ugh mailchimp is making writing feel like an absolute chore. I used to love mailchimp and now they have sold their soul to the corporate machine and made billions of pounds. mailchimp is not for creators, or writers, it's for businesses now I think. poo
Not feeling spectacularly crazy, in fact feeling quite calm. Today this is calm talk. I want to write and write more and not write on mailchimp because it is painful.
I met someone from substack and very much like what they're about. Their ethos aligns to mine. Creators, creating for free and then keeping the MAJORITY of the money if they do sell their content in some way. The way society consumes content and expects content for free and then big platforms monetise their content and sell all our attention to big companies is pretty horrific and substack is against that so I am on board.
The only thing that scares me about making the move away from mailchimp are all the memories on this here newsletter, 6 years of writing almost :( not sure why that's a sad face but is. Started Sanctus from this newsletter, shared the journey and now onto something else.
I want to write more but don't really want to turn writing into a thing, like the advice i've had is "find a niche" e.g write about mens mental health all the time and become a big time guru. That honestly makes me want to jump from the window. No thanks.
Or, do "ask me anythings" with your community, they'll pay to access you! urgh. Just sounds like growth for growth's sake again and code for let's make some money beans.
In fact I should create a PDAMA policy. PLEASE DON'T ASK ME ANYTHING. I love getting responses, but don't want to set myself up as some Steve Bartlett or Tony Robbins - that's a one way ticket to delusion.
I do like the idea of bringing this community together perhaps, or sharing more intimate, deep or depthy posts and those being paid for, that feels pure. like I said last week. amazingly and wonderful a couple of people did say they would pay for my writing which is quite wonderful and I don't fully believe it, I'm like yeah whatever, I feel quite embarrassed. oh mr, don't be silly now. the red blushing face thing. Who? Me? A writer? Oh no don't be silly. Secretly dancing like crazy inside shouting get the hell in at the top of my voice. Come on then!
Calm - Crazy. The transition to substack will take a bit of time to import old posts etc so it won't happen immediately and I'm not going to start charging people or anything, most people probably won't notice anything has changed.
Whilst I am here I was wondering if there are a few people who'd take a look at the new newsletter page when it's live? I'm looking for a few people to give me some feedback on how it looks and maybe receive a few test newsletters etc. It would be very helpful. I've put it so so so low down that only the most crazy people will see it and I wonder if there a few people? Hello Mum I know you will be here, love you. Yes, please do message me if you'd be willing to give 5-10-15 mins (a whole day and of constant messages from me) to HELP ME move the newsletter over and check how it looks etc.
james x
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