Thtate of the newsletter

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(Crossposted, naturally, on Thubstack.)

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When I announced Thubstack two Aprils ago I listed what I had done over at Thutopia since the start of 2020 as a way of suggesting what might appear here. I also wondered what might happen now that I was shooting things directly into people’s inboxes.

Which, if that’s not you, then

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I figured it would result in my doing more promotion, perhaps of Face in Hat. Since then I have not mentioned Face in Hat once on Thubstack even though it’s among the more consumed things I work on.

(Find Face in Hat here and here and here and here and here and here and here. Lot of positive feedback on 5.4 if you’re looking for somewhere to start.)

But I did manage to self-promote seven times which is incredible. Well done, Theric!

So this is what I did in 2020 and the first bit of 2021:

Regular book-review posts: 27
Posts on unfinished books: 2
Other posts on literature: 8
Regular film posts: 17
Posts about me (eg, publications): 4
Svithes: 3
Other posts: 8

And this is what I’ve done since then:

Regular book-review posts: 38
Posts on unfinished books: 2
Regular film posts: 20
Additional writing on the arts: 8
Self-promotion: 7
Holiday notes: 1
Svithes: 4
Dreams: 2
About consumer experience: 2
General culture or education: 2
On Irreantum: 1
On Peculiar Pages: 1
On Thubstack: 2

People talk about how great Substack’s text editor is, but I don’t feel that way. It’s entirely linear, and so my consistently formatted posts (the regular book- and movie-review compendiums) I still compose in Blogger and copy over. With the result that errors in that transposition often escape my notice.

And since I do those at Blogger, it’s easier to keep all the other long-time-to-finish posts there as well.

Quick one-offs I often do compose in Substack, and that includes the (by far) most popular post I’ve written since transitioning to Thubstack being my most public-facing outlet: “Atheists are the new Christians.“

Substack sends me an email saying who’s opened email within, I don’t know, 48 hours or something. The numbers go up and down. The review posts tend to be lower, which I don’t blame you. The quality varies and you are busy. And since 58 of the 90 Thubstack posts so far are review compendiums, that is the bulk of what I send. I’m no Meg Conley, folks!

But coming up on two years does suggest reason enough to consider what I’ve done so far. If you did open this and you have read this far, please! shoot me an email. What should I be doing here? Republishing old stories? More Mormon-arts stuff? Werewolf pornography? I can’t promise I’ll provide what you want, but I’m open to suggestions all the same. No one bothers with this sort of thing without hoping to please.

Anyway. Happy almost new year.

Here’s a picture of Bjork and Byuck:

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