Facebook is dead, long live the newsletter

I’ve finally got round to doing something I’ve been aiming to do for ages: set up an author newsletter.

The idea is you sign up (or not, as is your choice) and I send an occasional newsletter about my travel writing and anything else related to that.

It’s a more or less direct replacement for my author Facebook page, which I have been becoming increasingly frustrated with. It’s nothing to do with the page itself, but more to do with Facebook generally. There are plenty reasons to dislike Facebook, such as the fact that they own everything, such as photos, that you upload, and they track everything you do and say in order to send you ever more tiresomely targeted waves of adverts.

But also, friending someone or liking a page is no guarantee that you will see all of their content. Much is hidden, and the “reach” of posts on a page is always well below the number of likes. To beat this, you are encouraged to buy adverts from Facebook to push your page to the people who had liked it anyway.

The important thing to remember with Facebook is that you are not its customer – you are its product.

The advantage of email newsletters, however, is that they – hopefully – directly reach everyone who has made a conscious decision to sign up to the information. And having researched the power of newsletters for authors, I’m willing to give it a go. Sign up to the newsletter here or at the top of the side bar on the right.

As with my Facebook page previously, my newsletter will get all my writing news first. I will also be putting in a few bits and bobs of writing that won’t appear on this website, meaning there is hopefully an incentive to sign up.

I won’t write via the mailing list very often. Just a few times a year, I would guess. And I also won’t really write about much more than my travel writing. So relax, you’ll be spared the imposition of my occasional political rants appearing in your inbox.

If you would like to sign up, my first mailout will be coming in the new year some time. If you don’t, then don’t worry. I will still love you. Ish.

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