TL;DR: I’m moving my Patreon content over here and adding paid tiers to this newsletter. If you don’t care for the backstory, you can just scroll down for descriptions of said tiers.
Hello friends! I’m changing up how I share writing/updates/newsletters on the Internet, and repurposing this Substack accordingly, so things are going to work a little differently around here. I’m going to be so bold as to say that things will be changing for the better, because I’ve had this here Substack for almost three years and published a total of [checks notes]…three posts.
I first joined Substack in early 2020 with a small bright-eyed cohort of Classical Music People; at the time I was bursting with ideas for more thoughtful, longer form essays than the Twitter threads I’m prone to popping off, and figured that I had it in me to produce a written piece per month. Between then and now, a few things happened:
A global pandemic (which, among other things, imploded my livelihood and projects and made “writing opinion pieces about classical music” the least of my priorities)
VAN Magazine, a publication I adore, asked me to start writing for them, which I did, and suddenly the prospect of writing the things I was already going to write for money beat out writing for free here.
I started doing new projects that expanded on my finger wiggling and writing skills which sharply cut down on the extra time I had for writing essays.
All of that is to say that this little account on this platform I had such high hopes for became kind of unnecessary and redundant, especially since I already have a personal blog and a Patreon.
I’ve been writing weekly newsletters over at Patreon for about three years now, and for a number of reasons that I will not get into here, I have been increasingly unhappy with the service. Last month I decided to just bite the bullet and migrate my Patreon activities (and subscribers—hello, old friends! please stay!!!) to this platform.
This means I’m suddenly going to be a lot more active here, and the stuff I’m doing is going to look a little different from the three (3!) posts I’ve done previously. I’ve added monetized tiers to this Substack, which is just a pure copy-paste of what I had going on at Patreon. The money, btw, goes straight into a business account I can’t use on personal things, and it pays for my studio recordings of underrepresented works and composers, which you can listen to any time on your streaming platform of choice.
Here’s what the tiers look like:
Free for all subscribers: “Sharon’s Monthly Roundup,” a once-a-month newsletter
Said newsletter will feature a brief roundup of personal updates: what projects I’m working on, links to any pieces I’ve written in elsewhere, whatever press I’ve gotten, etc. It’ll also have a selection of bits from my weekly paid newsletters (more on that below). This is the closest thing to a “classic” updates newsletter, which I’ve been asked by audience members to provide for years (oops).
If you’re already a free subscriber to this Substack, you’ll automatically be subscribed to the Monthly Roundup.
Free for all subscribers: any unscheduled writing
As I stated earlier, I now write for VAN and they get first dibs on any article ideas I have; however, if my editors pass on any piece (which is what happened with the Lizzo essay from last month) or I just don’t think something is a good fit, I’ll post it here. I’m not going to promise that this will happen with any sort of regularity—if it happens, it happens.
For Tier 1 paid subscribers: all of the above and a weekly newsletter, “Sharon’s Weekly Head Dump,” $5/month
This is a straight continuation of the posts I was doing on Patreon. They feature weekly updates on what I’m up to and news about upcoming projects long before they’re publicly announced. I also recommend a book every week, share interesting articles, and talk about music, movies, and TV I’ve been into. I’m also an obsessive playlist maker and occasionally I share fun playlists I make that I don’t post anywhere else. Last but not least, there are sometimes cat photos. This newsletter typically goes out on Friday afternoons (Pacific Time) so you have content to peruse on the weekend.
To subscribe: sign up for a monthly ($5/month) or yearly ($50/year) subscription
If you are a music student, email me at substack [at] sharonsu [dot] com with your school and graduation year to get a free subscription to this tier.
For Tier 2 paid subscribers: all of the above and a semi-weekly practice video, “Dispatches From the Imperfection Lab,” $10/month
About once a week (but not always) I post a little video of music I’m working on; sometimes it’s a slow breakdown of how I’m learning a particular passage, sometimes it’s a chunk of a polished piece that’s almost ready for the stage/studio, and often it’s something in between. Occasionally it’s something I’ve written (!) that I won’t share anywhere else. When I travel and have to contend with strange practice rooms, I post more vlog-style videos. This video typically goes out on Monday mornings (Pacific Time) for a quick shot of motivation.
To subscribe: sign up for a Founding Member plan and subscribe at $120/year or higher (The plan automatically says “360/year” but you can edit it to whatever number you want! Substack won’t let me add a monthly option for this tier, so if you have $10/month but not $120 all at once, email me and I’ll set up a monthly invoice thing with you.)
If you are a music student, email me at substack [at] sharonsu [dot] com with your school and graduation year to get a free subscription to this tier.
For Tier 3 paid subscribers: all of the above and actual handwritten snail mail in your real-life mailbox once a month, $20/month
This, hands down, is my favorite #content to make for people. I am a stationery and fountain pen fiend with a background in visual arts and an obsessive love for the postal service, so writing cards and letters and mailing them is one of my favorite activities. When I travel, the snail mail for the month is usually a postcard mailed from my destination. This perk, by the way, is open to anyone in the world.
To subscribe: sign up for a Founding Member plan and subscribe at $240/year or higher (The plan automatically says “360/year” but you can edit it to whatever number you want! Substack won’t let me add a monthly option for this tier either, so if you have $20/month but not $240 all at once, email me and I’ll set up a monthly invoice thing with you.)
This new iteration of newsletter has a little something for everyone. You are not obligated to opt in to a paid tier if it’s not within your budget or interest, and I highly encourage you to forward my Substack posts to other people who might be interested in the stuff I do.
Also, Substack works nothing like Patreon and I have been low-key struggling with the behind-the-scenes settings for this migration, so over the next few months, if you get too many or too few posts, let me know so I can attempt to fix things.