📣 April announcements 3

Today is the final Friday of big announcements. We have two. First, a recap. Over the last two Fridays (1, 2) we told you that

• FIELD GUIDE is going on a reduced publishing schedule so we can replenish the stock of stories in the pipeline. You are interesting. We want to hear from you. You can comment or reply to this email to nominate yourself or someone else to be featured in FIELD GUIDE.

• The TREE archives have been locked away in preparation for the creation and release of some products based on TREE content. (Some of the guest posts are still hidden. Each post has to be unhidden individually. so it will take a little while.)

• Jecelyn Shenkin has joined the FFOREST team to lead business development.

Today’s first big announcement

In two weeks, on 5 May 2023 we will be launching paid subscriptions to FFOREST.

Here’s why: TREE and FIELD GUIDE are gifts. They will always be free gifts. But just because something is freely given doesn’t mean it’s not costly. Skyler and I invest a lot of time each week creating the posts you read every weekday. That investment is repaid with interest when you tell us about the ways FFOREST helps you grow.

The subscriptions we are launching are different from the typical pay-for-extra-content model. Instead, we are offering the opportunity for you to participate in giving the gift of FFOREST.

Here’s the offer:

If you like FFOREST and
you would like FFOREST to help more people and
you have the financial ability,
we will let you pay for it.

Down the road, we plan to use some of the money give the FFOREST team more time to talk to people and create posts. One day, we’d like to pay guest authors. For now, all subscription income will go increasing the number of people that read TREE and FIELD GUIDE. We will tell you when that changes.

FFOREST subscriptions are participation in giving the gift.

As a thank you for helping to give FFOREST to the most people possible, we’ll be giving paid subscribers a few things beyond the daily posts.

• All subscribers will get access to the TREE archives. Yes, everyone did have access to the archives until last week, so this doesn’t seem like much of a thank you. But – and we think this is a good but – we have plans to make the archives more useful by creating indexes around themes that will allow you to really dig in to the topics Jeff and guests have written about.

• All subscribers will get access to subscriber-only chat. It’s a place to hang out, ask questions, give answers and build a virtual community with people like you who are dedicated to growing slowly every day.

• Monthly subscribers will get a real physical copy of Jeff’s new book – Oh! there’s the second announcement – once they have been subscribed for six months.

• Annual and Founding subscribers will get a signed and doodled-in copy of Jeff’s new book when it is released this summer.

• Founding subscribers will get a signed, extremely limited edition print of one of Jeff’s drawings this autumn.

These are small but valuable thank yous for your participation in giving the gift of FFOREST.

Here are the subscription costs:

• Monthly: £6 per month (30p/$0.37/€0.34 per post)

• Annual: £60 per year

• FFOREST Founder: £120 per year

Remember, FFOREST is a gift. You are completely welcome to read every new TREE and FIELD GUIDE post for free forever.

If you would like to help extend FFOREST but can’t contribute financially, you can still help! Please tell your friends. Forward your favourite emails. Share posts on social media. Doing these things matters a lot!

Over the next couple weeks we’ll make sure everything is crystal clear and answer any questions you might have. You can ask in the comments or reply to this email.

Today’s second big announcement

Yes, Jeff is releasing the first what we hope will be many books published by FFOREST. It’s a collection of his short stories with some bonus poems and illustrations.

The book will include the three stories that we serialised on TREE, ‘Little Silver Fish’, ‘Doris and Doug’s Home for Useless Things and Custom Pod Shop’ and ‘Burrito Van on Selsley Common’. It will also include a bunch of stories you haven’t read.

The book will be available to buy sometime this summer.

Jeff: Not the most cheerful song ever but so gorgeous.

Let’s grow slowly together!
Jeff, Skyler & Jecelyn