Oh, Boy. Adam Nathan Site Changes.

On Sunday I'm introducing significant changes to my site. These include a full rebrand, the introduction of paid subscriptions and a primary focus on fiction. Learn more.

Here it is. The new logo.

This Sunday, the 25th I’m introducing significant changes to my site. My hope is that these changes will broaden the reach of my work, provide a clearer user experience for new visitors, and offer exclusive benefits to those readers with the deepest investment in my work.

Let’s start with the biggest one: the name of the site is changing. The new title is “100 Stories.” The idea couldn’t be simpler. I will be releasing one short story a month for a hundred months. This will take me from the first story I release on Sunday to May of 2032. It’s an exhilarating, if daunting challenge. A life challenge.

I’m making this change because I’m excited about a shift in primary focus to fiction. I love the chance to explore voices, genres, points of view, locations, the real and the imagined. I love the 1 in a 100 shot at a true gem. Mostly, I love writing stories — and my observation has been that you like reading them. Clearly this will be tested. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to get here.

On the other hand, my more personal work is going behind a paywall.

Undoubtedly, I’ll share some of these with free subscribers at times, but directionally, fiction is free, personal is paid. Not all of the kinks are worked out. I don’t, for example, know what I’ll do with existing content. I do know I will feature at least one other writer’s work once a month. I’ve taken a lot of pleasure in doing that to date. I plan to do that in a more scheduled cadence.

The paid subscription will act as a gatekeeper for the personal work. Substantial financial benefits from my writing and modest audience is an absurdity, but I like the contractual agreement that my work means enough to me to “buy me a coffee” as they say. I’d also like to know who — how else to put it — cares.

I will use any proceeds from subscriptions to plow subscriptions back into the Substack ecosystem. I will quid pro quo on subscriptions for other Substack writers. You subscribe to me. I subscribe to you. This provides a built in discount on reading my work for other Substack writers. I will also have an introductory offer that grandfathers everyone in at an absurdly modest level. Details on all of that later.

So, on Sunday a bunch of things are going to happen:

• The new site is unfurled.

• Paid subscriptions are introduced

• The first “100 Stories” story is published. It’s called “Backgammon.” It is, oh surprise surprise, extremely intense because that is how I roll. [It comes with an adult theme disclaimer.] You, curiously enough, are an important character in it, arguably the most important character of all.

For those of you that enjoy the more personal writing, next Thursday I’ll introduce the next serialized installment of my 365 memoir. Our paid journey together will be off and running.

The paid content is called “51 Maple Drive #2.” It’s the story of falling in love with my wife, the happiest three-month stretch of my life. Honestly, it’s about being as happy as you can get. As a reader we’ve spent a lot of time moving in the other direction together, and you’ve probably given up on happiness here. Don’t. 51 Maple Drive #2 is shot through with Love.

So here we go: 100 months. Moments from now I’m going to press Publish and change my life. (A propitious moment: a news update just informed me of the first moon landing in 50 years. The heavens are aligned.)

Undoubtedly, this will be a journey of enormous personal significance and, hopefully, one that you are proud to have joined right out of the gate with story #1:

Backgammon.