A love letter to my paywall

Today’s edition of Journalists Pay Themselves is a love letter written to my paywall. It was inspired by an assignment from Andy Dehnart’s writing class.

Beloved Paywall,

No one gets our connection.

Others may hate you. Berate you. Deprecate you. But with you by my side, I see a path to growth and stability I never knew was possible.

My affection for you renews every morning when I wake up to Stripe notifications.

*ping a subscriber has renewed 
*ping a subscriber has upgraded
*ping a new subscriber has joined 

My favorite thing about you is how you win over my readers. You greet them like a McDonald’s billboard on a long roadtrip, appearing every few miles until they finally say “I really could go for that cheeseburger.”

Your commitment to showing up, over and over again, to softly remind each person that they’ve been here many times before, and it might be time to just come on in, makes my love grow stronger with every new story we publish together. You save me hours a day by having these conversations on my behalf. “Don’t you love Lex’s work? Don’t you want to be part of making it possible?” you ask, as you present an enticing offer to each of my readers, ready for the taking with the click of a button.

But you are more than just money to me, dear Paywall. You also bring me security during volatile times. I know I can count on you to protect my sensitive posts, like when I make a list of my beefs and feuds or when I share my ill-advised financial decisions. Sometimes, I wonder if I should meter you and let people read a few more stories before introducing you—which I do think is a nice way publishers keep their paywall relationship healthy—but then I remember that I air a lot of grievances in my posts and it’s better that I have you there to block out my haters. “Make the haters pay too!” I tell you. You’re more than happy to oblige.

Beauty may be fleeting for others, but your looks never fade. Your style and swagger are unmatched by any paywall out there, except maybe Flaming Hydra who keep trading their paywall up for a hotter, younger model. I’m not jealous. I swear. All of us want the best paywall we can possibly have. And I am certainly not planning on leaving you anytime soon, because I can’t think of anything I’d change about you. Yet.

Few out there have our easy relationship. I feel for writers who don’t have a paywall on their side to say “Stop in the name of loving this story” because it is so much harder to make a living wage without you. I wish they knew they could give you a break anytime they wanted or offer free subscriptions to people who really can’t afford you or run that meter we talked about to only bring you out in front of their biggest fans.

Paywall relationships are so much more flexible than people want to believe. You know that I adore you, but I also have something special with my tip jar, my partnerships and my products. We don’t have to be married to work as a team. Our little payments polycule is set up to diversify where the revenue comes from so I never have to lean solely on you for support.

I will not apologize for loving you, darling Paywall, because my projects don’t just need you to keep going, they are better because of you. The types of people you attract are not just financial contributors. They are also contributors to the work and to the community. Every paid subscriber you enlist becomes an investor in this work’s future. You are out here opening hearts and wallets at the same time. What skill! What talent!

Ignore your haters. They probably don’t have those Stripe notifications on their phone so they don’t know how much money they’re losing and they don’t want to have FOMO so they just choose to MO. One day they’ll understand our love, but by then, you and I will be retired on an island with all the money we made together. Maybe Flaming Hydra can come too.

Paywalls up. Wallets out. Can’t lose. XOXO$$$$$$$$$.
—Lex

This newsletter is produced in partnership with Outpost 🪐 

Outpost knows that publishers hate to paywall. That’s why they made a metered paywall that lets you decide how many FREE stories you let people read BEFORE YOU PAYWALL.

It’s been super successful for their publishers, along with their metered registration wall, which requires an email address after a certain number of stories. Both are great solutions for publishers who want to grow but who also want to stay accessible.

Running a Ghost publication? Check out Outpost’s metered paywalls and reg walls when you start a free trial today.

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