Dear fellow romantics,

It’s now almost 7 years since I started this podcast. I couldn’t have made it this far without your recurring support, and I’m very proud of what we have built together. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I made some big changes

In those 7 years, I have always wanted to keep everything free for everyone. The stories and the extras (early access, behind-the-scenes content, extra scenes,…) I wanted everyone to have access to all of it. I tried to make that work in the spirit of the gift economy, believing enough people would give back to keep me going.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work. That’s why I have decided to change things. From now on, the extras will only be available to people supporting the podcast through Patreon. I hope this will convince more people to support my work so I can continue to create stories for everyone.

How this impacts you

This changes things for you as well, I’m afraid. Since you are supporting me directly through the website, I cannot give you access to the extras. This is annoying and frustrating and I regret having to implement it that way for you. I hope you’ll let me explain why I have to.

This is the gist: it’s a tax thing. As soon as I give something in return for a financial transaction, like an extra scene, it is considered a sale instead of a gift or donation. That means I have to charge sales tax.

Charging sales tax is not that hard, but the bookkeeping that comes with it is. I would have to file sales tax documents in every country where someone sends support. It is impossible for me as a small entrepreneur to file sales tax accounting for so many countries around the world.

In the past, I shared extra scenes with everyone for free. That meant there were no sales on the website and every contribution was considered a gift. Now, however, I did want to start selling the extra content.

The only practical way for me to do that is through a partner who does have the capacity to process all the sales tax accounting. This is where Patreon comes in. They do all that for me in return for a fee.

This is, of course, very annoying and perhaps frustrating to you. You have supported my work voluntarily and now no longer have access to extras like you used to. Unfortunately, there really is no other way than to support me through Patreon to regain access. I’m very sorry about that.

What now?

If you don’t really want access to the extras and want to continue supporting me, nothing has to change. Your support will continue to be processed as before and will go to the podcast in full. You can also still cancel at any time. The episodes will continue to appear wherever you listen to the podcast.

If you do want access to the extras, I can only humbly ask you to consider (also) supporting me through Patreon. You can discover all the different Patreon support options here Let me know if you want to cancel or lower your recurring gift through this website and I will take care of it immediately.

I hope all of this makes sense to you. If not, please don’t hesitate to send me your questions or thoughts! Again, I am forever grateful for your voluntary support throughout the years. It still means the world to me.

💜

Sigrid