Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)

Today I would like to make a ‘sort-of’ announcement. I say ‘sort of’ because I’m up to my eyeballs in stuff right now and I know this may take some time to happen or may even not happen at all. But if it does, I want you all to be forewarned.

I am hoping to go to a paid subscription service soon, as long as I can set it up the way I hope to. I have done the preliminary investigations and it does look possible.

I hate paywalls. Not only is it annoying when an article you’re really interested in reading turns out, four paragraphs down, to be behind one and you have to take out a year’s subscription just to read the rest of the damned thing, but I’m also quite opposed to an internet of fees in general. The idea behind the Worldwide Web was that information could be freely shared and I am still of the opinion that this is the way it should be.

There’s no ‘anti-capitalist’ stance here. I am fine with the fact we all buy things online regularly and I also know that running websites costs money – more on that in a moment – but locking someone out of information unless they pay seems wrong to me.

On the other hand, there’s quite a few ventures I support in very small ways. Various groups or organisations to whom I give a handful of quid every month for no other reason than I support what they do. I’m often not getting anything in return for that, and I’m not paying to do so. I’m just giving a small token of financial support in appreciation of the work they do. I’m all in favour of people doing this, sharing the love, as it were.

It is with that in mind that I have considered how to go to a paid subscription on this site and my personal site – Kenthinksaloud. It seems to me that the fairest way to do this is to set up a ‘pay-what-you-want’ subscription that includes an option to pay zero pounds or dollars.

There’s an awful lot of you who are already on a free subscription of this sort with me. I’m not sure if, when I set this up, you’ll be asked to resubscribe or if you’ll continue on a free tier, but if it is the latter than I’ll ask you to move over to the paid, even if you put zero in as the figure.

For most of us, a monthly payment of £2 or so per month is peanuts and not objectionable. I would hope most of you would feel able to support my work this way. Some of you might feel wonderfully flush and want to support at £10 per month (Lord bless you if you do!). My point is that I want this to be voluntary and don’t want anyone who is struggling in this time of economic crisis to be excluded or feel pressured to pay.

So, what would you be supporting if you do choose to pay a contribution?

It has always been my ethos that the money I earn from writing should be used for charitable endeavours. With the exception of book clients who tend to pay one-off bulk payments for the editing or ghost-writing work I do for them, all royalties from my books and smaller editing/mentoring work are used to support both registered charities and non-registered charities that are known personally to me (such as village schools in Bangladesh where I regularly give consulting advice). I’m not going to name amounts nor name the charities but a sizable portion of my income is used this way and has been ever since returning from Bangladesh in 2014. These charities are based all over the world, often as a result of my educational consultancy work in Asia.

On top of that, in the UK, my great passion has been for theatre and performing arts. Originally writing theatre reviews as part of my work as a journalist, I eventually formed Northern Arts Review, specifically to promote and support the best in theatre in the north of England. Over the years my team of reviewers has grown to around twenty and we’ve become a valued resource for well in excess of forty theatres all over the north.

The work for Northern Arts Review has become a huge undertaking requiring paid admin and IT staff to keep the site running along with a host of volunteers. I fund all of this myself and while I will continue to do so whatever happens, if you love the arts and want to see theatre continuing in the north then please do consider supporting this website for that reason. With financial support, I am hoping to extend the work with NAR to bring more reviewers onboard and give more support to community-based theatre work.

Overall, between the theatre writing and maintaining this site and Kenthinksaloud, there’s considerable cost. The websites all have annual fees attached and the theatre work requires paying fees for IT work and a regular salary for admin. On top of that, the number of hours I spend on this work – unpaid – adds up to hundreds of pounds lost income per week. That’s absolutely my choice and will continue like this for as long as I continue to write, but it does require a substantial time commitment which is costly to me. Support from ‘netizens’ would gratefully be received.

So, that’s the plan. For those of you already subscribed and receiving the emails, either nothing will change or, if it does, you can continue to subscribe for free, if you so choose but I would love it if some of you felt you’d like to give a little support. For anyone new – welcome – please consider chipping in a couple of pounds or dollars per month to help fund the writing work and all the charitable endeavours that comes with it. But for those who want to continue reading for free – be my guest!

Watch this space to see if I actually get this idea off the ground though. It might take a while and it might not happen at all. Let’s see what happens…

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

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