It is not supposed to be June yet.
Everything That Flew by in May: Copper Canary, Polly Olly, and Me.
Oh Substack, you had me at heart boops and hooked me with auto-imported back posting
HOLY COW it’s June.
It’s been just over one month since I started this Substack?
[checks post history]
Lies!
So, technically, I signed up months before to support a friend’s publication, got impulsive and registered my own writer profile—but I didn’t start transferring my website to Substack until April 28th, 2025.
A task which was not complete until:
Which in my opinion counts as me finally “doing the thing.” And that, in my mind, means June 1st would count as the official “launch day” of my Substack.
Therefore:
HOLY COW it’s June.
It’s been just over one month since I started this Substack?
YES! It has, and yesterday was the one-month anniversary of my first organic subscriber, my queen and goddess: Rozanna Mostafa.
Rozana Mostafa, noun - a badass teen who writes about economics and tech better than half the economic and tech bros I used to work with during my corporate days.
Now, I could go through and thank each and every one of you for being super awesome and amazing and the best people in the world for subscribing to my newsletter. So, I will. Throughout these monthly recaps I will select a handful of subscribers to thank and Mad Lib them into my post. Because even though I may not be cleverest crayon in the box—that award naturally goes to Kelsey—I do know that doing so will make this email more fun for everyone.
Ready? Let the hunt begin!
As you may have noticed,
things have shifted a whoooole heck of a lot. But given that I am not the lyrical prose priestess Bianichka (Bianca), instead of waxing poetic about it I have simply made ya’ll a chart:
Hold up, what’s that last column say?
Yes, well. I don’t have the human-centered marketing skills of guru Phil Eich, alright? I’m still trying to learn how to do this in a sustainable way for all of everyone involved, which is why I’m actually kind of excited to share my four plans for doing this:
One paid subscription gets you access to all paid subscriptions for all four publications and all applicable paid perks for those pubs. ALWAYS. Except for founder level—you don’t get four amigurumi every year, okay? that’s… too many amigurumi. You get one a year**. Maybe two depending on how much you “found” me.
**Unless you are Kashia. Kashia gets all the amigurumi if she decides to founds me, because she is my first paid subscriber ever and she now gets whatever the heck she wants always. Although she always kind of has… so maybe that isn’t a perk.
The first 50 paid subscribers will get 50% off their subscription of choice FOREVER. That means if you pick to do a monthly subscription, you basically get all four publications every month for $1 a pop—plus any new ones I end up creating in the future.
The first 25 paid annual subscribers will get 64% off their subscription FOREVER. That means if you pay in an annual lump sum, you’ll only be charged the equivalent of 60 cents per publication per month. For life. That seems like a pretty damn good deal.
Twice a year I will make four paid posts temporarily free. I will send out a poll asking free subscribers to vote for their picks. The goal being that if you continue to follow me for free, you will hopefully gain access to the majority of the content you are most interested in, it just might take time.
I hope I can make all of this accessible and still beneficial for everyone. I will never charge for the main episodes of A Novel Experiment and will rarely put any behind a paywall. I can only see me doing that if there is like a special bonus episode that has to be archived due to audience participation or the heart-wrenching but sweet kiss of a soul The Honeyed Library stopping by and getting everything too honeyed and library-y.
The other series that will always be free to everyone includes Don’t Forget the Banter, The Legacy of Dust Updates, and Polly Olly Oxen Free chapters.
I truly am striving to make membership and subscription engaging and worth it for both free and paid subscribers, so if any of you have suggestions for perks or posts, I am all ears!
The Copper Canary is out on query at the moment. I have 8 queries and one full request submission I am waiting to hear back from. In the interim I have received really positive feedback and a huge step forward with increased interest from agencies and agents that I never believed I could ever truly land.
I am getting more hopeful that this might actually happen, which is scary, but also exciting. For those who haven’t yet seen the newer sneak peeks and the query promo package yet, enjoy!
Last, but not least, we have Polly Olly. And MY GOODNESS did we have a busy month with POOF. As the pretty label above lists out—gorgeously I might add— there was nearly a new post for Polly Olly every week last month. Which is why I am keeping this short and sweet.
And because I am the nicest of nice publication providers, I have also consolidated all POOF articles into one easy to scan directory.
And all the individual chapters can now be found on this newsletter. I know. You’re welcome. I love you too. ;)
Holy cow, we did it!
Our first monthly recap is over and done and none of us even lost an eyeball? Go team!!
June is going to be a much slower month for us, lots of progress, but less erratic posting. The kids are coming home from school, I will no longer be stuck in bed with bronchitis (and thus given the opportunity to write more than normal) and I will be getting yay or nae’s back on at least half of those queries.
Thank you all SO much for making me feel welcome here on Substack and for believing in my little corner of the web. I hope I can do you all proud!
My best to you and yours,
Cayse
Oh this is great, love it 💖
LOVE THISSSS!!!