246. Launching a Substack: The stories behind & between the podcasts

These beautiful old Spanish colonial buildings and the best of the buildings have these courtyards in them , and that's the humble hotel we're staying in at the moment as well , and in the quieter end of town too , there's a little breeze going by , but not too much , so hopefully this will come out okay .

As I look over one side , I see cathedrals , quite often , at least partly in ruins from the earthquakes that destroyed this place twice before they moved the capital to Guatemala City back in the 18th century , which makes this place really fascinating , because again it was .

It was ruined and left , but lived on and has become well , a UNESCO site , today Heritage , and it is quite an incredible cultural meeting place , albeit with the dark shadow of the past a little bit , and at times just the starkest of inequalities , but a visual extravaganza for sure .

Cobblestone streets , coloured buildings , they make sure that the advertising's not in the public space , all these basics that we should probably have everywhere .

Anyway , maybe not the cobblestone streets , but certainly that absence of the propaganda in public space and behind me , the other way , I've got the volcanoes , the three huge volcanoes that are just a fraction of the volcanoes that line the west western side of Guatemala and surround this town , providing a hell of a backdrop .

Fuego is often erupting , but it hasn't this time . It was erupting every day when we were here last , and the other ones sort of sit idle these days . So , anyway , I'm talking to you today because , well , a bit's been happening Come and gone from my old hometown .

There was plenty of interest in the podcast , so if anyone happened to be trying to listen in English , then gracias , I'm gonna have more material in Spanish soon , but I'll have transcripts available , obviously , that they can be translated into English pretty quickly these days and vice versa through the substack for Spanish speakers .

And that's mainly what I'm getting online to speak to you about today . On the podcast , the festive season series I just put out has just finished the clean state series and you can backpedal to have a listen to that if you haven't managed already . I do a little intro piece like this .

Ahead of that , back at the start of January in my old hometown here in Guatemala , and what's also happened in that period of time is that I launched a sub stack experiment . For those who have no idea what that is , I scarcely did till not long ago . To tell you the truth , it's a wow . What do they call it ? A publishing space .

So I'm essentially a newspaper of sorts in old speak . But , like the podcast , I'm going to make it largely free , except for some exclusive paid subscriber stuff , trusting that in gifting that there'll be enough folk gifting back paid subscription to keep the thing going . If it's any good , I won't double dip .

So if you're a patreon subscriber already from the podcast , you will get all the exclusive stuff that happens to get on substack as well . It's just , if you want more stories and the stories behind the stories and the stories between the stories , then subscribe for free to substack too and you can get all that .

I'll apply some of my latent love of photography there too . So if you're interested in that , that'll be there and maybe a few other bits and pieces would be social media posts . In fact , in a sense this carries a bit of a subplot , an attempt to put the social back in media .

It was really my hand was tipped to decide to do this in substack because I did feel this growing urge that there were more of these stories behind it , between what came out on the podcast to share , and when substack , just as I was stewing on this and said this is social media with property rights and traditional media with community . Well , that's good .

And if it really is great , and the more I look the more it seemed to be , and there's a bunch of people I respect on it . So here we go . I put out a launch post I don't know a week or so ago and my first bona fide post , which , well , some of what's been bursting in me of late just put that out yesterday .

I'll let you have a read of it rather than talk to it here , but suffice to say it felt like what had to come out first before I did anything else .

So it's a bit of a longer read , but some of the foundational thinking behind why I'm doing this , through the lens of some of the experience here in Guatemala and some of what I've been listening to around the LA fires , some of the extraordinary stories of community and well , as Rebecca Solnit put it , a paradise built in hell .

Listening to her in an interview was the trigger

for this piece . So I'll leave you to have a look at that . But yeah , mainly wanted to announce that , that that's there and also that this coming week well , next week will be the resumption of the regeneration podcast , in real time , if you like . I have a bunch of stuff still from the states late last year , a bunch of stuff here from Guatemala .

I'll do what I can as my humble single-person team to get this stuff out as soon as I can . They are all in the basket of . I wish you could hear them right now . They were that meaningful . Anyway , I will get them out as soon as I can and look forward to bringing you in through both means the podcast and the writing . You know .

Pick your medium , I suppose both , if you like , to more of what I've been experiencing . That just can't make the podcast . It's too much production time as one person , as an indie outlet , to get it up .

But also , not just because of that , because it really felt like there was something else to be said , to be shared , and sure I could do that in a hundred different conversations with everyone who wants to know and bless you for getting in touch through this journey and wanting to know .

Um , so yeah , I've been thinking a lot about it over the last year in particular , but it was coming up before then too . So this will be a way where I don't have to produce a podcast for every story . I can just flip something out to you on occasion and then , on other occasions , go into a bit of depth , drawing some threads together .

I hope it adds something because , yeah , after a quarter of a century in what I could broadly call international and community development , stemming back to the time of meeting my old mentor that you've heard a bit about on this podcast and and being here in guatemala the first time and nearly 10 years approaching a decade of the regeneration podcast , this is a bit

of the sum of what feels like needs to come next for me anyway . And , yeah , I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you and , to those of you who want to come on that journey , I look forward to hanging out with you in that space too .

I did do some writing a while back and , like the podcast , that writing unexpectedly made its way to audiences around the world , so now it feels

like a good time for the two flanks to make their way in the world together . Oh , and just a little logistics . Patreon subscriptions the lowest tier has risen from three dollars to five dollars a month , partly because it probably needed to anyway , but also to match the sub stack baseline just five dollars a month . Those of you who've subscribed on Buzzsprout .

That's just not set up to share stuff . So while I was trying to get around that and get you what I was putting on Patreon , as much to diversify income streams , to not have everything in one online basket basically won't be able to keep posts going to Buzzsprout or to you guys through other means .

So if you're just happy with getting the podcast and even perhaps subscribing for free on Substack , then great and thank you as ever . If you would like to switch over to Substack or Patreon to get the exclusive paid subscriber stuff , then you can do that too .

And for Patreon subscribers , the rise in the charge for the lowest tier doesn't apply to existing subscribers , only to new ones and to those of you who just donate or just donate , who blessedly donate and as much to avoid fees , potentially send direct transfers , even not even on PayPal . I mean , all these options are available and they all help .

So there's no one that's better than the other , necessarily . It's just how you want to engage as well and what , um , what means suits you .

But to donors , I can tell you , if you do want the paid subscription exclusive stuff as well on occasion , then some donors have just gone in at that baseline five dollars a month or fifty dollars a year in patreon or substack to just get those posts and donated the rest of what they wanted to donate directly . So feel free to do that .

Or again , if you're just happy not receiving any more and just enjoying the podcast , stay as you are with my enormous gratitude , my enormous gratitude for you all . Really , all right , I'll leave you there with a new series of the regeneration to come and the Substack experiment underway .

I look forward to sharing it all with you as the year goes on and we'll have more from here so on . Hope you're all well , see ya y .