Some news

Hello friends,

This isn’t the usual Monday morning update! I am putting the premium newsletter on hiatus. Not sure how long for exactly, but at least six weeks. We’ll see. When I took a break at the start of the year I was gagging to get back into it like two weeks later, but I’m at a different level of exhaustion now.

What this means in practice is there will be no Monday region-wide look for the time being, but regular free reads including (especially) the Myanmar specials. 

I put the payment thingo on hold a week ago, so month-to-month readers will not be charged again until it starts back up. For annual payers, the 12-month subscription will pick up from when I reactivate, eg. if you’re due to renew next week that will instead be debited two weeks after we all come back. 

Over on Twitter, I’ll still be tracking the big stories every day.

Below is a bit about why I’ve made this decision if you’re interested. If not, see you later in the week with something special. 

In the meantime join me in listening to this playlist from Siem Reap’s Baby Elephant hotel over and over and over again. 

I want to focus on other things for a bit. This is pretty straight forward. I want to spend more time catching up on my backlog on Pocket and Kindle. I want to read a ton of books about Russia this winter and I want to redo Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Buru Quartet. There’s also loads of other stuff, but I’m trying not to spill my guts on the internet anymore. Anywho, recommend me something to read or be my pal on Goodreads! 

I have a backlog of longer pieces to work on. Every week I say ‘oh, there’s a lot to that and I want to get into it more’ but I can never find the time! Switching out the five or so hours it takes to write the premium newsletter each week with working on those pieces is something I am super excited to do. Let’s go South China Sea, Malaysian party politics, Singapore’s Next Top Prime Minister (Candidate). 

I’d like to focus on building my free list more. When running a premium list alongside the freebie list, it feels like converting the free readers into premium readers is the priority. This is the exact opposite of what Substack and other newsletter big brains recommend, but I’m not smart like that! I’m really interested in producing more high-quality pieces for everyone to read while I’m in a position in which I can afford to. 

The Discourse is doing my head. This isn’t actually related, but I need to get it off my chest. Just want to read media reporting that isn’t 800 words about American media circles navel-gazing about the Substack platform. Is this the backlash to the backlash? It begins.