✨ Every Day Poems
how it began & where it's going
Every Day Poems first began in May of 2011—a dreamchild of author and publisher L.L. Barkat.
The inbox publication has had just three permissions editors besides L.L. over the last twelve years: Tania Runyan, Monica Silva, and Rick Maxson, plus a stand-in by Megan Willome for a few needful months in 2022.
That’s dedication!
Now here we are, about a dozen years from the beginning, and we’re feeling the need to hatch a new format—and a hybrid subscription model, free and paid.
Why hatch a new format?
The T. S. Poetry family loves to occasionally switch things up to “stay with the times” and to take advantage of new technologies and chances to inspire the world with poetry. Substack has some very promising ways to do that, that we don’t have available using our old format, MailChimp.
We should also say that while we’ve adored MailChimp, they’ve been strongly pivoting towards big business and away from little publishers—which is partly what set us in search of more fitting, affordable ways to reach and grow our audience.
Growing our audience is, however, never our main concern: we are always seeking to grow the readership of others we love—poets, authors, publishers. Substack offers fabulous built-in ways to accomplish this easily and powerfully.
Why move to both free and paid?
We’ve noticed that the economy is affecting the ability of people to pay for the beautiful parts of life—like poetry. That makes us sad. We want to bring poetry to as many people as we can, while also remaining sustainable.
What’s the difference between free and paid?
Every Day Poems has always delivered five days a week. And so it will continue.
Free subscribers will get one poem per week, delivered right to their inbox. Oh, joy! :)
The balance of the poems will be available only to paid subscribers via their inboxes and in the archives here on Substack. Extra joy!! :)
(Please note that even for paid subscribers, some of the poems delivered to your inbox may not stay in the archive, due to permissions agreements.)
What if I’m already a subscriber via PayPal?
We will do the work of canceling your recurring subscription payment. And, yes, you will need to resubscribe here on Substack. If you do that as a paid subscriber (because you want more than one poem per week), we’ll be incredibly grateful and appreciative. We understand that this will not match up exactly with everyone’s original sign-up dates, so if your sign-up date feels too close to this switch-in period (you recently paid via PayPal), please contact us about receiving a free digital poetry book from T. S. Poetry Press as our way to make it up to you!
Gosh, this new poetry nest is more expensive. Why?
Substack has a minimum monthly subscription of $5. We can’t control that. We’re guessing they know how much it costs to run an online endeavor (more than anyone imagines, on an Internet that appears “free”), and they built that into their minimums. (What a concept! :) We are open to hearing how we can make this new nest the best it can be, for the $ you share to build and maintain it. :) Just drop us a line at editor [at] tweetspeakpoetry [dot] com if you have ideas!
How will this help the Every Day Poems community?
We have long wished we had a way for Every Day Poems readers to interact in a subscriber-only space with each other. To share favorite lines. To discuss the poems. To ask questions. Or just say, “Wow!” Nothing has made that dream possible until now, with Substack.
Substack allows comments, liking, sharing, and recommending. This is a dream come true for those who want to easily share about the daily poems.
We can’t wait to hear the beautiful sharing!