Taking this Substack Forward
What Changes to Expect in the Future
In the past few weeks I’ve gained a much larger following with this Substack. Granted, I only started this Substack in September but I have been absolutely grateful for all of you who have read and subscribed to my newsletter!
As of right now my posts have been a bit disorganized, and it may have been a bit difficult to navigate. Apparently editing the title of your newsletters does not change it on the viewer end, meaning my horribly titled newsletters will remain, much to my chagrin.
Regardless, unlike other Substack newsletters, many of my newsletters tend to act as standalone reviews, and therefore many of them are intended to act as informative pieces. I will occasionally cover updates on topics such as molnupiravir, Pfizer’s drug, and other issues in regards to COVID therapies and the COVID hysteria, but my pieces will tend to focus on long-form reviews of available literature.
Therefore, moving forward I will try to follow a more organized approach to labeling my Substack newsletters:
(Review): will indicate pieces that should be considered as research focused pieces. The denotation will help to separate these pieces from smaller rants or journalist-like pieces. These pieces will be less likely to be dated, meaning that the pieces should stand up in some form over time.
(Perspective): Perspectives will indicate long form pieces that may not be heavily researched base but serves more to heavily contextualize information, such as with my VAERS piece. Also note that many perspective pieces may be review pieces as well.
I will also try to have consistent uploads, at least 1 long form piece a week. I will try to include smaller, short form pieces as well throughout the week but I will focus on trying to get out one long newsletter a week.
Paid Subscriptions
Also, I will start to implement paid subscribers only newsletters. Many of the newsletters I consider to too important to be placed behind a paywall will be free. However, it takes many hours to research the information for many of these pieces, and being able to monetize it will help me to provide more newsletters in the future by allowing me to focus more time on my Substack.
For paid members I will post at least 2 paid subscribers only pieces a month, separate from the 1/week long newsletters. Usually these pieces will fall into the following categories:
Special/niche pieces: These will be pieces that may focus on more specialized topics, such as the effects of therapeutics. For example, I am planning on writing about the arrhythmia associated with hydroxychloroquine and whether or not it is a founded concern.
Pieces that add additional, but not fully necessary, information: I have posted newsletters/reviews such as the Regeneron and viral mutation pieces, which provide generalized information. However, I may add additional information that will not be needed to fully understand the previous pieces (in video games consider this paid DLC and not paying for the true final ending for a game). An example of this will be my newsletter I will release later today about the relationship between COVID and the nasal passageway. I will release a paid subscribers only piece later in the week about intranasal therapeutics and prophylaxis that add additional information to the nasal newsletter, but will not be required to understand the general idea.
Extensively Researched Pieces: This one will be highly debatable, but because of the amount of time many of these pieces take it would be very difficult for me to argue about spending several days on a piece and releasing it for free. However, if the newsletters seems extremely important I may post it for free, as it may be far more important to have that information available than it is to try to force monetizing it. This may be pieces that dive into the vaccines and viral mutations.
Paid Subscriptions mainly help me to spend more time focusing on Substack. As I have stated previously, I left my job working in a University lab over the vaccine mandates, and by becoming a paid subscriber this helps to allow me to continue to write about many topics that I think many people are interested. Also, as I have stated, I will start to add paid subscribers only posts.
As of right now the monthly subscription cost is $5/month. However, the annual subscription is $50, which is essentially 2 free months.
As for the founder’s fee, I will be honest and say I have nothing specific planned for those who wish to pay the $150 as of now. The founder’s fee is intended to serve for those who have the ability to pay more, and would like to pay more to my Substack. Doing so will help reduce the financial burden and helps me to provide more free content for those who cannot afford the paid subscription fee.
COVID Can’t Last Forever, Right?
Although I’ve been focused mainly on COVID, I would like to write about so much more. I love food, and I love science, and so I would like to write about supplements, compounds, and food from a molecular/chemistry perspective. I would also like to continue writing about pharmaceuticals, expanding more into other territories such as over the counter medications and very common prescription medications (the FDA and CDC have acted very shady for many years). There are plenty of topics I would like to write about, and hopefully as the COVID hysteria decreases I can move towards that direction, because this COVID thing can’t last forever right….right?
Last bit of Information
To end this Substack piece I would like to just outline a few more bits of information:
This Substack is, and always will be, intended for informative purposes only. The ideas and research I outline is never intended to act as something prescriptive, and instead is intended to be purely for providing information, perspective, and context to the topics. If you are curious about any of the pharmaceuticals or medical topics that I cover, please consult with a medical professional such as your primary care physician before trying anything out.
I may get things wrong. In fact, I expect that I may get many things wrong. My Substack is not intended to come from the perspective of a learned person (I don’t even have a graduate degree), but from a perspective of someone who is learning, and continues to learn. I want this Substack to be approachable to people who have not have a formal background in science but want to learn and understand what is going on. It is not enough for the layperson to watch the news and expect to be informed, and as the arena around COVID and apparently science in general continues to become even more divisive I want people to be able to argue from a good faith, informed position. When we lack information and the ability to rationalize, we turn to conspiracy and delusional thinking, and eventually mass hysteria. Before going down the route of hysteria, always start from a position of rational thought and sensemaking, and I hope to provide that with my Substack. If I do get something wrong, I will make sure to correct for it the best I can and will alert my subscribers to the corrections.
Unless otherwise stated, all of my free Substack pieces are open to comments by anybody. I would like to provide a space for people to comment without having to pay, and hopefully this will allow for deeper, more robust conversations within the community. However, that may change if the conversations are not in good faith or are done with malicious intent.
Check the backlog of newsletters!! As I have stated many of these pieces are intended to provide general information. Although it may draw from many current topics, they are not likely to become dated and require context. For example my pieces on obesity, immunity, and viral mutations are related to COVID but they can be extrapolated to other diseases as well.
I am extremely grateful, and honestly quite shocked at how my Substack is starting to take off (I never considered myself either a good writer or someone interesting), and so thank you to everyone who is reading and subscribing, it really does mean a lot to me and provides a lot of encouragement for me to keep writing!
If any of you have any questions or comments please leave a message below, and for now look out for my piece on the nasal passage later today!
Note: I have included links to some of my previous newsletters.
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Also, please consider becoming a paid member. The research and work put into these articles takes many hours and being a paid subscriber allows me to continue to do this full time.