Hi!

This time last year and two years ago, I sent you an email asking you for money. A lot of you gladly chipped in and today, I’m doing the same. To be clear, though: (a) there’s no obligation for you to say yes and (b) you shouldn’t feel guilty (okay, a twinge is fine) if you ignore me or say no. I know not all of you can afford to do such things or just aren’t into it. That’s fine, no worries. For everyone else, though, I hope you’ll consider supporting Now I Know.

As I said last year, my goal is for Now I Know to earn, in total from all revenue sources, $5,000 a month net. Ads and current supporters are getting almost two-thirds of the way there — that’s better than last year! — but I need your help to get me the rest of the way. If 300 more of you contribute $5+ a month today, I’ll hit the goal.

• To become a monthly supporter via the newsletter’s Support page, click here. If you do, you’ll get an ad-free version going forward!
• To become a one-time supporter via PayPal, click here.
• To become a one-time supporter via Venmo, click here — I’m @DanDotLewis.

Thanks! I appreciate it. Now, to explain why I’m asking.

As I said in October 2022, I would love for Now I Know to be my full-time job but, realistically, it’s never going to happen. It simply doesn’t make me enough money (especially now with a kid in college — how’d that happen!) and, as a result, it’s a luxury for me to run. It takes me a lot of work — about 20 hours a week. My much more realistic goal — both then and now — is to bring in $5,000 a month, which I think is reasonable given the out-of-pocket costs and the amount of time I put into this.

This year has been a solid one, financially, for the newsletter. And the real hero is all of you.

Last year, I had 595 backers via Patreon. I’ve switched from Patreon to beehiiv’s native system (it’s easier to give you the ad-free version), but legacy Patreon backers are still there. Combining the two platforms, I’m now at 623 backers, which is wonderful! And the average donation is up to $2.87/backer, up from $2.61 last year. One-time gifts via Venmo and PayPal were down a bit, coming out to about $150/month, but that puts me at just over $1,950/month from your support alone — nearly 40% of the way to my $5,000 goal. Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last year. Because of some changes I made to the newsletter and also because of your generosity, I was able to drastically lower my target of 450 new supporters to only 300!

As for those changes that I just alluded to? Well, it’s actually only big one. My switch from Mailchimp to beehiiv in January has been great. Mailchimp cost me $1,000 a month; beehiiv has been only about $300/month. Plus, beehiiv brings a lot of advertisers to the table that I wouldn’t have had access to previously. They don’t bring in a lot of money individually, but they all help a bit. The end result is that I’m decently ahead of where I was last year, further making that 300 new supporters goal a realistic one.

So I’m asking for your support in the amount of $5 a month. If you can do less, that’s fine, and if you can do more, that’s great. I send you about 20 stories each month, so the $5 level comes out to about 25 cents per story — I hope I’m delivering at least that much value to you each weekday. 

Again, here’s how to help:

• If you’re not a monthly supporter, please consider becoming one.
• If you’re already one, thanks! Please consider upping your support if you’re able.

And if you’re not comfortable with recurring support, I get that — I provided the PayPal and Venmo links above as alternatives.

What will you get for your support? Nothing tangible, sorry! You’ll get the great feeling of knowing that you’re supporting a project that, I hope, you really like. It’s like NPR, basically: your support helps keep this thing going. (If you support me on a recurring basis — at any dollar amount — you’ll get an ad-free version of the newsletter, too.) 

Thanks in advance! Onto the week in review.

The Now I Know Week In Review

Monday: When Christopher Columbus Made the Moon Disappear: This wasn’t very nice of him.

Tuesday: The Fish That Glow … As a Warning?: Zebras can’t change their stripes, or so the saying goes. But marlins? They can — and do!

Wednesday: Where Everybody Knows Your 6E 61 6D 65: A robot walks into a bar and… wait, that’s not quite right.

Thursday: Spider in the Attic: A true crime story.

Long Reads and Other Things

Here are a few things you may want to check out over the weekend:

1) “City on Fire” (Atavist, 37 minutes, September 2024). The fighting during the American Civil War took place primarily in the south, extending as far north as Pennsylvania. States like New York were spared from having armies march through their streets and communities. But on November 25, 1864, the war came to Manhattan as eight Confederates tried to burn the city down. This is that story. (And this is Wikipedia’s much-shorter summary — if you’re interested.)

2) “A Vintage Crime” (Vanity Fair, 20 minutes, July 2012). The subhead: “Collecting vintage Burgundies, Rudy Kurniawan drove the rare-wine market to new heights, then began selling his treasures. Or so it seemed. Michael Steinberger uncorks what may be the largest case of fine-wine fraud in history.” And as long-time readers know, I do live a good fraud story.

3) “Why not shake up the Olympics?” (Washington Post — gift link, 7 minutes, August 2024). I love this article so much and I hope the IOC adopts the ideas. Here’s one of my favorites:

Imagine if the next Olympics invited all those smartphone-toting people to compete in the Games and represent their countries.

The IOC could create a “Citizen Participation” app and make it available to everyone in the world. Individuals could register — entering their name, age and country, for example — and agree to share their location for the duration of the Olympics. Then from the torch lighting to the Closing Ceremonies, the app would count their steps. Those steps would count toward their country’s total steps. And the nations whose citizens accumulated the most steps would win gold, silver and bronze medals in a worldwide competition. (Steps have become a key measure of movement for many of us. But that’s not to say there isn’t a better way to do it, particularly to include people with disabilities.)

That’d be great, right?

Have a great weekend!

Dan