A Guide to Brent and Michael Are Going Places
On our third anniversary, here is a look at some features of this newsletter that you may not know about.
Happy Birthday to Brent and Michael Are Going Places! We’re now three years old.
We became nomads at the end of 2017. We’re professional writers, and the plan was to continue writing our novels and screenplays as we continuously traveled the world.
In 2020, we wrote a memoir of our first two years as nomads, and we quickly landed an agent for the book. But publishers could not have been less interested.
Later that year, Brent read about this crazy new thing called “Subtack newsletters,” and he said to Michael, “Huh, this seems like it could be suited to our strengths. Plus, we’ve got all the content from our rejected memoir that we could re-purpose.”
“No one wanted our memoir,” Michael said. “Why would anyone read our newsletter?”
Brent agreed, but we also both thought, Well, we could at least give it a shot.
A few months later we soft-launched, and we quickly discovered that publishers were wrong about no one being interested in our travels.
People were really, really interested!
Since then, our growth has been steady and continuous. Honestly, we’re kind of amazed that more than six thousand of you receive our newsletter.
We now also have syndication agreements with Yahoo, GayCities, and LGBTQ Nation for certain pieces of our content, which means that every month, we’re read by at least 300,000 people.
Three years ago, we never imagined we’d have this kind of reach.
And, frankly, we’ve almost certainly made a lot more money with this newsletter than if we’d published that memoir. This newsletter — and the little media empire we’ve created around it — is now our primary income.
But, of course, the best part of this whole experience has been the many connections we’ve made with people all over the world, with their comments, emails, direct messages, and in-person meet-ups.
And we’re especially grateful to the almost six hundred people who have allowed this to become our primary income by supporting us with their paid subscriptions.
We truly wouldn’t be here without you.
Here are some of our most popular articles lately:
But there’s another point to this email: to highlight some features of Brent and Michael Are Going Places of which you might not be aware:
Travel Index
Our Travel Index is a compilation of all the content we’ve published, organized by both region and topic.
Facebook Group
Michael runs a Facebook group where he posts more extensive updates on our travels and more of his photography. Yes, members discuss our latest articles, but mostly they geek out on all kinds of travel-related issues.
Audio Editions
About a year ago, we started recording audio editions of many of our articles — different from the automatically generated (and somewhat creepy) audio versions within the Substack app.
These versions are the two of us actually narrating our articles.
These editions are only available to paid subscribers, and you can find a direct link at the top of the articles in question.
Direct Messaging
Another feature only available to paid subscribers is the option to contact either or both of us directly to answer travel-related questions. You can do so via email or through direct messaging in the app — links below.
We truly love writing this newsletter, and we hope we’ll be doing it for many more years to come.
Thanks for being a part of it and coming along to all the places we’re going.
Brent & Michael
P.S. Interested in becoming a paid subscriber — with full access to all our content, and also helping to support our work? Below is a coupon for 40% off for as long as you continue to subscribe.
Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at BrentHartinger.com.
Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For more about Michael, visit him at MichaelJensen.com.
Happy belated birthday! You both have been authentic and engaging with your readers. Looking forward to more! :)
Just found your page. I'm glad not getting a publisher didn't prevent you from pursuing writing and documenting your journey. Is your memoir interspersed within the Substack pages here?