Hi everyone!

So Locals has now moved over entirely to a paid participation format. In order to post in the Locals group or participate in comments, you now need to be a paying supporter of the community.

I've never gotten a response from Locals as to why this decision was made, but I believe it has something to do with what we saw play out yesterday with the WallStreetBets community, which was deplatformed from Discord and Reddit because some bad apples were able to get past its moderation filters and give the platforms enough "hate speech" to ban the community at large.

In this era of unprecedented censorship, it seems Locals believes a paywall will help to prevent situations like this from happening on its own platform. I can't blame them for this decision, as it seems like a move to not only protect the platform, but the communities it hosts.

I know you all have other options (and frankly, better things to do with your money) than spend it here just to participate in this community, but I'm going to ask you for your support anyway. You all know I'm busy both writing my books and co-hosting a podcast, so my involvement in this group has been sporadic, with me posting whenever I get a chance.

Well, now that there's real money involved, that is going to change. This group has grown to 85 members, which is amazing to me. And I'm going to ask all 85 of you to please consider supporting me with a $5/month pledge. In return for that, I will post daily content, anything from news stories, to exclusive videos, to podcasts, to personal updates - pretty much anything I can think of that will make your $5/month worth it.

I know it's a big "ask" to be asking you guys to shell out your hard earned money just to be a part of my community, and I'll understand if you don't want to do it. The Facebook group will continue on, so if you want to participate free, you can keep doing so over there. I'll still be in the FB group, I just won't be very active there, as Locals will be my focus.

Most of my posts here on Locals will also be publicly available. You just won't be able to post individually or comment if you aren't a subscriber. So if you just want to lurk, you don't have to pay any money.

However, I'd really appreciate your support. The more I'm able to earn through community support from people like you, the more time I'm able to devote to my creative endeavors, such as writing my novels.

It's no secret 2020 was a tough year for me personally. Book sales were in the toilet, and I was forced to take on a full time job to support myself and my family - which has cut into my writing time. I'm hoping that with your support on a platform like Locals, that I will be able to earn enough to give me extra free time to write.

As always, I appreciate my community and my fans, and I leave the decision of support up to you. Anything you decide to do - be it becoming a subscriber, simply leaving a positive review of my work on Amazon, or subscribing to my podcast - all of it helps. I'm truly blessed to have such amazing fans, and I'm grateful for all you do.

Thank you for your time, and I hope to be worthy of your support.

Matt

UPDATE: To subscribe, just click the "Manage Support" option in the left hand menu bar, and you'll be taken to a subscription option for this community. Apparently, the way subs work here on Locals is you have to purchase "coins" in order to subscribe (which is Local's proprietary currency). They only accept a minimum purchase of $7, apparently, which is more than the monthly subscription for this group. I apologize for that. You can purchase $10 worth of coins for 2 months access to this group if you want to ensure you don't waste an extra $2.