The Biblioracle Recommends 2.0

Now with 100% more Derek Krissoff

Regular readers will know that I’ve long had the desire to share book and reading-related content in this space more than once a week, and I’ve managed to do so fitfully/periodically, but being just one person with a plate of other responsibilities, it’s been tough.

I’m thoroughly convinced that there is an audience of readers who want smart and interesting insights and commentary on books that is primarily rooted in the enthusiasm we share for books and reading, but which isn’t mindless cheerleading steeped in sales and marketing of what’s hot at a particular time, or reduced to an endless array of listicles.

Given that we’ve gathered a decent-sized chunk of people here who seem to agree with me (over 4100 and counting up 65% since the start of 2023), why not try to provide that material?

For about a year I’ve been looking for someone who would be interested in coming on board to take on the challenge of curating and editing additional content, and I’m very pleased to say I’ve found that person.

Welcome Derek!

I would not have imagined that I could partner with someone like Derek Krissoff, but when he became available, I pounced, and he agreed to try his hand at providing interesting and intellectually nourishing content here at The Biblioracle Recommends.

For those who don’t know Derek, he is, most recently, Director at West Virginia University Press where he shepherded books like Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and Jim Lewis’s The Ghosts of New York into the world.

WVUP has also been host to the Teaching and Learning in Higher Ed series, which has published a number of books very important to my own philosophies around instruction, including Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) edited by Susan Blum, Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto by Kevin Gannon, and The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion, by Sarah Rose Cavanagh.

Derek is pro. He knows people, and I know that I can blissfully sit back and enjoy what he will bring to the newsletter just like other readers without spending hardly any time worrying about the quality and care given to what appears on the page.

What’s Derek Going to Do?

From this moment forward the plan is for an additional piece authored (thankfully) by someone other than me will go up on the newsletter and be sent to your inboxes on Wednesday. Wednesday is Derek’s day. In fact, I’ve now changed every Wednesday on my calendar to “Dereksday.”

No pressure, Derek.

These pieces will include previously established features such as “A Book I Wish More People Knew About” and “Meet an Indie Publisher,” but we’ll also be including original essays along the way.

These pieces will be written by people you know and love along with others you don’t yet know, but will love.

Maybe some Wednesdays there won’t be anything, which just means we didn’t have anything we thought you’d be very glad you read, in which case we didn’t want to take up your time.

How Can I, the Reader, Help?

I’m glad this is on people’s minds. The currency that matters on Substack is sharing and subscribing. Getting the word out about the new Dereksday feature coming on The Biblioracle Recommends would be a great help to our achieving success.

Even better is subscribing to The Blblioracle Recommends. This way you will never miss a single piece of Dereksday content.

Even better than that is a paid subscription to The Biblioracle Recommends. Now, readers have probably noticed that a paid subscription does not actually entitle the reader to access any additional content versus a free subscriber.

“But John,” you’re thinking, “isn’t that a terrible business plan, to try to get a sufficient number of people to pay for something that they could get for free?”

It is a terrible business plan. The Substack algorithm tells me I could likely double the income from the newsletter if I put material behind a paywall, but for myself, I have made the bargain that what the newsletter currently brings in is sufficient for me to sustainably write my weekly Sunday piece for the foreseeable future.

As I wrote in a previous newsletter, I’m more interested in an approach that cultivates patrons, rather than exploiting consumers.

But here’s the rub. What the newsletter earns currently is sufficient and sustainable for me, but is, frankly, not enough to achieve the kinds of ambitions I have going forward based on my read of what audiences want. In the immortal words of George W. Bush, we have to grow the pie higher. Bringing on Derek and having sufficient funds to pay authors of longer essays are the first steps to proving my thesis that there is a demand for this kind of writing.

So, I’m hoping that folks who have valued this newsletter up to this point and enjoy what’s been provided may find it in their own interests to support Derek’s work as you’ve supported mine and then point the way to even bigger and better things in the future. To incentivize that, for a brief time whose duration is yet to be determined, annual subscriptions are now at a 25% discount, which would be only 60% of the cost if you’re paying month by month. (I’m pretty sure you can convert to annually at any time.)

I’ve also added what I’m calling a “Yay Derek!” subscription tier with a suggested donation of $250, but into which you can put any number you wish between that and the subscription price.

Do I like this part of being a writer, the asking for money? I do not. It’s not why I got into this stuff, but the reality is writers and editors, writing and editing, needs support and if the people who read what is written and edited aren’t going to support it, who is?

Thank you for your time, say hello to Derek in the comments if you wish, and get excited for Dereksday!

All best,
John
The Biblioracle