224. The Mail Run: Navigating hurricanes, mail & Apple's 30% fee controversy

And those who've listened to the episode this week with Matthew Evans back home in Tasmania , responsible for launching a new festival in December down there , which I wish I could be at but will still be here those of you who've listened to that will also have got an auditory intro to where we are .

Because it was sweltering heat and I had to go inside because , as you can hear , there's a bit of traffic here and there was some other noise at the time , so I retreated indoors with the aircon off . Now the cool relative cool has come because there's a hurricane about to hit Florida , so it's extremely wet here .

We're expecting it to get a bit windy later and Yeshi is our young fella , is producing a podcast , for Yeshi Interviews His little missives tracking the hurricane . So if you're interested in that family members perhaps , particularly you can track it there .

We're not experiencing or expecting any great drama here , but it's amazing to be here for and just amazing to be on these marshlands here , and we have tracked some extraordinary restoration efforts coming down the coast too . More on that soon . This is the second mail

run . So there has been one piece of mail received in the last few weeks and I wanted to reply here as I did last time . So from a treasured listener , hiya , loving your show , and wanted to check if you knew these podcasters who , like you , are visiting , touring the US , and I think there's alignment in what you speak of . From memory .

They speak of tour dates around 40 minutes in . We're here in Climate Conversations and Regeneration at Narara Eco Village on unceded land . That's of course back home in Australia too . Her village on unceded land . That's of course back home in Australia too . G'day there to all at Narara . Great to hear from you and to imagining you listening there .

Unfortunately , the show you were writing about didn't come through with the message . I guess you probably tried to attach it . Perhaps just send me the name and I'll search for it . It does sound interesting and thanks again for writing .

Outside that message , the horse book giveaway that was a couple of episodes ago and topically around those Montana episodes featuring horses to a fair extent . The winners , so to speak , were Vicky Mann , dominique Hess and Amanda Foxon-Hill . Congrats to you guys . You may even have your books by now . Text Publishing the brilliant team there .

They have sent them , I believe .

Now , finally , some news from Apple that's not altogether pleasing . I don't want to paint an unduly damning picture of Apple , because they generally are certainly compared to Spotify , for example , a more openly oriented presence in podcasting and , let's face it , probably the dawning of what it's become today as well .

But they have decided to put a bit of a spanner in the works for people like me , independent creators . They have decided to put a premium on subscriptions through Patreon done via the Apple iOS app . If you're not subscribing via the app to Patreon , this doesn't affect things . Via the app to Patreon , this doesn't affect things .

But if you are thinking of subscribing and you do it through the iOS app , apple will charge a 30% premium on that for the use of their app . Patreon offered me to absorb that cost instead of you guys , but that would seriously eat into the income and viability of the podcast . So I haven't done that .

I've taken the other option to have that premium be bounced along to new subscribers through the app as much . So it's visible to everyone as well what apple has chosen to do with it in this instance .

I do hope they decide to reverse this or at least reduce it to a lesser amount , a lesser proportion , given that you guys , I know , want the vast majority of what you give to support the podcast . To come through to the podcast . So , in fairness , apple are doing this because it's all their work in the app . Podcasts already aren't a great earner for apple .

They , of course , leverage off that to sell devices , but it is a huge impost on people who want to support creators and , of course , independent creators like me trying to do the work for you . So so , in summary , it's a 30% premium . Apple is charging on subscriptions to Patreon via the iOS app .

So if you're looking to subscribe to the podcast on Patreon and you do that through the Apple operating system , on your iphone , for example , then you will be charged an additional 30 percent . If you do it via the patreon website , even on an apple mac , that will avoid the charge . Or , of course , if you do it somewhere else entirely , that avoids the charge .

The other way you can avoid charges completely , of course , is just donating directly via PayPal or my account . Even All those details are on the website under the support page . Patreon is just a way to get a bit of behind the scenes info and footage from me on the journey .

And Patreon itself takes about 10% of what you give , which to me is reasonable for quite a brilliant platform that continues to improve . There were some issues earlier days with subscribing or resubscribing or renewing cards . I think they fixed most of them . But yeah , for Apple to take 30% on top of that 10% , that's almost half of what you'd give .

That would not make it to me . Anyway , also to emphasize , none of this affects existing subscribers , so don't worry if you're already on board . Oh , and the other option Apple do offer subscriptions too , but they take 20% off that platform and , more importantly , harvest your details as opposed to passing them to me , whereas Patreon a full disclosure .

I get your email , we can communicate directly if needed . Apple , in that other way of being that I don't particularly admire , keep your data for themselves . So that's why I haven't opened up that portal , even though it's highly recommended , because it's so easy for those who listen through Apple to just click subscribe there .

But I just don't like that closeness and they're not awful on that front . Again , in the podcasting space in general , but in these couple of ways ,

yeah , I'm less on board . There is also the ability to subscribe via buzzsprout , my host platform , and for those who do , I'm going to find a way to also send you the behind the scenes stuff . They don't take a cut because I'm already paying them to host the podcast , so I'll find a way to get what I send to patreon subscribers to buzzsprout subscribers too .

If I can stand by for more on that , that's an option too and that's simply in the show notes . You can see that very clearly where it says support the show at the end of the main bunch of show notes and then under that it says text a message , if you want . They're the messages I reply to on these mail runs and you can subscribe there too .

A few of you have already done that , so huge thanks to you

. Okay , I hope you have enjoyed or will enjoy the episode out this week with Matthew Evans back home in Australia , in Tasmania , announcing the launch of a new festival which I am pumped about and bummed that I'll be missing because I think we'll still be over here .

But we'll do a big debrief on the thing after it's done and I've already heard from a few of your listeners , after listening to the episode out a few days ago , that you'll be going . I'm so glad . Can't wait to hear about it . Enjoy . The link to get tickets is in the episode show notes too . It's called grounded . It'll be in december .

We'll be thinking of you , we'll be there in spirit and meantime you'll hear more from us over here in the lead up to the election in november . I've saved a bit of a collation of our experiences and observations and conversations for the month of october . That'll start next week .

For now , from pre-hurricane southeastern United States , I hope you're well wherever you are . Thanks , as always , for listening . See you next week , thank you .