🌵🌳🌲 The FFORESTATION Project

We’ve ‘already come this far’!

Today we are opening paid subscriptions to FFOREST. Look! Here’s the button. Tap it and see:

To make it sound as important and cool as it is, we’re calling subscriptions The FFORESTATION Project. My job in this post is to tell you why it’s important. (Cool is probably beyond my abilities. I’m a 49 year-old dad who markets employer branding for a living.)

Let’s do it question and answer stylee.¹

Why would I want to pay for something I already get for free?

This is the most important point of today’s post: when you subscribe to FFOREST you are not paying to read, you are participating in the gift.

Skyler, Jecelyn and I are not paying ourselves with subscription money. We’re investing all of it in getting FFOREST in front of the eyeballs and into the lives of more people.

Why does FFOREST matter?

I started TREE because I was tired of starting my day with social media and the news. I wanted something on my phone – because realistically that’s that first thing I grab in the morning – that would encourage me and make me think. I searched. Everything I found was unbearably over-positive or too woowoo for my tastes, so I decided to make something that I wanted to wake up to.

Two years and seven months later, TREE has changed my life. I now spend less than an hour a week on social media. I read way more books than I used to. I write and draw consistently. My understanding of life in the universe has grown more holistic, healthy and open. I’ve met a bunch of interesting people. I’ve had the chance to introduce some of them to you. Most of all, I live with the joy of knowing that my little lockdown project has become a useful part of your life.

FIELD GUIDE has introduced us to dozens of fascinating people we wouldn’t have otherwise met. It’s an antidote to celebrity worship and stereotyping. It’s building our curiosity and empathy muscles.

And if FFOREST is doing this for you and me, imagine all the goodness, creativity and beautiful humanity it could release into the world with a few thousand more subscribers.

If TREE and FIELD GUIDE are so great, why do you need to put money into them? Won’t they grow on their own?

‘On their own’ is an interesting phrase. Here’s how FFOREST’s growth has gone:

The really significant patches of growth happened when Skyler or I have put effort into making growth happen. The normal growth has happened because of you sharing FFOREST, social media posts, various newsletter recommendation sites we are registered with, collaborations, and the Substack network. There’s no such thing as ‘on their own’. Everything is part of a big ol’ interconnected whole.

Also, what we are doing here is unlikely to go viral. We’re not algorithm-friendly. Social media loves hot takes, extreme and divisive opinions, and rehashed versions of the same songs and memes everyone already knows. Not doing any of that makes us a bit niche.

We’re going to use money to do what the algorithm won’t.

Jeff, I want to join in. Now what?

One. Tap this subscribe button:

Two. You’ll be given a choice of three subscription types. Each one comes with some small but valuable thank yous from us.

Monthly: £6/month, cancel anytime – great for budgeting or giving it a try.

Annual: £60/year – perfect for people who know they love FFOREST and have a spare 60 quid.

Founder: for the people who are going all in to get the word out.

• All paid subscribers get access to the TREE archives and occasional themed index posts that allow you to really dig in to the topics I and our guests have written about.

• All paid subscribers have the ability to start threads on FFOREST Chat. Chat is a place for all free and paid FFOREST subscribers² 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 get a real physical copy of Jeff’s short story collection once they have been subscribed for six months.

• Annual and Founding subscribers will get a signed and doodled-in copy of Jeff’s short story collection when it is released in summer 2023.

• Founding subscribers will get a signed, extremely limited edition print of one of Jeff’s drawings in autumn 2023.

Three. Make your choice. Whack in your payment details. (Stripe handles the money, so you know it’s safe.)

Four. Welcome to the FFOREST Team!

I don’t want to/can’t subscribe right now.

That’s totally cool. You’re part of the FFOREST! It’s free. Keep enjoying it every bit as much as you always have.

You know what I love? People who ‘have too much time on their hands’. Please look at what these folks did for their local frog.

Thank you for being here!

Happy weekend
Jeff

1. I typed ‘stylee’ and just left it there. No further proof of uncool is required.

2. I erroneously told you two weeks ago that Chat was for paid subscribers only. I misunderstood how Chat works on Substack. I’m sorry for that.