Your time has come

Dear readers – we're excited and nervous as we send this newsletter. For the past two months, ever since we started publishing, we've been building up to this day: the moment we turn on our subscriptions and see how many people want to back us as paying members.

So, here we go! You can now click the buttons below to become one of the first ever patrons of a new chapter for quality journalism in Glasgow, writing your name into the history books as a Day One member of The Bell. There's even a 20% early bird discount to sweeten the deal. More on that below.

As a paying member, you're joining our community right from the start. Not only will you get a clutch (between eight and ten to be precise) of extra members-only editions of The Bell every month – packed with great local stories and insightful analysis – you'll also get exclusive access to our comments and members' events.

Most importantly, you'll be showing your support for the kind of journalism that we do: an approach that favours quality over quantity and involves spending enough time to understand important stories in Glasgow. We've already got nearly 4,500 of you signed up on our e-mail list, so clearly, there's a demand.

As a thank you to our early backers, we’re giving you a 20% discount, meaning a monthly subscription will add up to little over £7 a month. This amounts to £1.79 per week, significantly less than a flat white these days. (And buying an annual subscription saves you even more money – with two months thrown in free!) Hit the buttons below to join up. Or you can become a Super Supporter to give some extra backing to our journalism.

We strongly believe that the only sustainable path ahead for local journalism is to be funded and powered by readers. We've all seen the alternative: an era that promised "free" news but delivered websites blanketed in ads, newsrooms cut to the bone and journalists asked to write a story-per-hour to feed the insatiable demands of chasing ad-funded online "traffic".

The beauty of being funded by readers is that if we are funded by you, we report to you. Instead of pushing us to produce volume or "clickbait" stories about celebrities, reader memberships create the right incentive: people are paying for high-quality journalism, and we will only retain our members and grow if we deliver that kind of journalism day after day.

In our first two months, we’ve poked holes in the finances of bus barons, taken a trip across the Clyde on a wee ferry, dug into why the city’s oldest street is falling apart, and written a veritable love letter to shawarma. And we’re just getting warmed up. 

Every week, we'll have two members-only editions. This week, our first members-only piece will be an important new update about the stalled rebuilding of The Mack. Join up as a member now to get that in your inbox on Thursday.

We've been blown away by the uptake and enthusiasm for The Bell since we published our first story back in September. Thousands have joined our free mailing list, and we've had so many lovely emails and messages of encouragement.

What we now need is to turn this publication into a sustainable business, with enough regular income to pay us to keep doing what we are doing, to pay the brilliant local freelance journalists we publish, the photographers we commission and the lawyers whose advice allows us to take on the rich and powerful. As soon as we become financially viable with our current cost base, we can start to expand the team and build the newsroom that Glasgow deserves to have.

We will only get there with your help. If you value what we're doing and want to read more of it, please take out your membership and then immediately email us to introduce yourselves (editor@glasgowbell.co.uk). We'll see you at our first members' event very soon.