“A Good Newsletter Exit Strategy Is Hard to Find”

(via Vanity Fair):

Layer in the ongoing Great Resignation energy (and like, a worldwide pandemic), and it’s no wonder that newsletter-writer fatigue has set in as writers begin navigating the logistical implications of signing themselves up as a one-person subscription product: How do you keep up with your publishing cadence? How do you make sure your readers are continuously getting their money’s “worth”? Does it feel fair to take a few weeks off for the holidays when people pay a monthly subscription?

And, if for whatever reason you need to quit, how do you get off this ride?

A good look at why I never joined the Substackian throng and have come to loathe a membership model (after considering one for MacroParentheticals and this space, I’ve settled on a tip-based busker approach) but a word WRT “newsletter-writer fatigue”: boo fucking hoo. I’ve been hurling my own unpaid efforts on a consistent – weekly, monthly, or bi-weekly – basis for the last ten years to a small if faithful readership because I like writing the newsletter and enjoy using the form as a means of communication: that said, had I added the pressure of making it my primary income stream, one in which I was in the obligation/debt of paying readership, I probably would’ve burnt the whole operation down years ago and gone off to pump gas or something.

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Having survived another Sunday (visit), breakfast is consumed and Kirby is scanning the out-of-doors for things to bark at. Mem: have to search for the thing I've been using to hold the screen door shut. (Update/0745: found it.)

First day of a two-week workchunk on NonFicComicsThing and re/emergence0005: plan was to spend the week getting the script for the NonFicComicsThing finished and assembling shards and fragments for what would eventually become re/0005 and switch next week but I'm almost done with the NonFicComicsThing script after just 90 minutes this morning. Might wrap it up by the end of the pre-run 90 but who knows.

(Still have to ascertain how to make it, NonFicComicsThing, come to life, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.)

The DogChildren require sustenance; the day awaits.

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This year’s Housemouse reincarnation is roaming in search of that elusive warmth; in this place, I'll be stunned if they find it. DogChildren being suitably incompetent in Housemouse pursuit but, as is my home repair credo, "they tried."

Other news: I'm removing pictures from these morning posts as a.) since I'm no longer posting them to Twitter I don't care if they don't have images because I don’t feel the need to enrich the timelines of disembodied avatars; b.) I like the way the site looks with just text for these; and c.) PR's carbon footprint is atrocious and I'm doing my part and now I need to plant more trees.

WorkHack: the secret to returning to The Work after diabetically-mandated breakfast is to not let yourself have that second cup of coffee until you return to your desk.

The dogchildren require sustenance and then: back to work, back to coffee; this fortnight’s MacroParentheticals dispatch should arrive in 90, +/-.