Introducing… Smart Bitches After Dark!
We have a logo and everything, so it’s official now!
And you can register if you like! Come on in, the mayhem is delightful!
What’s Smart Bitches After Dark?
So glad you asked!
The short version: we’re creating a special area for SBTB supporting subscribers to have a little extra fun, be a little extra more themselves, and to keep the site open for everyone into the future.
The longer version: Smart Bitches After Dark is an opportunity for community support.
We’ve been hanging out for almost 20 years, and the internet has changed a lot in that time: how we use it, how we talk to each other, where we go to find one another, and how to sustain businesses like this one.
Our goal is to keep the community of Smart Bitches open for everyone, rather than move it all behind a paywall.
We want people to keep discovering romance, the books we talk about, and the wonderful, welcoming community we have here.
In order to do that, we need your help. Enter: Smart Bitches After Dark.
What’s inside Smart Bitches After Dark?
Old Skool Smart Bitches!
We’re bringing back a lot of the features from the archives of Original Recipe Smart Bitches, like open threads, reviews of older romances (especially the absolutely off the wall ones. Remember time travel?!) games, silly contests, recommendations, reader reviews, afternoon tea, and deeper discussions about romance, changes in the genre, and serious topics. We’ll also be doing live events online, including streaming, trivia nights, and happy hour gatherings.
Another thing that’s changed in the past 20 years is how we need safer spaces in which to be ourselves.
We want Smart Bitches After Dark to be that place for us.
Not only do we want this to be a space where you can be even more of yourself, where you can share book recs, get silly and snarky and have a rollicking good time, but we also want to make sure the Hot Pink Palace that is Smart Bitches Trashy Books stays open for everyone looking for their next read.
To be clear: we aren’t moving any of the existing shenanigans behind a paywall. We want Smart Bitches to stay open for everyone.
It’s going to be fun, and silly, and fulfilling and fabulous. I hope you’ll be part of it!
With your help, we can keep Smart Bitches and the hot pink palace open for everyone.
Who is this community for?
- Are you the type of person who is sometimes silly, sometimes snarky, and irreverently passionate about books, characters, and trends?
- Are you a longtime romance and/or Smart Bitches reader who fondly remembers old skool SBTB mayhem like Pregnesia and The Playboy Sheikh’s Virgin Stable Girl?
- Are you a newer and happily obsessed fan of romance whose body might maybe flash a little hot sometimes, and who wants to find a community that welcomes your enthusiasm and can perhaps help explain some of the genre’s history, including scandals of yore? Come deepen your fandom!
- Are you tired of hearing about the same 4 books on TikTok and want more personalized and expert recommendations from people with truly encyclopedic knowledge of tropes?
- Are you a reader who values what we do and wants to help keep the site open for everyone?
If you fit any or all of the above (Hi!) and if you want to have a little extra fun, be a little more yourself, and be part of keeping the site open for everyone in the future, we can’t wait to see you.
What’s the cost?
$9 a month, or $90 for the year, which includes two months for free. Free, cheezy bread, free!
Where is it?
Right here! You’ll have a place to log in, and twice a week, there will be special content just for the After Dark community.
What if I have an idea for you?
By all means, please email and tell me!
How do I join?
Anything else?
Thank you for reading! We want Smart Bitches to continue into the future as a community-supported celebration of romance and of reading. Smart Bitches After Dark is going to help all of us sustain the site and with it, the connections between people all over the world who come to hang out here.
Also interested. Generally I run screaming from commitment but this site has earned my respect over and over again.
I’m in!
Here for it!
Yes please! That all sounds wonderful!! I’ve been looking for ways to find joy/laughter. Thank you!
I’m interested!
I’ll be sending out an email for early registration on Sunday to everyone in this thread, so I’m going to close comments tomorrow around 12pm ET. Thank you again SO MUCH for your interest.
Also: I have enabled gifting of memberships! So you can buy a membership for someone else, and email them from the checkout screen. WOO!
Definitely interested, SBTB has been my homepage for so long now it’s only right that I support you in other ways.
Add me
Definitely interested. Will the After Dark content be ad free or at least less ad-annoying?
@PamG: I just finished working on that this week! The After Dark site will be a low-ad format. Only the ads in the right sidebar will appear on the desktop version, and in the mobile version, only the three mobile spaces that I manage. External ads will not appear (or if they do, I’ll be working on shutting them off asap).
I’m interested!
I’m in!
I’m interested!
I’m in as well!
@Sarah
I’m so glad to hear that. Intrusive, unmanageable advertising is less an SB-TB problem than a whole internet problem, but while I’m happy to support the site, I’d dearly love to deal with fewer annoying pop- ups in spaces I’m paying to access. Thanks, Sarah.
Interested!
I’m interested!
I’m interested!
I would love an invitation too.
Woohoo — I am in, too!
Would love to join and support this site that helped me figure out more of who I am and that it’s ok to just stop listening to those who yuck my yum.
Count me in!
Yes I am ready to sign up,
I’m interested!
Possibly interested!
I am interested.
Me, me, me! *waving hand in air*
UPDATE: I have sent email messages to everyone!
If you didn’t receive an email, a few bounced back to me as undeliverable: aellnor and willynillyar, please email me and I’ll make sure you can register with the early bird discount.
Thank you so, so much for your eager and enthusiastic responses!