Hi Reader,

Have you checked out The Literary Lifestyle's new membership community yet?

​I recently made a cute sales page for it that I wanted to show you.​

Want more clarification and details on the "why" behind paid memberships?

First, please know that all the content on my 600+ blog posts, regular email newsletters, and 10+ social media platforms is and remains free to readers. I love providing as much free content as possible because it makes books more accessible to readers.

This work is supported by sources like ads on my blog posts, affiliate commissions on products you buy through my links, and brand sponsorships. These sources help pay the thousands, yes, thousands, of dollars and hundreds of hours of my time each month that it costs to run The Literary Lifestyle as a full-time business. Digital content is free to consume but not to create!

(More about my costs of blogging here)

The Literary Lifestyle's paid monthly memberships are a new and deeper way for us to engage. You get exclusive content and community benefits; I get to keep helping you improve your reading life. Win, win!

I think of it like public broadcasting and friends of the library campaigns. Professional bloggers like me simply need more support from those who can and want to provide it to keep doing what we do (highly detailed, fact-checked, etc., resources). In return, we'll give you special bonuses and the satisfaction of being a patron of the arts.

Our private membership community also helps me protect my hardest and most personal work (like my Gilmore Girls episode guide) from Artificial Intelligence technology and digital scammers stealing it. Digital theft and intellectual property infringement have become a behemoth to deal with in the age of AI, with a very significant financial impact. They take our work and hand it out for free. Additional very big challenges include the unpredictability of algorithms and the growing costs of...everything.

I can write a book about these topics, but I'll sum it up by saying this: We've all been blessed with mostly free content on the internet for two decades now, from recipes to medical advice and reading guides like mine, but paywalls are becoming increasingly necessary to the survival of such journalism.

Beyond that, our private membership community just feels good. I don't know about you, but I waste so much time on social media, and on top of that, most of it is doom scrolling and sifting through an overload of content! I have to take all the "bad" in order to get the tiny nuggets of "good."

My goal with memberships is to flip that for you -- the best of books and bookish community in the easiest (mostly email) and least toxic (Goodreads group) ways... so you can read more and have more fun doing so!

Between you and me, I have so many more goals for the future of this membership community, too -- from merch to Zooms and events, oh my! Of course, the heart of this will continue to be my Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge, which is currently in its 5th year and has helped thousands of readers consume more classics.

So, if you’re ready to take your reading life to the next level, check it out! You can get 50% off your first month with code GETFIFTYOFF.

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Remember, it's a good day to read a book.

-Jules

P.S. - As always, thank you for supporting the literary arts in all the ways you do.