A Question
and a welcome
Because I have a number of new subscribers (welcome, peeps!), I want to ask you all a question.
As introduction: this newsletter exists for me to give out news of what’s going on with my publishing career. That includes:
1. Publication news like new deals, new audio books, pre-order news, and events (virtual or in-person) that you can attend and/or find online.
2. Previews of covers and other cool things
2A. Giveaways of Advance Reading Copies of forthcoming books, etc.
3. A Finn photo
4. Maybe a short personal essay about what’s up or how things are going
5. Links to other things I’m doing like the Narrative Worlds series I host via the Nebula Conference Platform/SFWA YouTube channel or the writing craft essays I post over on my Patreon (although I sometimes forget to do this or worry that people don’t want all the links).
Most of my non fiction writing happens on my Patreon these days, and I currently have no plans to create a paid subscriber level to this Substack newsletter (more on Substack & Patreon below).
Here is where I ask all of you, my longtime subscribers (thank you!) and my newest ones (thank you!):
Is there anything in particular you would like to see in this newsletter?
Please PLEASE feel free to comment below. Sky’s the limit.
For example, Substack offers an easy podcasting widget that would allow me to make short podcasting posts here. Is that even of interest? What would people like to hear me monologue about for 5 minutes (while I can imagine going on for longer than that, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to listen for longer than that).
I can talk more about books/media. Or not. Or my philosophy of writing. Or living in Hawaii. Or exercise and paddling. Or the history/science books I’m reading. Or (etc etc). Or something I hadn’t thought about writing about but which people would be interested in.
It’s also fine if my current fairly low-key approach fits your needs.
A quick note about Substack and Patreon.
Back in Fall 2020 I went back and forth deciding between Patreon and Substack as a venue for a second income stream -- one which, as it happens, has proven necessary and greatly appreciated over the last two years and has allowed me (among other things) to consistently write essays about writing craft in addition to writing fiction. Because of this, I am slowly working toward creating a book on writing craft, which I will eventually sell as a e-book (and offer free to all Patreon subscribers).
I could have also done writing craft essays on Substack, but the two models are different enough that ultimately I decided that, for now, Patreon’s patronage model is more workable and less stressful for me than a subscription model. The Patreon model has also allowed me to publish chapters from a “work in progress” (which happens to be the unfinished Dead Empire, book two of Black Wolves) which have been dropping every three weeks this year.
In addition, Substack has some inherent problematic issues with its business model (for example, the company bankrolls transphobic writers, among other writers and opinionists it bankrolls). While I have thought seriously about migrating elsewhere, at the moment I can’t afford a paid newsletter service, my subscriber list is just a tiny bit too large to fall into the free categories of the better known and most workable newsletter apps, and I can’t afford either the money or the brainspace to do what (for example) Malinda Lo did, which was to migrate her Substack newsletter onto Squarespace so she fully owns and controls her content etc. That’s my ultimate goal. For now, I am just trying to keep my head above water in a turbulent time when I have often struggled with asking whether I should keep writing at all. This newsletter is my current, imperfect solution -- and I will note that the site is well designed and works smoothly, which helps me create a regular newsletter because the barrier to entry is quite low.
You can find my Patreon at this link, should you be interested in checking it out. There’s a lot of content there now, and I wish the interface had a better way of organizing old content to make it more efficient to find older posts.
Finally, for those of you who recently subscribed to this newsletter because of the uncertainty with what is going to happen to Twitter: For the time being I am staying on Twitter. Naturally that might change suddenly, or unexpectedly, so thank you for joining me here.
For the completists, I am also on Instagram at KateElliottSFF but I rarely post there; it’s good to have a backup though. I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to dust off my tumblr login though.
More news next time! Audiobook of The Keeper’s Six and Servant Mage is coming!
A Finn greeting.
As always, I couldn’t do this without you. Thank you.
Kate Elliott