Seven reasons to subscribe and support the Roving Ranger, the all things Tolkienian newsletter

I would love to achieve a goal until Frodo’s and Bilbo’s Birthday this year, that is, until Sept 22, 2025:

• Get this newsletter to more than 1,000 subscribers.

The last time I sent it out it was sent to 828 people all over the world and I would love to reach more Tolkien fans, if possible. Your help is greatly appreciated!

If ONE of the reasons below is good enough for you - then subscribe for free! You are most welcome.

If TWO OR MORE reasons sound good to you - then consider supporting my work via Steady. 😇

The Seven Reasons

1. You are interested in all things Tolkienian - the things this newsletter is offering on a weekly basis. Events, great pieces of scholarship, posts describing the ‘behind the scenes’ situation of the series, films, games and more being done, inspired by Middle-earth. Thank you for your interest!

2. You happen to know me personally and/ or like the work I am doing as the Tolkienist, wherever I can, whenever I can. Essentially a sympathy vote 🤩. Thank you for that!

3. You love supporting the Tolkien societies out there, the smials, the regulars’ tables, volunteers organising readings, workshops, the academics and their lectures - essentially, you love to support those people who make our fandom awesome. People that do not have tons of money to spend for advertising, marketing, social media campaigns - but who do all the groundwork and keep our fandom going. Those are the people I want to highlight with my newsletter. Much appreciated!

4. You are aware that it is taking me 8-12 hrs every week - sometimes more - to curate this newsletter. I am going through more than a 1,000 items for every issue, sometimes up to 1,500 items, to make sure you only get the good and well-researched pieces - or the fun stuff! And you are willing to support this. Thank you, again!

5. You have heard that the so-called genAI-tools are essentially killing off the internet as we used to know it. Thanks to the monopoly of Google as a search engine its abuses are wreaking havoc and killing off access to sites. Even with my small website at thetolkienist.com (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) I have seen visitor numbers drop off dramatically - almost all major media sites have been losing traffic (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). Essentially, all the work I have done on fake quotes with Tolkien, to name just one topic, is now siphoned off by the Google AI results shown on top of the search results - and Tolkien fans will never hear of my site and my work. (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) However, the worst thing is that the results shown get worse and worse when it comes to quality - and curation is ever more important. Thank you for appreciating this!

6. You are aware that independent services on the internet are essential to actually find anything of value. With social media and trillion dollar companies ruling large parts of the web - and they can change their rules & regulations at any time - you need to find places you can rely on. Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) for this two years ago - Discord can start asking money for its use, Facebook groups can be closed or deleted, intentionally or through a mistake, Instagram could start offering ‘premium services’, meaning you won’t get to see what you want to see if you don’t pay - the list of abusive options is endless. I would love to be one of those independent, reliable spaces for you. With Steady (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), a company based in Germany, in Europe, free of enshittifaction, self-sustaining, run by creatives for creatives. Thank you!

7. You are willing and able to support the creatives, the volunteers in our fandom via crowdfunding or other means and you are very happy to do so - and if I happen to be one of those people I can promise you that with every new subscriber and every new supporter via Steady I will be able to do even more - for you lovely people, this amazing fandom. It has given me so much and I will give back as much as I can. Thank you.

I am sure you can think of even more reasons - if you have any suggestions, please drop them in the comments or send me an email: marcel[at]thetolkienist.com. 🤩

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