🍪 Leaving Cookies for Santa

A special Christmas message from Ian and Adrian.

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | December 13, 2023 | Madrid

🎉 Welcome to The Tapa, your English-language, weekly newsletter about all things Spain!

💶 This Week in a Nutshell: The Tapa Newsletter is shutting down.

Kidding! BAD JOKE! We’re totally not. But if you felt bad/a touch glum after reading that, that might mean a) you just ate some bad clams or b) you like us and would be sad to see us go and might even be interested in helping us build The Tapa. But more on that in a minute.

🕺Without further ado, it’s now time for a note from ~~our sponsor~~ er, from us.

Hello, Hola 👋 and—most importantly—Thank you!

Just 10 months ago, we (aka Ian and Adrián) decided to launch The Tapa because we wanted something like it in our lives—that is, a reasonably brief, clear-spoken, non-ideological, marginally snarky, and (we like to think) sometimes witty roundup of all things Spain.

It turned out, much to our pleasant surprise, that there were other people (some even not related to us) who wanted to join us on this ride. In fact, as we noted, in our newsletter on Nov. 30, there were at least 1,000 of you (!). Like we said already—Thank You! 🙏

Now that we’ve crossed this (online, virtual) line in the sand and proven (we hope!) that people like this whole newsletter thing, we are excited to announce new plans for The Tapa. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be rolling out events (who doesn’t like a wine-tasting?), targeted services at the intersection of local and foreign (have some visa woes?), international versions (got a journo friend in Lisbon to recommend?) and, of course, merch (because you know you need a The Tapa mug).

On a more nuts-and-bolts note, in early 2024 we will also be separating the weekly news (Thursday) and weekly events (Friday) newsletters, so people can subscribe to either or both. We’ve had this request from readers who live outside Madrid—ask and ye shall receive!

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That brings us to the proverbial “call to action.”

The Tapa is a labor of love. But it is also a labor that takes time—that precious, limited resource.

That’s why we’re now opening up The Tapa’s paid subscription service on Substack and would like to make a small plea: if you find The Tapa valuable and/or useful, either personally or professionally, and have the wherewithal and desire to do so, would you please sign up for a paid subscription?

This is completely voluntary. In the future, we plan to offer special members-only content and event invitations (and so on), but for now we’re just asking for a small contribution to validate our work and allow us to make the investment to expand…and offer more. It’s like the Guardian’s voluntary subscription model (albeit with just a wee bit smaller newsroom).

As you’ll see if you click the subscription button below, we’ve set the subscriptions at what on first glance may be two rather odd levels—€5/month or €30/year.

We were originally planning to offer a “personal” subscription level of €3/month or €30/year for readers who just like reading The Tapa to get informed and learn a bit about the thrills and chills of Spain; and a “professional” subscription level of €5/month or €50/year for those who use The Tapa for work (and might, you know, be able to expense it).

Unfortunately, Substack won’t let us set a monthly price below 5 units (€5 or $5 or…) so we’ve set prices at different levels by the month and year to allow people to choose as they like.
Here’s the subscribe button to change from free to paid if you’d like.
If that doesn’t work, click here to change.

Subscribe now

Again, this is totally voluntary right now, and you’ll keep getting The Tapa for free if you don’t sign up for a paid subscription, but a few pavos (or mangos, if you’re feeling Argentine) will help us build The Tapa Empire into greater things—and make us smile.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Well, there is one final note: If your business or those of any of your friends or professional contacts would be interested in appearing as the primary sponsor of The Tapa (this involves the large advertisement in the middle of the newsletters), please contact us at tapa@substack.com (or leave us your email in a comment below) for our fees and data such as subscriber demographics and open rates.