New Year, New BYE!

To avoid the infamous jinx, let's just say this isn't *not* our year.

We know it’s been a minute, but we wanted to take the time to kick off 2024 right.

A lot has been developing behind the scenes and we’ve managed to kickstart a lot of things we’ve been planning for a while.

For starters, we’ve got some new graphic designs coming that’ll give us a complete facelift here – as well as on social media. We’re increasing our publication rate with a couple of brand new series, and launching some exciting new features for our most loyal members.

Hmm… what does that mean? What kinds of features?

Launching Paid Membership Tiers

I’ve been hard at work putting together special offers for those of you who want to become BYE members. I’ve mentioned some of these before – like free access to future workshops and events. But now, thanks to the amazing team of people I’ve managed to bring together, we’re going to be doing a lot more.

1. The BYE Almanac – opportunities for creatives, straight to your calendar monthly!

Introducing our new monthly series! We’ll be curating an extensive list of links, resources, and opportunities for creatives working across all mediums. Specifically, we’ll be covering…

• Filmmaking

• Fine & Digital art

• Photography

• Music & Audio

• Creative Writing.

The monthly newsletter will be available to both members and free subscribers alike, but members will benefit from receiving the deadlines we find automatically added to their Google calendars.

Also, we’re working on producing The Almanac as a podcast!

2. Workshops – professional development & education for all!

We’ll be inviting creative professionals to host online workshops. These will require a small entrance fee for free subscribers, but paid members will benefit from free entry.

Additionally, we’ll be recording our workshops and posting them here. Paid members who missed the chance to attend certain workshops will be free to watch them at their leisure. Or you can just rewatch them if you feel like you missed something!

If you want to host a workshop and don’t want to wait for us to invite you to host, you’re free to become a founding member and inquire about eligibility! Founding members also get listed on our contributor profile page forever!

3. Paid subscriber chats

Thanks to the amazing team of people working to make BYE what it is, we’ll be able to put out some special chats that’ll provide some extra value to you all on a regular basis!

We haven’t fully fleshed out everything we’ll offer with this feature yet, but one thing we thought of was peer-review sessions. I think it could be a great opportunity to encourage community and respectful exchange of feedback and criticism.

If you have any suggestions for anything else we can do in terms of exclusive chats, please drop some suggestions in the comments below!

How much will paid membership cost?

(Currency is listed in CAD but is automatically converted to your local currency.)

Monthly: $7
Yearly: $70
Founding membership: $170/year

Student discount: 50% discount ($3.50/month or $35/year)
All you need is to subscribe with a student email!

Group subscriptions: 20% discount
If a subscription is purchased in groups of two or more, you get 20% off per seat!

Paid subscriptions will begin at the beginning of February. Until then, feel free to pledge a subscription! You’ll be charged once they launch.

Benefit from referring friends!

For referring 5 subscribers:
You’ll be forever listed on our contributor profile page! You can include a little blurb about yourself and a link to your portfolio or any other additional links.

For referring 15 subscribers:
You’ll get free entry to our next workshop!

For referring 25 subscribers:
You’ll get a free 3 month membership!

Oh, and one last thing…

Feature OTW Series – Shining a Spotlight On You Every Week!

As some of you may know already, we’ve amassed a little following on Threads. In an effort to spread the love and get to know the amazing community we’re building, we’re starting to feature our amazing followers here AND on social media, every week.

How it works:

• We post a dedicated article here – in a separate section that’s not delivered through email – that features an in-depth look at our featured creative OTW.

• That article will be pasted to the top of that week’s contribution/staff-created piece (sent straight to your inbox) for subscribers to check out at their leisure.

• On Instagram & Threads, we’ll be putting your post notifications on so that we can repost and share your content for that entire week.

To get featured, all you have to do is be a follower on Threads or Instagram. We choose a follower at random to feature every week. So follow us – and look out for DMs from the team!

Thank you to everyone who’s subscribed and supported us so far. We are so thrilled and excited to start following through on all of these promises. We’ll see you in the New Year (January was just a free trial month)!

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This is a publication that prides itself on celebrating the creative community. Creatives across all mediums share universal experiences, and by welcoming authentic voices, we hope to create a sense of community for all artists. Our mission is to make the experience of living the artist’s life a little less solitary.

Do you have a story to tell? Want to put yourself out there?

Consider pitching to us!
Email byteyourexpression@gmail.com with “Pitch” as the subject heading.

You’ll be given complete creative freedom. As long as you have a focus on providing:

• Inspiration

• Education

• Motivation

• Comfort

• Or anything in between!

For the creative community, it’s all fair game!