Welcome to Home of the Brave, I'm Scott Carrier. There isn't going to be a story in today's show.

I'm just going to ask for money, like a fund drive, so maybe you want to turn it off now.

If you're still there, I want to say thank you for listening to my stories. I don't know how many of you there are but I know you reach around the world

which blows me away I'm here in my house and I push a button on my computer and my stories end up on your phones and computers and you

listen and sometimes send me money so I can keep making more stories.

I take this relationship quite seriously because I know it's

both fairly unusual and also a really good deal because it allows me an enormous

amount of freedom to do and say what I want. It feels like the best way

for an independent producer to operate, except for when I'm running a deficit like now, and then it's all doom and gloom. Currently I'm

$8,000 in the whole and I don't think I should go anywhere or plan a big project

until I get back in the black.

I'd rather be working on the next story, for sure.

I feel like I'm unsuited for this part of the job.

I'm not interested in marketing and promotion. I'm opposed to

advertising. I'm against monetizing my product. I don't want my stories to go viral.

I want them to go fungal like the underground network of Michael

chorizal fibers that connect the roots of trees and plants in a forest sharing

food and information a natural internet of physical connections on a cellular

level. I'd rather think of my audience as trees than as data points on a graph. I'd rather grow my audience by word of mouth than by clickbait.

So far this year I brought in about $60,000 in contributions.

One third of this, $20,000 has come from many small donations, averaging about $12, but some as high as

one or $200. The other two-thirds, or

...