Overall, for me, 2022 was a pretty good year. Several million Twitter users would likely claim it’s the worst in the history of the internet, however, seeing how it was the year Elon Musk… took control of Twitter. This made many immediately look for an alternative to the popular social media platform, while others – well, you’ve read the title: I started a newsletter.
On November 21, 2022, the landing page for said newsletter went live, and a handful of people immediately signed up (thank you so much, by the way – you know who you are (I hope?)). That was then, this is now, and the eighth edition will be smashing through people’s inboxes on January 23, 2023, making now as good a time as any for an article like this.
While my general musings are mostly kept to Twitter (update: deleted my account), I have a Facebook page and a Tumblr, too; even if those are 99% ‘new article published’ shares. The thing about Twitter these days though is that… simply put, people don’t like it, so they don’t use it. Now, a mailing list, on the other hand – people specifically sign up for that, and unlike your average tweet, emails don’t go unnoticed (save for the odd spam filter incident, of course).
This, among other things, makes it the perfect format for when I want to reach a crowd that genuinely cares about what I have to say; because, you know, why else would they sign up for a weekly super wordy rant-mail from me? It is used as a recap/update on current projects too, like House of LGBTQ+ and, of course, my website. But mostly I tend to treat it as a bit of a ‘panel’, pretending my readers is the audience and I’m standing in front of that large sizeable crowd, sharing – let’s face it – often the most random of topics. Haven’t lost a subscriber yet though, so I must be doing something right there.
But while keeping everyone already onboard interested is undeniably important, well, the more the merrier, you know? This is where you come in, where you have a chance to help out. Word of mouth can carry far after all, so even if I haven’t convinced you of the value of signing up for my weekly text walls, eh, someone you know might be. Just saying. Won’t know until you’ve asked them, so… pretty please?
