Starting Friday, Jan. 31, our main monthly issues will be accessible to both free sign-ups and paying subscribers. Our weekly Monday Matter roundups and most discussion threads, however, will become exclusive to subscribers or gift recipients.
Previously, we announced the opposite.
Giveaways, freebies and other community posts remain perks for paying subscribers and gift recipients.
What's behind the changes?
I regularly feel lost in the newsletter world, even a year in. It’s especially challenging to ask readers to pay me for my work. I’ve never been particularly great at leaning on other people.
Since we launched the paid subscriber option in November, however, I’ve noticed a major shift in my approach to Foreign Bodies. Instead of treating this as a hobby, a temporary fellowship project or a pastime to indulge in between actual assignments that help pay the bills, Foreign Bodies has become a part of my daily work life as an independent writer.
I’m constantly rummaging through my reporting and research, looking for the subjects and questions that keep coming up and need addressing. Every morning, I catch up on the latest in immigrant and mental health news coverage. Every night, I scour my favorite magazines for beautiful, vulnerable immigrant-written essays to share with you. I manage the website, social media accounts and email correspondence. I reach out to authors and work with them to host book giveaways—yet another way to share the magic of storytelling, in telling our truths through memoir, poetry and fiction writing.
As emotionally attached as I am to this work, I can’t justify spending several hours per day on Foreign Bodies without compensation (or worrying about paying my volunteers for their work). But I also know that growing takes time and patience.
Just as I was beginning to feel overwhelmed and unsure about the future of this newsletter, I received an email from Nadia Eghbal of Substack. Nadia was hired to help make sure writers have everything they need to connect with and grow their communities. She asked me about what was working and what wasn’t; how could she help Foreign Bodies flourish?
It was clear Nadia had read my newsletter and that she wanted to offer some helpful behind-the-scenes insight.
Foreign Bodies is definitely growing, Nadia said. And the current open rates reveal that people actually, like, enjoy this! Forever a victim of imposter syndrome, this came as a surprise to me.
But there’s one change she suggested I might want to play around with: Give the public access to the long form work we do, and make the community-oriented posts and threads exclusive to paying subscribers.
At first, Nadia’s recommended strategy felt contradictory to what I remember from working in local news. In my experience, the free stuff typically involved dailies, roundups, mere snapshots “teasing” the coveted premium product (i.e. the Sunday paper, monthly Foreign Bodies issue).
But the draw of Foreign Bodies isn’t really a singular product, is it? When you pay to support our work, you’re not just supporting our main monthly issues and all the hours me and my two copy editors spend researching, interviewing, writing and editing. You’re supporting our ability to share this hard work with the public. Just as newspaper subscribers help fund the hard-hitting investigative journalism that takes weeks, months, years—journalism that’s written and uncovered for the public but impossible to accomplish without reader support—our subscribers help justify the time we dedicate to our issues.
When you become a Foreign Bodies subscriber, you’re primarily paying to be a part of something—a unique community, a “digital space to dig into it all,” as I wrote in my introductory letter when I first launched this newsletter in December 2018. A space for immigrants, refugees, next-gens, indigenous peoples, anyone who has been made to feel alien or foreign, migrant or not. A space for clinicians, parents, academics, writers, activists. For all of us to unpack our experiences, learn from each other and wake up feeling a little more understood or enlightened than we may have felt the night before.
It only makes sense, then, that our Monday Matter roundups, which feature community-fostering shout-outs, newsletter announcements and discussions, become exclusive to paying subscribers.
I know this has been a long read. Kudos to anyone who made it all the way to the bottom! If you have any thoughts regarding the upcoming changes, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I sincerely hope you choose to continue reading Foreign Bodies and supporting our work however you can.
Love,
Fiza