Greetings all!
Big Announcement
I’ve reached the time of transition! I’m moving this blog/mailing list over to Substack. Besides this email, you can expect subscription notifications and confirmations from Substack.
Before I go any farther, I want to emphasize that the stuff you’ve been getting from me for free will remain free. I may set up paid subscribers at some point, if it makes sense, but I will always provide an update to all who subscribe for free.
You’ve been partners with me along this journey and I appreciate you. If I do come up with something for paid subscribers, it will be content worthy of you wanting to pay for. I’m not sure I can deliver that right now, so I won’t even try until I can provide fair value. You guys deserve that respect.
Again, I’m importing my mailing list contacts from MailOctopus to Substack. I *think* this will be essentially the same as if I moved from MailOctopus to MailChimp or some other service, so it should be fairly painless. At least I hope so. Please let me know if there’s an issue.
Why make this change?
Basically, I think we can do a lot more together on Substack. It’s a more interactive platform, allowing us to hang out.
I think over the last year or so, I haven’t provided enough to you all. I’ve asked you to read the same sort of content and now it’s time to up my game.
I want to create a place where I can talk about all sorts of cool stuff that interests me and give you a chance to geek out on the things I’m geeking out about.
How am I going to improve?
I’m going to up my game by adding more media. In particular, I’m going to do a podcast each week following a schedule something like this:
- Week One of the Month: Writing and Creative Process
- Week Two: Something in history that interests me
- Week Three: A book or magazine review, usually of a magazine from the golden age of SF or old Dragon mags. That sort of thing.
- Week Four: Sports!
- Week Five: And whenever there’s a week five, it’ll be a grab bag.
I’m going to start this with my first real podcast next Tuesday at 6pm Central. I’ll be interviewing the amazing Kacey Ezell, who’ll talk about her new project to help creators.
Again, this is 6pm Central on Tuesday the 3rd. In general, I will set podcasts up as a live event, assuming I figure out Substack. I want your snarky comments.
That Tuesday 6pm Central slot, by the way, is my first guess at the best time to do it. As I get feedback from you guys, that time may change. Maybe it’ll be 7pm Central. Maybe 8. I don’t know where we end up because I don’t yet know what works best for you guys. Please drop me a line and tell me what you want. In fact, I’ll probably set up a poll for that.
Of course, if you can’t be there live, you can watch it later and send in questions and comments.
While the schedule I listed above will be my general pattern, I’ll mix it up as appropriate. For example, week 2 of February will probably talk about the Super Bowl and the previous NFL season. Week 3 will focus on FenCon. That sort of thing.
Moving from the podcast, I plan to post more pictures and tidbits. Snippets. Random poems I like. Whatever seems fun. These will come out whenever the mood strikes.
As a side note, I’ve already copied all the posts I’ve made here over to Substack. You can still search my blog going back to somewhere around 2004. I’ll probably highlight some old ones sometimes, like talking about my trip in Wales, which is a fun sequence from the summer of 2012.
I will have a pinned post where I have sort of the business side of things. This will include where I’m going, what I’m working on, and my tracking metrics. I will just update this page regularly.
I’ve set up a chat room there, so if you want to chat about stuff, we can do it! You tell me what you want.
Side note: I’m still exploring Substack, so I may yet be adding stuff. In any case, I hope you’ll like it.
Finally, I’ll have a written update for your email. I know I don’t always want to watch a video because I can read faster than I can watch, so this will go over what’s going on in my world. Basically, it’ll be the opening section of my previous emails without all the other sections. The fun stuff, like what I’m listening to and quotes will be subsumed into the podcast.
What does you need to do?
Nothing really, though I expect you’ll get some confirmation emails from Substack to make sure this is content you want.
I will shift to two emails a week, one for the podcast and one for the written update. I will *not* send out emails on the random stuff (unless of course I screw up and forget to tick that box, which I’m sure will happen on occasion).
Two emails is probably one too many, but I’m trying to match what I would want in your place. I would want to know about podcasts and I would want to have the opportunity to just skim the update some weeks.
To emphasize, this will not require you to be a paid Substack subscriber. Again, if I do something paid down the road, it’ll be for something where I think I’m providing content that’s worth you paying for. At this point, I don’t think that’s true.
Some of you will choose to leave because you don’t want to get two emails or have anything to do with Substack. I get that. And again, all you have to do is decline the invite when Substack sends it, so hopefully that’s easy.
But I’m doing this to have more fun sharing my interests with you guys and if that’s not interesting to you, you should absolutely opt out. I appreciate all of you who’ve stayed with me and you have my best wishes should you move on. Thanks for being a part of the journey.
Obviously, I hope you’ll all stay. I hope this will be a really cool next step in the journey. I’m excited what this will bring.
I’m sure there’s lots of stuff I should be adding, but here’s the TL:DR.
I’m moving to Substack. I want to provide you with something more by upping my game. I hope you’ll enjoy it and keep riding along with me.
Finally…
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You’ve been great partners and I couldn’t have gotten to do this cool job without you.
Have a great week!
