Wednesday Hump day gratitude

A little gratitude and a lotta business

photo courtesy of Pixabay

First, I want to welcome my new free and paid subscribers, Laurie, Rosy, Cindi, gratitude303, keudreamsong, soulliberation, Holly, dzander, Katrina, and Nicolas. I am grateful to have you here. And my long-time subscribers, I can’t thank you enough for your support. This seemingly “crazy” idea that my dear friend Kurt urged me to try has become an extremely gratifying experience.

I began my first blog on WordPress in February of 2018, and once I had recruited my friends and family, I was lucky to receive one new subscriber in a month, even using social media. Since starting on Substack in July this year, my numbers have continuously grown. Just yesterday, I received four new subscriptions. The little engine that could is happily plugging along.

Remember this book? I must have taken it to heart.

I’ve always loved a train ride. My grandad, whom I never met, was a railroad man; I’ve written about him in an older post.

With gratitude to all my readers in mind, I’ve been contemplating a change or two. 

Marking my six-month anniversary on Substack, I’m taking this time to consider what I think is working well and what I might want to tweak. So, I thought I’d put it to a vote here, and I’d sincerely appreciate your feedback. 

I’ve learned a great deal in these six months as a reader and a writer on Substack. What I want to address is from a reader’s standpoint. I have found that, sometimes, if a newsletter has too many posts, I can’t keep up with reading them. And in some instances, I have unsubscribed for that very reason. It begins to feel like a job instead of a pleasure, even if the writing is excellent. 

So here’s my question: Would you prefer two posts a week (Mondays and Fridays) or three?

If I switched to only Mondays and Fridays, Monday’s post would combine both thoughts for the week and gratitude, which isn’t much different than it is now. Friday’s post would remain the longer essay. 

I’m leaning toward eliminating the Wednesday post and keeping that day open for the occasional extra post, like the one I sent on Monday. Sometimes I might have something I want to share that doesn’t require much writing, and I hesitate to send yet another post. I know how crowded everyone’s email box can be, including mine. I’m working hard to unsubscribe from all the uninvited nonsense in my inbox. 

So let’s take a poll, shall we? 

I also wanted to share a few business items. I understand that Substack sends emails to promote the platform, of course. But if you are not interested in receiving those, you can unsubscribe from the Substack emails without unsubscribing from publications you enjoy. I’ll include instructions at the bottom of this post.

Next, Substack will recommend newsletters for you. There are a lot of really great writers on the platform. But with that said, you are under no obligation, and the only newsletters I endorse are listed on my main page. You must click on “Recommendations” to see all of them. I’m working on a blurb for each of them to give my readers an idea of what I like about their newsletters. Again, only if you are looking for something new to explore.

Lastly, I want to mention the app I’ve only ever addressed on my About page, which many of my readers have never even seen. The app which you can get here is convenient if you are interested. I read many of the publications I’m subscribed to on the app because it’s easy to read from my phone wherever I am.

Okay, here are the instructions for unsubscribing. 

We’re hearing from folks that Substack is sending quite a lot of emails from all the “publications” they create and then seem to subscribe everyone to. There is an (easy!) way to greatly reduce these emails. Here are the instructions:

1. Go to reader.substack.com (which may also be substack.com/inbox - but I think you can just follow this link!)

2. Click on the “library” icon on the left to see all the publications you are subscribed too. (In the app, click on the book icon.)

3. Scroll down and find the various Substack publications. Click the three dots on the far right side for a drop down and choose “unsubscribe”. (In the app, the three dots are at the top right after you’ve clicked on the publication.)

Okay, I hope this is helpful. That’s all the business for now. Be back on Friday!