Collaborations
Let's make something together, for the women we both already care about.
The Long Letter is small on purpose. A few mothers at a time, each opening an envelope at her kitchen table. What I can offer a collaborator is not reach. It is trust, a woman's full attention, and my name beside yours in a place she keeps.
Every collaboration here ends the same way: a mother can write her first letter, free. That is the only measure I use.
Four ways to work together
Write in each other's space
For writers, newsletters and anyone with an audience of mothers.
I write a real letter for your readers, you write something for mine, or we simply point at each other honestly. No fee either way. It costs an afternoon and it is the best thing either of us can do for the other.
What I bring: an original letter, written for your readers rather than recycled, and a free first letter for anyone who wants one.
What I hope for: the same in return, in your own voice.
Give my subscribers an hour of what you do
For therapists, lawyers, financial coaches, photographers, doulas, organizers.
One free session, one hour, one sitting, offered to the women in a season. You meet the exact people you want to help. They get something they could not otherwise afford, and I get to say that being here comes with more than letters.
What I bring: the introduction, in a letter, with your name in my handwriting.
What I hope for: that you treat her well, and tell me honestly if it is too much to keep up.
Bring letters to the women you serve
For shelters, family programs, schools, churches and workplaces.
The one that pays for itself. A free pilot for fifteen women, then seats at $25 a month each. Your clients get letters wherever they are, and you get a report written for your funders.
Make something together
For stationers, printers, potters, candle makers, illustrators.
A notebook, a card set, a box of blank Dear ___ cards. Your craft, my words, both names on it. We agree the split and who owns the design before we start, and neither of us is shy about the numbers.
What I bring: the writing, the design direction, and the women who already trust the brand.
What I hope for: honest costs, small first runs, and patience while we learn what sells.
Sponsorship, if that suits you better
Sometimes a brand simply wants to be in the envelope. That is welcome too, on the same terms.
Something in the seasonal parcel
By Post subscribers get a small parcel each season, opened by hand at a kitchen table. One partner per season, one thing per parcel, chosen by me. It has to be useful or lovely, and never a leaflet dressed as a gift. You send the item, I write a line in my own hand saying who it came from, which is the part that does the work.
$2 a parcel, 50 parcel minimumPlus your product. A season is four parcels, and you can take one or all four.
A line in the quarterly letter
Four times a year I send The Wall to everyone on the list: one sentence each from mothers in every season. At the end there is room for one partner, in my words, about why I think it would help her.
$250 an issueOne partner only. While the list is small, so is the price.
What I will never do
- Sell, share or rent a single name, address or email. Not ever, at any price.
- Let anyone write to her but me. Nothing arrives addressed from a brand.
- Put in something I have not used, read, eaten or trusted myself.
- Work with anyone whose product makes a promise about her body, her health or her money.
- Take more than one partner in a season, or let a parcel turn into a bag of samples.
- Tell you who opened, clicked or bought. I will tell you honestly how many women received it and what they said, without their names.
If that costs me a partner, it costs me a partner. She is the reason any of this is worth doing.
Sponsor a mother
Not a collaboration at all, just a kindness. Nineteen dollars a month gives one woman her letters for as long as you keep it up. She is referred by one of the shelters or programs I work with, she never needs to know who you are, and you can stop at any time. A full year is $228, paid monthly.
Tell me what you have in mind
I answer within two working days, and I will tell you plainly if I do not think it is a fit.
Thank you. It reached me, and I will write back within two working days.