Free
£0 for good
The letter, every second Thursday.
- Every free essay and note by email
- The public archive on the site
- Replies read and answered
Membership
Read it free. Keep it going as a member.
VERSAL has no advertisers and no sponsors. 612 members pay for the hours each letter takes, which is why the letter can stay free for the other 6,840.
Start with the free letter
Choose how you read
Pay monthly, or yearly and get two months free. Switch or cancel from any receipt.
Member
Most readers choose this£60 a year £6 a month
The whole of VERSAL, and the reason it exists.
- Everything in Free
- The members’ essay on the last Thursday of each month
- The full archive, 140 pieces since 2019
- The Proof Sheet: a quarterly PDF of annotated pages
- Comments and the members’ reading group
Founding member
£150 a year £150 a year only
For readers who want to keep it going.
- Everything in Member
- A letterpress broadside, printed and posted each December
- Your name in the colophon, if you want it there
- First look at every series before it starts
Free or member: what is the difference?
About half of each year’s writing is free for good. The other half, and the archive, is what membership pays for.
Free
- The fortnightly letter by email
- Around half of each year’s essays
- The shelf and the series pages
- RSS for the free posts
Member everything in Free, and
- Every essay, note and series, as it is published
- The members’ essay each month, 3,000 words or so
- The complete archive back to 2019
- The Proof Sheet, four times a year
- The reading group: one book a season, in the comments
- A private RSS feed with full text
For founding members
A broadside, printed by hand every December
Each year I set one short text from the year’s essays in wood type, print it on a hand press in an edition the size of the founding list, and post it in a card tube. Last year’s ran to 94 copies.
Join as a founding member · £150 a yearWhat members write back
Dear Vera,
I have set type for twenty-two years and your piece on the second proof is now pinned above my desk. My apprentice has been told to read it before she reads anything else.
Hello from the night shift,
Your letter arrives on the one evening a fortnight I have to myself. I print it, which I realise you would approve of, and read it with a pencil.
Dear Versal,
I became a member after the essay about rereading one book every January. I have started with a novel I hated at nineteen. We will see about year eleven.
Vera —
I run a two-person press and we used your margins essay to settle an argument that had gone on for a month. You were on my side, so I am renewing.
Questions before you join
- What is the difference between free and member?
- Free readers get the fortnightly letter and roughly half of what is published. Members get everything: the monthly members’ essay, the full archive back to 2019, the quarterly Proof Sheet and the reading group.
- How much is a membership?
- £6 a month or £60 a year, which is two months free. The founding tier is £150 a year and adds a letterpress broadside, printed on a hand press and posted every December.
- Can I cancel at any time?
- Yes. Reply to any letter with the word “cancel”, or use the link in your receipt. Monthly memberships stop at the end of the month; yearly ones are refunded pro rata if you ask within 30 days.
- Is there a student or hardship rate?
- Yes, and you do not have to explain. Write and ask for a free membership. About one in twelve members has one, and the founding members pay for them.
- Can I give a membership as a gift?
- A year’s membership can be given as a gift. Send the recipient’s email and the date it should start, and a short card goes out that morning.
- Do you track who opens the letter?
- No. There is no open tracking, no link tracking and no analytics script on this site. The only number I know is how many people subscribe and pay.
- Can I reprint or quote an essay?
- Quote anything with a link. To reprint a whole piece in a newsletter, zine or course pack, write first. The answer is usually yes and always free for non-commercial use.
- I run a magazine. Can we commission a piece?
- Occasionally, and only on typography, printing or reading. Commissions are booked about three months ahead. Use the contact form and choose “Commission”.
Anything else: write to me