Pledge Week! Final Ask
Help us keep growing
This week, we’re seeking 25 new paid subscribers at the level of $5 per month. All subscription revenue goes directly to our contributing writers, which means the more subscribers we have the more we can publish. Help support our mission and great crime and mystery fiction.
Hello, Callers! Thanks for hanging with us this week. My family didn’t have cable when I was a kid, but we did grow up watching PBS, and I remember just how grating those pledge drives could be. (“SHUT UP AND GET BACK TO MARTY STOUFFER’S WILD AMERICA!!”)
But I also think there’s something wise about focusing fundraising efforts on one big push, rather than beating the drum endlessly. Instead of asking for subscriptions every week, I’d much rather keep publishing great fiction and interviews with authors I love and admire. Editing Cold Caller has been one of my great joys this year, and I am so incredibly grateful for all the support this this project has received since its inception. I hope I’ve been able to share some of that joy with you, and share your support with our contributors.
So how did we do? We had an ambitious goal of 25 new paying subscribers, and while we didn’t quite get there I’m still very happy to say we had a great response from our readers—one strong enough to help us publish even more fiction.
For context, in 2025 we published one piece of original short fiction each month. But thanks to your support, we can now publish an additional six stories in 2026. That means instead of publishing 12 stories next year, we’ll publish at least 18 new pieces of fiction. If the subscriptions keep growing, we’ll increase that to 24: Two new stories per month, alongside craft interviews with each author.
And if we grow after that? Then we’ll increase what we pay authors.
My dream is for Cold Caller to become one of the best markets for crime and mystery fiction. One that pays well without charging reading fees while making stories accessible to everyone. We’re well on our way to making that happen, and it’s all thanks to you.
Thank you for your support. Thank you for believing in this work. And thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting writers. I’m excited for what next year will bring. Thank you for making it happen.