The New "Off The Tracks" Here on Substack...let me know if you want to to be comped a premium sub.

How it works, why it's happenend, what it means...and how you could score a 'free' premium sub-upgrade

Hey there, and welcome to “Off The Tracks” - which might look an awful lot like “Sounds Good!” on Substack since it’s arriving to you in the same way.

Last week, I mentioned this change. Everything I ever wrote over at Off The Tracks (a website I started in late 2011) is now available here. It’s all been migrated over to Substack. And if you have one of the premium subscriptions ($5 a month or $35 for a whole year) you can view everything always, you will be able to access the lot - including anything new.

It just felt like time to put the two sets of writing together and manage them in one place.

I’m still writing fresh “Off The Tracks” pieces. I put up an album review this morning. I’m not going to email you every single time I post a piece of content, that would be torture for you and me both - but from time to time I might share something as a bonus, something that I’d really like you to read - like Sunday night’s review of the play Prima Facie. In general, you are just going to receive the regular newsletters on a Monday (TV/Movies), Wednesday (books/writing) and Friday (music with a bonus playlist). But if you have the app, or like to check in at the Substack site, you will find all sorts of old and fresh content, there’s already more than 11,000 posts here. So it’s quite the archive.

If you’re on the free subscription and want to stay on in it - that’s fine. You’ll get the newsletters. And some of the reviews and fresh pieces will be free for anyone to read. But most of them - and most of the archive - will be ‘locked’ and available only to the paid-subs.

Now, over the weekend, I comped about 50 people. I just randomly scrolled through the email addresses and upgraded people. Some of you got a six-month sub, some got 90 days, others a month. There was no rhyme or reason to it - just a bonus/experiment, since I’m changing things up here and adding more content.

I mentioned this in yesterday’s newsletter, but I want to be clear - if you are currently a free subscriber and would like to trial being on the paid-level so that you can get more of the content and see if it’s of value to you then all you need to do is message me through this platform or leave a comment below. Tell me that you’d like to be upgraded - and no questions asked, I will comp you.

Obviously, my hope in all of this is that you’ll see the value and pay for a subscription for yourself or gift one to another person. (Or both!) But, there will be no questions asked, and no pressure beyond this. So if you want to take advantage of this offer, then return to the free level, or unsubscribe entirely, I totally understand. And I thank you for your time.

Receiving emails or reading the posts and newsletters on the app or through your inbox is not going to be for everyone everyday. I like to think that I’m sharing standalone pieces, and you dip in and out when you like.

So, Off The Tracks is now part of Substack. And you will be able to access all of the old things that I’ve written - interviews, reviews, rants, raves, podcasts, playlists - and there will be new things appearing most days too.

I hope that clears it up. Let me know if you’d like to trial a paid-sub for longer than the 7 days that you can get through Substack and I’ll hook you up. Promise! And let me know any questions or thoughts on this combination of “Sounds Good” and “Off The Tracks” and this huge new archive I’m assembling on Substack.

author

simonsweetman.substack.com on Instagram: ”#nowlistening🎧”

June 26, 2023

Thanks for your time. As always. And you can follow me on Insta - where I’m now called “Soundsgoodonsubstack” and I’ll always share content-updates on there. Example below:

And if this was the email-straw that broke the back of your camel-inbox, I can’t apologise, I can only say thank you for your time while you were here and while you cared and maybe we’ll see each other again in some capacity.

Sound good?

“Sounds Good!”

This post was created while I was listening to this: