A Year of Bearly Politics: Thank You for Helping Me Through It

One year after introducing paid subscriptions, a look back at 211 posts, one very expensive Nigel Farage photo, and the hardest year of my life.

Photo by Luca Onniboni on Unsplash

Tomorrow, a year ago to the day, I came to all of you with an ask. At that time, there were approximately 2,700 of you guys subscribed to what was, up to that point, a vehicle for me to shout into the void.

The ask was whether I should add a soft Paywall as a way to help me get to the point of making this, my writing into a full time gig. The response at the time was genuinely staggering, with nearly 73% of you guys at the time letting me know that you were happy for me to do so.

The arrangement was a simple one - anything I publish would remain fully freely available for 7 days, after which a paywall would go up. If you were subscribed by email, it would remain in your inbox for you to keep.

To ensure that there is fairness, I also offered complimentary subscriptions - specifically to anyone drawing a pension, on any sort of benefit, for journalists and for students, on a completely no questions asked basis.

I was, I’ll be very honest, extremely nervous about this. By creating a monetary system, I was in effect signing a contract with, at the time, about 2,700 people. I was setting up an arrangement where a pound goes in, and shouting at the internet comes out. I was incredibly anxious, above all, of letting people down on this basis as we now had an agreement.

So, a year on, how did it go?

Honestly?

Far better than I ever expected.

Over the past twelve months, I have published 211 posts. Those posts have been read 1,305,502 times by 215,984 unique visitors. 5,379 new subscribers have invited me into their inboxes. I’ve issued 275 complimentary subscriptions. I have received five letters from lawyers. I have accidentally committed copyright infringement exactly once, after using a photo of Nigel Farage that cost me £500.

As educational experiences go, it was a fairly expensive one that I wish to never, ever repeat.

Why I Now Own £500 Picture of Nigel Farage

Numbers are a good indicator of things (I have to believe that, it is after all, my job), but there is something far more important to me than just the spreadsheet side of things.

It’s that hundreds of people made the conscious decision to part with their hard-earned money because they believed what I was building here was worth supporting.

It’s something I do not take for granted - in fact, if anything, I have spent most of the last year feeling slightly guilty about it.

Not because I don’t think the writing is worth paying for, but because I am acutely aware of how difficult things have become for so many people over the past 12 months.

Food costs more. Housing costs more. Energy costs more. Going outside and just having the temerity to exist as a human being appears to cost more. Every subscription represents someone out there deciding that, in amongst all of that, they can spare a few pounds a month for an occasionally grumpy South African immigrant to explain why Nigel Farage is being silly again.

That trust means a an incredible amount to me.

Particularly because the past 12 months have turned out to be nothing like the year I thought I was about to have.

When I introduced paid subscriptions, the plan was that they might eventually help me make writing my full-time job. I imagined them helping me invest more time into Bearly Politics. I imagined them perhaps accelerating a plan that, at the time, lived somewhere in the back of my head and a small spark of hope in my heart.

What I did not anticipate was that the support from this community would end up helping me through what was without a doubt the most difficult year of my life.

In December last year, I was under immense pressure in my NHS role. At the same time, I was coordinating my dad’s end-of-life care from over 11,000 kilometres away in South Africa. There were calls before work, calls after work, calls during work, and calls in the middle of the night. There were discussions with doctors, care homes, family members and endless decisions that nobody really wants to make.

Looking back now, I can say with the benefit of hindsight that I was not coping with the pressure particularly well.

I have spoken before about struggling with my mental health over the years, but December was probably the closest I have ever come to a genuine breakdown. The combination of grief, responsibility, exhaustion and work pressure left me operating on fumes for longer than was sensible or healthy.

Throughout all of that, Bearly Politics made practical differences in my life.

The income from subscriptions helped pay for flights backwards and forwards to South Africa. It helped cover some of the costs associated with my dad’s care. More than anything else, it gave me options during a period when I felt trapped by circumstance.

There is a tendency, particularly online, to think of subscriptions in abstract terms. Monthly recurring revenue. Growth. Churn. Conversion rates. The sort of language that makes me want to lie down in a dark room.

