Subscriber update: Glorious five-year plan
Help wanted, a book launch, and an inflation-busting price freeze: Happy second anniversary!
1. A growing community of citizens
I launched this newsletter two years ago, on April 19, 2022. Doing this work has been a highlight of my career. Today I have several updates for you.
At this writing I have 23,172 subscribers in total — paid and free together. That number is up 56% since the same date in April a year ago. Paid subscriptions, always only a fraction of the total, have increased 42% year-on-year.
I’m touched and honoured by every reader’s and listener’s decision to give this work your time, attention and support. We are building a community here. Thank you so much for being part of it.
Six months ago I was thinking about raising my subscription price. I still don’t feel like doing that, and won’t raise prices in 2024. I would rather have more people know about my work than charge each subscriber more. If you can’t afford a subscription, write to me by hitting Reply on any email from me, and I’ll give you a gift subscription.
I keep running into people who like and miss my writing and haven’t heard that this is where to find it now. That’s why I really mean it when I say you help me by telling friends and colleagues that I’m here; that you like the work; and that signing up is easy.
2. Staying and hiring
I launched this newsletter with no plan, following a sudden decision to quit a job I used to love. It was an experiment. It quickly became an ideal job: Freedom of topic and form, working for an attentive and opinionated audience. Now I want to make it clear, in concrete ways, that I’m here for the long haul.
I was at the Montreal Gazette for nine years, at the National Post for five, at Maclean’s for 19 years (with a brief hiatus to work at the Toronto Star). I view each of those stints as an important block of my career. This new project is now as important to me as any of those. So it’s only fair to commit.
My intention is now to keep writing this newsletter until at least five years after I started. That means you’ll be hearing from me until 2027 at least. I suspect I’ll still be in the mood to continue long after that. But making this explicit deal with myself is a useful mental exercise, because it implies a mandate to make the best use of these years, to keep growing and improving.
To that end, on Thursday night I posted a job notice on LinkedIn. Within the next several weeks I’ll hire an “Executive Producer,” to help me with logistics, administration, interview booking, live event planning, and other aspects of my growing business. This will free me to concentrate on reporting, writing and interviewing. The position will be a one-year contract at first, with the possibility of extending. I expect the successful candidate to show considerable initiative in defining the role, and I’m confident she or he will gain valuable experience.
I’m able to make investments in journalism because of the support of paying subscribers. Subscriptions cost $5 a month, or $50 a year (a 16.7% savings). If you want to support this work with a paid subscription, here’s the button.
3. A book and a launch
On Wednesday copies of my next book arrived at our house.
It’s the latest edition of Sutherland Quarterly, the regular series of essays on contemporary themes by a different writer every three months. This means that if you subscribe here, you won’t just receive Justin Trudeau on the Ropes, you’ll also receive a paper copy of Superintelligence, a survey of Canada’s AI industry that constitutes Sutherland Quarterly’s previous issue by the staff of The Logic; the next three print issues to round out your full year’s subscription; and digital access to the first four issues in the series, including my own 2023 book An Emergency in Ottawa.
If you want to skip the subscription offer and simply buy my book as a book, you can totally run up my pre-sale statistics by ordering from this or that big box, or better yet, you can order from your favourite independent bookseller.
Justin Trudeau on the Ropes, a cozy evening’s read at 100 pages, is a compact essay more than a definitive history. It’s my attempt to develop a theory of Justin Trudeau: how he fits into the history of his party, of the 21st-century world, and of partisanship in Canada and elsewhere.
We’re having a small book launch in Ottawa in early May. I’m inviting some paid subscribers, in the order in which they sign up. I’m going to put details at the bottom of this post, on the other side of a paywall, to keep demand from being overwhelming.
That launch will be a modest down payment on my plan to get my podcast on the road more. I would like to have more live events in more places. My Christmas special at the National Arts Centre with an MP, a poet, a diplomat and a jazz singer was a wonderful night. Making sure the podcast and its host get out more will be a big part of the mandate for my new executive producer.
4. Speaking of the podcast…
I get that you don’t all follow the Paul Wells Show podcast. Podcasts aren’t part of everyone’s day. But it’s been great lately to meet so many people whose main connection with my work is the podcast. Interviews with William Thorsell, OPP officer Marcel Beaudin, political scientist Janice Stein and Justin Trudeau interviewer Justin Ling make me as proud as anything I’ve done this year. A lot of my journalism now is about how we talk to one another. About whether we’re willing to let other people be other people. The podcast is becoming a workshop for these ideas. I’m not gonna lie, it’s more work. I have less experience talking than typing. But the two products reach different audiences and strike different tones, so I’ll keep exploring both.
Thanks so much for your time and support.
5. About that launch
Please don’t worry too much if you don’t get into this book launch. I fully intend to do more live events. But for those who are interested and able, here are details.
UPDATE: We’ve maxed out attendance at the venue for this launch, so I’m afraid I can’t take any more guests this time. Sorry, but as I wrote, there’ll be more live events. Thanks everyone!
People sometimes ask how much a subscription costs. I find this funny, because it's obviously a lapse on my part, but I grew up digitally native so I always just hit the Subscribe button to find out what the cost is. OF COURSE some people disagree that this is a good strategy! Sorry about that.
So: Subscriptions cost $5 a month. Or $50 a year (a 16.7% savings over the monthly rate). Or any larger amount you feel like paying: "Founding Member" is pre-set at $250 a year, but you can reset that number to any amount larger than $50. As always, I say this because I mean it, I'm grateful for all subscribers, including those who don't pay.
I haven’t told my husband I subscribe because he might say we can’t afford that. You are my “guilty pleasure.” (You, and Dairy Milk Fruit and Nut bars.)