Rethinking Newsletters

I have a lot of blogs, microblogs, newsletters and websites that I maintain and regularly post to.

I’ll admit, it’s exhausting.

The idea of centralizing all of it into one website that can be a blog and newsletter for all my creative works is very appealing. This is why, I am thinking of crossposting everything here, to my main site. My newsletters, comics, videos, short stories, ramblings and photo posts all in one place.

Right now I am using Substack as my primary landing page and website for my comics, but I really don’t like the CEO. His ideas are a little, out of touch, with this post-1950s world in which we live. I’d like to move it all over to Patreon or Tumblr, but neither seem to be the place where I’d invest the time and money to make it the backbone of my business.

Luckily, my business is still growing, and small enough that I can move its digital home around as needed. Also, I’m in a stage where I can still experiment and see what still works, and I won’t really lose any readers.

This is going to be a year long experiment, and I’ll be tracking how many suspected bots vs. actual subscribers I attract, as well as which service has the most engagement and new subscribers. I’ll be looking at WordPress, Tumblr (also owned by Automattic), Patreon and Substack. All have their problems, and all four claim that you can get paid to post your work. I’m eager to find out which service actually does end up paying out and which takes the smallest cut for themselves.

Having a reliable, versatile online home for my website is a big part of my business plan. I need the right people to be able to find my site, and when they find it, I need them to be able to find exactly what they’re looking for when they get here. It needs to be one stop shopping for everyone. Plus, I don’t want to have to memorize anymore passwords. I just want to his “publish” and have the content go where it needs to go so I can get back to writing and drawing.

Upcoming paid newsletters will include (subscriber only) comics, early access, short stories, flash fiction and behind the scenes content for paid subscribers.

I look forward to hearing from my followers/subscribers about what else they’d like to see over the next year. So don’t be shy to comment!