The Secret Reason I Give Everything Away

No, it's not because I'm rich

Photo by Katt Yukawa on Unsplash

I thought about announcing a new deal: Become a paying subscriber to Untrickled and get a free copy of The Trailer Park Rules! 

But here’s why this isn’t as good a deal as it sounds: I already give anybody who wants one a free copy of this book. Untrickled is also already totally free to everyone who wants to read it.

So why all the freebies? That doesn’t make sense, right? Did I inherit money? Am I married to a stockbroker? Do I rob banks on the side? (No to all three questions!)

The thing is, I’m writing about income inequality. If I were writing about, say, how to make money in the stock market, I’d expect you to pay up. 

I’m unnaturally trusting

I’m choosing to believe everyone who asks for a free book truly would have trouble coming up with the purchase price. The Kindle version is only $5.99 but I’ve had many times in my life when I haven’t had $5.99 in my budget. When people email me and ask for a link to a free copy, I send it right out. (Put the name of the book in the subject line so I see it).

This doesn’t cost me a thing: You aren’t going to buy the book if you don’t have enough money to pay for it, so it’s not like I’m missing out on a sale. Why would I want only well-off people to be able to read my book? 

As of just now, I have 27 paid subscribers here on Substack. That’s a small fraction of my free subscribers. I imagine I could induce a few more people to pay if I only allowed paid subscribers to comment, or if I paywalled some of my more popular content. But I am choosing to believe if you are reading this right now for free, it’s because you truly would have trouble paying for it.

I know this is probably not quite accurate. Some of you are happy to read this because it’s free but would not be willing to pay for it. Some of you probably can afford to pay but will not do so unless I put up a paywall. Some of you have been meaning to pay but you just haven’t gotten around to it and I completely get that. 

I’m experimenting

I’ve made a modest living as a writer all my life, writing for newspapers, writing genre novels under pen names, freelancing, writing ad copy, you name it. At some point I decided to branch out here on Substack. On Medium, I write about whatever strikes my fancy, but here you need a niche, and I chose income inequality. 

Maybe I should have chosen something else, and maybe someday I will – but for now, I’m enjoying writing about this subject, and it really does not feel right to me to price my work out of the reach of poor people. And any cost at all is too high for truly poor people to be able to pay.

I’ve thought, of course, about other approaches. I could paywall everything but make an offer to comp a subscription upon request. I might do that at some point. It’s not lost on me that many of the people reading my work for free are much better off than I am and would be willing to pay for it if I pressed a bit.

Because I’m a writer, I go to elaborate lengths to cut my living expenses. I prepare nearly all my family's food from scratch – I even bake sourdough bread once or twice a week. I hang up all our laundry to dry year-round. I’ve never paid for indulgences like a mani-pedi or cosmetics from a department store. We drive small, ancient cars and haven’t had a car payment for well over a decade.

Our total monthly expenditures, not counting health insurance, are less than $3K per month. Apparently that’s more unusual than I thought – supposedly the monthly average for a couple is more than $6,000. Where the hell do people get that kind of money? Not by writing, I am sure!

So anyway, here’s my offer

It’s impossible to define what poverty is, or what middle class is, or even what rich is. Do you live in Alabama or San Francisco? Are you single and childless or do you support a spouse and 12 kids? There are lots of variables. 

But if you read that my spouse and I spend less than $3K in a usual month (the kids are grown but we still have a mortgage) and thought, “Holy shit! I wish I had that kind of money!” I definitely want to help you out. 

Send me an email (michelleteheux@gmail.com) asking for a free copy of The Trailer Park Rules, and I’ll happily send you a freebie link. And please keep enjoying Untrickled for free. 

If you thought, “Holy shit! I spend more than $3K per month just on takeout and entertainment!” you can probably afford to shell out. It’s totally voluntary, of course. I don’t know your private financial details, so there’s no judgment. 

If you want to buy the Trailer Park Rules, it’s $5.99 for the Kindle or $17.99 for the paperback. If you want to buy a subscription to this newsletter, it’s five bucks per month or $50 per year. 

Some of you actually give more to cover the cost of those who cannot pay, or just to generally help keep a writer going, and that’s so awesome it makes me almost cry sometimes. So here’s a link if you want to do that: https://ko-fi.com/michelleteheux.

The main thing is, I want to produce work that people enjoy, and I’m going to continue doing that to the best of my ability whether you personally pay or not, so you do what you want.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium.