Stephen Fisher

Holy crap thank you.

JUL 2, 2020
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 28 seconds. Contains 896 words

I started this newsletter a week ago, at about 9pm because I was talking about the idea for this
project and a friend was like, “OK, cool, how can I pay you for this?” And I didn’t have a
newsletter or payment processor set up.

And my friend surprised me again by putting up a yearly subscription, as a shocking number of

you have.

As a result of this, rather than dipping into my savings, I’ve literally written a check for my
cousins for the $350 for July rent from the $350.70 left over from the $410 y’all have paid as a
show of support and trust in me and this project.

I’m kinda overwhelmed here. And a bit intimidated. I’ve done some minor promotions for this
newsletter, but mostly kept it fairly low key and I’m paying rent a week after starting? OK,
granted, my rent’s real cheap. But still.

OK, whew. So, thank you again. As I’ve said, getting to support myself with research and
writing is pretty much my favorite thing ever and y’all are making that possible without having
to turn tricks for corporate America. Which I have complicated feelings for including shock,
pride, and more than a little, “Why the fuck didn’t you think of this years ago, Mr Marketing
Geniuspants.”

But maybe it wouldn’t have worked then. I’m a hell of a lot better about hitting deadlines these
days. And while maybe I’m the only one who cares about getting this out by 10am est, but it’s
hella important to me that I respect your time and investment and be like clockwork Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Sundays.

What’s next?

We’ve got three priorities today: 1. Let you in on my rough sketch of what my research schedule
looks like 2. Let you know my promotional plans 3. let you in on a secret partnership still in the
works.

The Research Plan

My goal, and it’s going to require some serious work to get there, is to have the bulk of the work
done by August 2nd, a Sunday exactly one month out.

Week 1 (June 25th-July 9th)

• Finish setting up the Newsletter

• Finish reading When Prophecy Fails
• Read the Terence section of High Weirdness
• Read True Hallucinations
• Watch Terence’s major talks about the Timewave
Week 2 (July 10th-July 16th)

• Read the Invisible Landscape

• Interview 10 Terence Mckenna fans
• Start interviewing primaries (Kat, Finn, Dennis, etc)
• Skim through AskTMK.com using major keywords to find snippets of Terence talking
about the timewave
• Finish first draft

Week 3 (17th-23rd)

• Interview another 10 Terence McKenna fans

• Read The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss
• Continue interviewing primaries
• Research people who have tried to resurrect the timewave

Week 4 (24th-2nd)

• Finish interviewing primaries

• Interview another 10 TMK fans
• Whatever overflow work from the previous weeks takes longer than I expected.
• Publish to the list on July 2nd.

Wooosh.

In the meantime, I’m also going to be shopping around for a publication to publish this in a place
where it’ll get more attention than my little corner of the internet.

Promotions

One thing I was super not expecting was to find so many people signing up for a yearly
subscription. Which is cool, in that it shows a lot of faith in the project and me but sets up a
weird cash dynamic and potentially a serious risk for everyone.

Basically, since I’m getting so much up front it means I definitely have to make the math on this
work. Which means that rather than keeping this as a sideline I need to do a serious marketing
push to enough subscribers to make it self sustaining.

Based on the current ratio, the best way to go about this is to chase more yearly subscriptions as
it’s easier to find fewer people willing to throw more money down at once than to find 5-10x as
many of them to put down less.

Here’s what I’m thinking: A limited run pack of stickers/buttons/pins for the yearly subscribers
and stickers for monthly subscribers. I need to run the math on this but i figure if I can get a good
price on say 50 or so pins, I should be able to use a pay-per-click ad stack on google and
facebook to drive a ton of traffic to the page.
Y’all, of course, would get them sent to you.

Now, I’ve still got to find some suppliers and figure out how long it’ll take to get everything to
my place. Don’t want to pull some of that kickstarter “Didn’t do the homework” shit.

That’s what’s on my mind at the moment.

The Secret Partnership

The head honcho of the Terence McKenna Archive and I have been chatting about collaborating
on this. Which is good, because he’s one of the most knowledgeable people about Terence
around, and better ‘cause he’s already interviewed everyone I want to talk to.

Hopefully we’ll have detailed worked out by Sunday.

Hush hush though.

I want to hear from you

Are you interested in talking with me about the Timewave? I’m especially interested in talking
with people who have been into Terence since he was still alive. I’d absolutely love to find
someone who has a copy of the 1975 edition of The Invisible Landscape.

What kind of merch are your most interested in? I’ve got a pile of ideas for all this stuff, but I’m
not sure what people prefer. There’s definitely going to be stickers of the I acknowledge
Psychedelic Class Warfare Exists logo. I’ve got some more elaborate ideas for pins.

But I want to hear from you what you’d like to see or not see.

Alright, see y’all on Sunday.

-SF

P.S. Seriously thank you though. I can’t overstate how grateful for your support I am.