The reality to me is much simpler: when things became difficult, this community helped me worry a little less. I will never forget that. When my dad passed way, I was truly not alone.

Self-Checkout at 11:35

The thing I am probably proudest of, however, is that I kept my side of the bargain - I have not missed a single week of publication. Not one.

There were weeks where I was writing from airports. Weeks where I was writing while dealing with my dad’s declining health. Weeks where I was learning a completely new job. Weeks where I was exhausted and frankly had far more sensible things I could and should have been doing with my time.

But I wrote. Every week.

Not because consistency is inherently virtuous, but because the moment people started paying for Bearly Politics, I felt a responsibility to honour the agreement we had made.

I am also enormously proud of the fact that Bearly Politics has become more than just me.

One of my favourite developments this year has been being able to publish and work alongside some truly fantastic contributors, collaborators and supporters. Claire Jones, Sacha Coward, Brown Reporter, Emma Monk, Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 ,Andy Burge, Mark Kieran, Andy Carter, Will Snell, Frances Coppola, Zoe Grunewald, Sam Bright, Jo Elvin and so many others have all brought expertise, perspectives, advice and experiences that I simply don’t have. As it turns out, there are people who know things that I don’t.

Another thing I am proud of is that Bearly Politics remains entirely independent.

No investors. No corporate owners. No editorial board. No billionaire with a WhatsApp group and opinions about inheritance tax. It remains, as it has done for a while now, just me, a laptop, a rapidly declining caffeine habit, and a community of readers who care about understanding the world a little better.

That independence matters to me enormously.

It is also one of the reasons I finally left Twitter in January after many years on the platform. Leaving was one of the best decisions I have made for my mental health in a very long time. It almost certainly cost me readers.

It definitely reduced the number of people seeing my work.

And I do not regret it for a second.

One of the things I have learned over the past year is that I would much rather build something slightly smaller that belongs to us than something larger that depends entirely on the whims of somebody else’s algorithm.

Now, before we go any further, there is something practical I wanted to mention.

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the launch of paid subscriptions, which means some annual subscriptions will shortly begin renewing - I am writing this a day early very much with a purpose in mind.

If you signed up a year ago and would like to cancel, please do so without any guilt whatsoever. Genuinely.

I know exactly how these things happen. You sign up for something with the best of intentions, twelve months disappear into the void, and suddenly an email arrives reminding you of a decision made by a completely different version of yourself.

People’s circumstances change - mine certainly have.

If you need to cancel, cancel. I would far rather you spend that money on yourself, your family, your rent, your heating, your holiday, your hobbies, or literally anything else that makes your life easier.

Similarly, if you would like full access to Bearly Politics but cannot comfortably afford it, please email me at iratusursusmajor@gmail.com.

I will sort out a complimentary subscription with no questions asked.

That policy will remain in place for as long as I am able to do it.

Which brings me to pricing.

There won’t be any increases. None.

I understand why many publications raise prices over time, and I genuinely wish them well, but I cannot look at the current state of people’s household finances and decide that now is the appropriate moment to ask more of people who have already shown me such extraordinary generosity.

The support I have received this year has been immense and I do not want to take advantage of it.

The dream, for those wondering, remains the same: I would still love for Bearly Politics to become my full-time job one day.

For a while, I genuinely thought I was getting closer than ever, and had I remained in the NHS, I suspect that timeline might have accelerated considerably.

Life, however, had other plans. Moving back into the private sector has changed the arithmetic somewhat. What was once a five-year plan is probably now closer to a ten-year plan - and honestly, that’s fine for now.

Bearly Politics has never been built quickly, it’s been built reader by reader, post by post, week by week.

The important thing is not how fast I get there, the important thing is that I keep going.

So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for subscribing.

Thank you for sharing posts, correcting my typos, challenging me when you think I’m wrong, and occasionally informing me that I am a dangerous Marxist who personally caused the decline of Western civilisation.

Thank you for helping me survive a year that was, at times, incredibly difficult.

Most of all, thank you for believing that this strange little project was worth supporting in the first place. A year ago, I asked whether you thought Bearly Politics was worth paying for.

Your answer helped me through the hardest year of my life. I am more grateful than I can adequately put into words.