No Victory Bonds? No Problem!
Your Guide to Supporting 365 Infantry...
As we enter the Iron Age and many a creator steps up to the plate with their bold new visions, one thing has come into focus: audiences will go the distance to support what they love. This is heartening and exciting news as it means many creatives have a good shot at making their work financially viable in the modern day.
I’ve been a bit coy about the financial end of 365 Infantry as I never wanted to give the impression that the project was strictly about turning a buck. But I’ve been asked regularly for ways to support us here, and as the greenbacks start flying, I figure it’s about time to layout the definitive, frill-free guide to helping 365 stay afloat.
Before we get into it, I want to lay out a simple, eternal ground rule:
365 Infantry will always be FREE to the public.
I believe I am creating worthwhile literary entertainment, but I also believe it should be accessible to all who seek it. There will always be a free subscription option here on Substack, and the main storylines will always be available under that option. We aren’t pay-walling any of the mainline series.
With that said, let’s begin.
1. Donate!
Places to Donate: PayPal.Me & Ko-fi
The biggest method of support for 365 at the moment are good-old fashioned donations. As a pulp magazine taking the form of a digital newsletter, our intention is to serve up exciting entertainment in as affordable a fashion as possible. And you can’t get much more affordable than free!
As stated on our About page, the bare minimum we ask any of our subscribers to give us is an American quarter.
25¢ USD is the starting price, a nice balance between the dimes you would’ve spent on copies of The Shadow Magazine during the Great Depression and the James Bond paperback a half-dollar would get you in the swinging 60s. We go into the philosophy behind this on the About page more, but that’s our baseline.
To give people the chance to adhere to this request, I opened up a PayPal.Me link where readers and fans can give as much as they like or can afford. In essence, it’s our main tip jar.
We also opened up a more extravagant tip jar on the platform Ko-fi, where you can show your support starting at $5 USD, perhaps a more practical price given the modern times we all find ourselves in. You can get all the updates we post on Twitter and Minds in the feed, including story teasers and links to all our posts here on Substack. We’ll set goals to help with the cost of art and assets, as well as fund exclusives and exciting new content!
2. Merchandising! Merchandising!
“Where da real money from da movie is made!” - Yogurt (Mel Brooks), Spaceballs
Indeed, we here at 365 have humbly thrown our hat into the ring with our very own store on Redbubble, home to everything from quality graphic T-shirts to pins to mugs and more. While the markups are certainly not what I had in mind, Redbubble is an incredible platform that has afforded me an easy way to provide fans with print-on-demand wares to show their support for the series. I’m working on gathering more designs and building up the range we have. And with a revolving door of deals to make things easier on customers, it’s as good launch pad as any I could have right now.
It’s also here that I will let you all in on some future plans for merch. With services like Kindle Direct Publishing and Draft2Digital at self-publishers’ disposals, I do wish to sell annual collections of 365 Infantry in both eBook and physical forms. These will include all 20 stories across the year’s run, organized by narrative thread (“The War,” “The Hunt,” etc.), as well as originals exclusive to the collections’ publication. Stay tuned for more on that front!
3. Paid Subscription
This will perhaps be the biggest and most significant form of support we can offer to fans of 365 Infantry. Though not yet available, we plan on opening up a paid subscription offer here on Substack. Paid subscriptions will act in much the same way as a Patreon or SubscribeStar account. Supporters will be named & thanked in that quarter’s credits, and will be treated to a wealth of exclusives. Comics, audio dramas, behind-the-scenes details, & more. Monthly and annual options will be made available, and while certain exclusives such as the comics may be collected and released in physical form, backers will be the very first to experience these exciting new stories. These options will also aim to be as affordable as possible, so fans can get a chance to dig into them without breaking the bank.
The fine folks who support this option will be thanked in our quarterly “Salute the Troops” credits, and in turn, collective acknowledgements will be made in the physical collections and print exclusives released.
Conclusion
And there you have it! The ways YOU, dear reader, can lend a hand in keeping our electric tales of warring, thrilling, rocking, and rolling thundering along for years to come. We encourage one and all to support in any way you can. If you can’t lend a hand in dollars and cents, share the stories with your friends and on social media, and leave us a like and a comment here on Substack telling us you what you dig. However you support us, we thank you for your generosity. Until next time!
May God bless you and this Force. See you in September!