, $10 a month, or one-time payments $75 a year. You get the blog at any of those prices (or for free) I offer the different ones to take into account the different financial status of people. If you have subscribed at the previous rates, those rates will be good for the duration of your subscription. It isn’t necessary to pay any more.

No financial information of any kind is stored on my site, you can pay with credit cards or Paypal. You will be notified a week before your subscription expires and you can cancel payments anytime and quite easily. I  have no access to your account or financial information, I can’t cancel or subscribe you. That is for your protection and my sanity. You manage your own account and can easily access it at any time – right where you signed up.

The writing world is in enormous transition. Once, no writer would have cared if Oprah liked their book, and few writers had blogs or solicited payments for them. The big-deal writers are doing fine, the new comers are getting massacred and mid-list writers (me) will have to change or vanish. I’m on it. E-books have decimated writer’s advances and royalties, and while there will always be books, there will not be as many people buying them as before, or paying as much for them. This is good for publishers, whose costs have plummeted but not good for book writers, who are starving, switching careers or trembling at home.

I love my blog, it is now the cornerstone of my creative life, I work very hard at it, as hard as on any book I have ever done. I am proud of it, it has about four million people a year coming to look at my work, about 400,000 are unique users. If even a small percentage of readers pay me for me work, I will have broken new ground and helped to pioneer the new life of the professional writer. We matter, I think. I still write books, and hope to always write books, but voluntary payments are most of my income now, who would have thought it?

I used to balk at the idea of being paid this way, now I don’t. We all need to be paid for our work. It makes me proud, and it’s the right thing. And, of course, it pays the bills.

Oprah is getting bigger by the year, it seems, I fear she may have moved past me entirely and for good. Maybe not. We can all dream, but in the meantime, I’ll be happy just to get paid for my work and pave some new ground.  I am nothing but lucky. This is the right medium for me, and I hope for you. And thanks. You can pay for my work here. Voluntary Payments.