An Update to the Commonplace Membership Program

It's been about six months since I launched Commonplace memberships. Starting in May, I'll be making two changes to Commonplace:

• Weekly Commonplace posts will begin to alternate between members-only and publicly available. This means that the post I publish in the first week of May will be publicly available, and the next will be members-only, and the next will be publicly available, and so on.
• I'm increasing membership fees to $150 a year, and removing the monthly option. Existing members won't see a change in their subscriptions, naturally — they’ll be grandfathered in at their existing plans. If you want to give the Commonplace membership a go, you'll have until the end of the month to subscribe at the current rate of $8 a month or $80 a year.

The weekly Commonplace newsletter will continue to be free, of course. It's only the post that will begin to be paywalled, every other week.

Why I'm doing this: I quite enjoy writing for members, because I can get more personal than I normally do. For instance, I have updates I'd like to make to my Chinese businessmen series, based on things I've learnt over the past two years, but these findings aren't things that I am comfortable putting out there in public. This is true for a few other things (for instance, my post on Career Networking and Power).

Also, I'm currently in the weeds of writing the Commonplace Guide to Career Moats, and I realise that I'd like to make a copy available for sale. The Commonplace Guides are going to be available to members, forever, so that presents a bit of a challenge: people are going to be able to read the entire thing for the price of $8 a month. (And then unsubscribe immediately afterwards!) My thinking is that it makes sense to have membership be a higher-priced tier, while keeping the book at a typical book price (around $25-$40, with bundles).

To sum up:

• Commonplace posts will begin to alternate between publicly-available and members-only, starting in May.
• Commonplace membership will be $150 a year, starting in May. Existing members won't be affected. If you're not yet a member, you'll have until the end of this month (April 30th) to subscribe at the existing rate of $8/mo or $80/yr.  Sign up here!
• The Commonplace newsletter will remain free. :-)

To view the full membership offering, click here. The offering currently includes access to Guides, access to the forum, and access to members-only articles.

If you’re already a member — thank you for your support; I’ll see you in the forums!

Originally published 21 April 2021, last updated 25 August 2022.