I made a newsletter

“Hmmm,” says Homer to Bart in a classic episode of The Simpsons. “Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.”

I think that episode aired when I was in middle school. We would quote it all the time, because middle schoolers. (Then this one time in high school, I quoted it to my friend Mike Owen, and then he actually made a newsletter in response as a joke, but then it wasn’t a joke, because it caught on because it was full of jokes, and grew into a decent email circulation for awhile. It was called Floom! and even our teachers thought it was great, which is how you know we were the cool kids.)

Anyway, I made a newsletter. Why? Well for one thing, it’s more targeted and personal than a blog post. While I’ll still use the blog for general announcements and updates with no particular audience, a newsletter targeted at those who want to follow my writerly adventures, with regular cadence issues that appear in your inbox instead of having to remember to check a website somewhere, seems nice and useful for everyone involved.

Further, as I begin work on active writing projects again I realize I probably should try to, you know, communicate with the internet again. Since giving up (to the greatest extent possible) Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and most of the subsidiary services they own a few years ago, I think I’m definitely much happier. However, I’m inarguably far worse off in terms of positioning as an indie author.

While I have very little desire to enter the world of social media again (nor do I feel like I have to… I have the privilege of saying it’s not as though I need to make my living from selling my writing), I feel as though at the very least I should make it easier for those who *would* genuinely care to engage with my writing and creative process to follow along, and easier for me to connect and engage with you. Hence, newsletter! You get an email delivered and some handy buttons so you as a reader can feel free to share something on Facebook and Twitter if you want to, and I get to stay a social media hermit. It’s win-win, really.

When? Starting… soon. How often? Once a month (probably). What will be in it? I’ve tentatively decided on a general breakdown of:

• personal note / update on life
• update on writing work in progress
• link to and brief commentary on something interesting from the interwebs (a new book/movie/art, an interview/essay related to SFF, etc)
• something behind the scenes related to my writing: outtakes, bonus content, the-making-of, sneak preview, etc

We’ll see how it turns out! Feedback and recommendations always welcome. In the meanwhile, if my ideas intrigue you, then you can subscribe to my newsletter at the ground level in time for the very first issue somewhere to the right of this post on the sidebar (or below this post if you’re on a mobile device), where I have surely added a subscription widget before clicking Publish on this post. Surely.