What Now?
Dear THLC-Fans,
the story around 'The Holy Loneliness Collective' is taking a break for the time being. When and if it will continue is still a bit unclear. The reasons for this I would like to explain to you in this post as transparent as possible.
THLC as a project is very close to my heart. It's important to me to have a maximum of creative freedom in music and storytelling and to be able to try out even the weirdest ideas without having commercial considerations in mind. For this I also accept that I earn little to no money with it. So far, to be honest, none at all. Because the few euros that come in through Spotify are not even close to covering my expenses. Yes, there are expenses. Even if I don't have the ambition to earn money with the project, I would at least like to pay all those who help me with its realization adequately. The biggest point here are the great illustrations by Franziska Blinde. But there´s also Kai Blankenberg, who did the mastering for all the songs, as well as guest musicians such as the string quartet that can be heard on fæːlɐ. So far, I've paid for all of this out of my own pocket. But I can't do that forever. So I can only continue to run THLC if there is a realistic prospect that I can at least cover my expenses with the income.
So I have been thinking about how to make some money without having to sacrifice creative freedom to the music industry's exploitation logic. Here on Substack there is the possibility to offer premium subscriptions. For a small monthly fee, you then get access to exclusive material while supporting your favorite authors in staying independent. This seems like a good option to me. All normal posts will still be free, but on top of that there will be exclusive content for premium subscribers. (Additional texts, unreleased music, insights into the production process, more opportunities to help shape the story. More on that in a bit.)
It works like this: If you're already subscribed to this newsletter, you'll see a button below this paragraph that says 'Pledge Your Support'. (Otherwise you have to subscribe to the newsletter first.) Click it and you will be asked to choose your monthly or yearly contribution and then to enter your credit card details. After that at first nothing will happen at all, because 'The Holy Loneliness Collective' is taking a break right now. (No money will be collected during the break.) But it helps me a lot, because I can estimate how many people would be willing to make a small contribution and if I can cover my monthly costs that way. As soon as enough supporters have joined and the story can go on, I will activate the mechanism and all pledgers will automatically become real premium supporters who make THLC possible with their contributions. If you want to be part of it, click here now:
The minimum monthly contribution is 5 Euro/Dollars. That shouldn't hurt most people too much. But if about a hundred people come together who are willing to support the project in this way, I could use the money (after deducting fees and taxes) to cover the costs of running the project. I know, a hundred supporters is quite a lot - at least for a niche project like THLC. So I am all the more grateful to everyone who contributes!
For now, I'll leave for my summer vacation and get back to you with an update afterwards!
Best regards,
Christoph
Pic: Ingo Stahl