New Price and More Article Narrations

Why House of Strauss Is Changing

Hey everybody. As you may have noticed, in April I soft-launched a new way of doing this newsletter that I wasn’t sure was actually sustainable. I’m not saying this to gain your sympathy, but instead explaining: In April, my youngest son started daily Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) training, for which I have to be home during afternoons. He’s happy and healthy, but needs my help. There’s no getting around that.

Starting ABA meant there was no way to do this newsletter with my normal schedule, but I also remained committed to giving this site the energy it needs. I arrived at a solution that somehow felt simultaneously doable and impossible: Write a full article for House of Strauss every weekday at 4 AM, before everyone else in the family needs my assistance. My new routine: Work on the topics throughout the evening, wake up pre-dawn to write the column, take one of the kids to school, record podcasts when possible in later morning, take my son back from his special education program to our house for ABA training.

Oddly, this intense structure has invigorated me creatively. Thankfully, I’ve been encouraged by the results and its resonance with readership. Writing roughly 1,000 words every morning isn’t easy, but I’ve found that I can maintain it and it is my model going forward. But now that I’ve committed to increasing productivity by more than 2X what it was prior, I’m also, after 5 years of resisting this change, raising my price to $14 monthly and $124 annually. This has an impact on current monthly subscribers but obviously those who bought the past annual rate have already paid for the year.

I don’t believe in raising prices without a promise of more services, though, so I’m announcing another change. The main hole in my multimedia approach is that, given the aforementioned constraints, I can get spotty and delayed with article narrations. Well, today I’m declaring that all future articles will be followed by same-day audio versions, barring some unusual extenuating circumstance. I’ve shifted things around in my schedule to make this possible.

So that’s the deal at House of Strauss. By subscribing you get the following:

• A daily article every weekday morning, freshly made, from a human being. I’m not ideologically anti-AI but I can’t help but notice that so much modern written content is automated by it. Readers of HoS understand there’s an authentic writing voice here, even if that voice occasionally drives many of you crazy.

• A narration of that article, same day

• Podcasts with media insiders that are paywall-candid

• Honesty on topics journalists are prone to either lie about or avoid

• A portal to conversations people in sports media are having in private, but not so much in public

• My altogether charm and whimsy

That’s my basic pitch, and as long as I’m trying to talk myself up, I’ll say the following. I am, whatever you think of me, an unusually prolific writer in a media era where so many others have committed 100 percent to podcasts. I work like hell, even on vacation. I wake up every morning and make an effort to justify what the customer gives me. And with that I’ll add a note about all of you. I and my family deeply appreciate your support. This job is hard, but it’s also, thanks to all of you who make it possible, the greatest job in the world.