Greetings, readers!

After giving it a lot of thought over the past week, The Science of Fiction has decided to pick up its digital foundation and move from Substack to Ghost.

The newsletter’s snazzy new Ghost site can be found here. Please tell your friends!

This decision that was informed by a mix of factors: the ongoing issues with content moderation on Substack (which you can read about here); discussions with other newsletter writers I respect and admire; the impressive array of developer tools and customization options available on Ghost; and a comparison of the two platforms’ business models. While Substack takes a ten percent cut of all paid subscriber revenue, Ghost, a nonprofit, takes no cut whatsoever. It requires users to pay a flat, monthly fee for web hosting based on the size of their audience, and that’s it.

Initially, this move will make The Science of Fiction a bit more expensive for me to run, but I’m hopeful that as the newsletter’s paid subscriber base grows, it’ll wind up making sense economically. I will also feel a lot better knowing that a portion of my newsletter’s revenue isn’t directly or indirectly subsidizing bigots.

If you’d like to help support this fully independent newsletter’s transition to Ghost, you can update to a paid subscription plan here.

In theory, the shift to Ghost won’t affect readers much at all. All of The Science of Fiction’s subscribers (that means you!) have already been transferred over to the new newsletter; paid subscribers shouldn’t see a change in their billing since both Substack and Ghost use Stripe to process payments. Payments are currently paused on Stripe and billing will resume once I’ve confirmed that Substack is disconnected and no longer taking a cut. If you do notice *any* unexpected changes to your billing or payment plan, please contact me directly and I’ll get them sorted out.

The next newsletter to hit your inbox—this Saturday!—will look slightly different as Ghost has its own email newsletter templates. I personally think they’re prettier.

As a final bit of literal housekeeping, my husband and I are in the process of buying a house, which means The Science of Fiction is going to slow down for a little while. Expect a new post approximately every other week for the next month or two.

See you all on the other side!

— Maddie