Think of it like a Bloody Mary

TL;DR: Annual subscriptions to Fingers are on sale until tomorrow at midnight, please buy one to underwrite all the labor that goes into producing the boozeletter! 

I depend on readers to support my independent journalism about drinking in America. I hope I can count on you to step up, and as always, thanks for reading!—Dave.

Bloody Marys: I love them, you love them, we all love them. (Unless they give you crippling heartburn, in which case, you may not love them, but please just go with it anyway.) This classic brunch beverage is good for all sorts of things, such as smoothing the rough edges of a hangover, killing time in an airport, or—if you’re in the Midwest—furnishing an entire fried-chicken luncheon directly to your spot at the bar without even requiring you to pick up the menu. Wow!

Today, the versatile Bloody is going to serve another, equally admirable purpose. It’s going to help explain where Fingers subscription fees go… and why I need your help to keep this project going.

OK, so! Fingers is a reader-supported publication. Currently, over 280 Friends of Fingers pay for subscriptions to fund the work I put into each and every edition. Hell yeah! I know what you’re thinking: 280 subscribers x $8 a month = holy shit Dave is making like $2200 a month on Fingers!

I wish, dear reader. But it’s not quite that simple. For one thing, a relatively small portion of my paying audience pays monthly. Most pay for an annual membership, which makes sense because it’s priced favorably ($80 for 12 months, or $6.66 a month), and because I occasionally offer discounts that make it an even better deal. Like, for example, right now:

For another thing: I don’t keep the full fee. There are costs to do business in this newsletter game, and they take a solid chunk out of Fingers’ gross revenue.

Which brings us back to the Bloody Mary. Think of a subscription to Fingers like a big, briny Bloody. Whenever somebody buys a subscription, I get a bunch of big gulps out of it, but I don’t get to drink the whole thing. Here’s how it breaks down, roughly speaking:

• 10% off the top to Substack: The platform I use to publish Fingers, manage subscriptions, etc. takes a hefty vig on each subscription. I’ve looked into cheaper competition, but believe that Substack’s software remains the best option for Fingers right now.

• Another 2.9% + $0.30 to Stripe: Because this is a credit card-based business, I also have to tithe to the payment platform Substack sits atop for every transaction.

• ~15% for services, merch, and other operating expenses. I try to reserve a small chunk of each subscription for costs associated with the business, such as transcriptions, illustration fees, sticker production, etc.

• ~25% for taxes. As a sole-proprietor LLC, I pay estimated taxes quarterly, so I reserve about a quarter of whatever’s left to pay Uncle Sam. “Taxation is theft!” yadda, yadda.

• ~50% for your fearless Fingers editor. Here’s my income, free and clear. Hell yeah, we did it! Roughly half of the subscription fee goes into my bank account for me to pay for like… food, and stuff.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I like being transparent. That’s part of it. But the other part is to quantify how challenging it is to build a self-sustaining independent media business. I’m still not there yet: even pricing my time artificially low, I still can’t afford to spend the ~20 hours a week I need to publish the high-quality coverage, commentary, shitposts, and podcasts you’ve come to expect from Fingers.

I always knew it was going to be a grind to sell enough subscriptions to make this project solvent, and I’m not afraid to keep hustling for those spicy Bloody Mary bucks. (I’m not mad, please don’t put in the newspaper that I’m mad.) But I am hoping that by breaking down my costs a little more clearly for you, I’ll convince you that buying a subscription to Fingers is the only way to ensure I can keep publishing it.

If you’ve enjoyed Fingers for a week or a month or a year, and you want to keep receiving independent newsletters about drinking in America in your inbox, please consider buying a subscription today. Thanks for reading!—Dave.