A New Start
Something, something bandwagons. . .
Honestly, I’m really nervous.
I’ve been blogging forever. Well, okay, not literally forever. But I’ve been writing blogs on the subject of writing for at least the last decade. The blog archive of those efforts is over on my author website. I can scroll back through that archive and watch my understanding of the craft evolve like a fish crawling out of the primordial ooze.
So why change it? Well, I’ll be frank: it’s visibility. Moving my blog to my personal author website has seen the views utterly tank, and when I was on Wordpress, I got more views more consistently and had more interaction. So I’m hopeful that Substack might produce a similar kind of community involvement because my private website just isn’t cutting the mustard in that department.
Yes. Cutting the mustard. I’m old. Hush.
So what’s the point of this, anyway?
The blog here is going to contain the same weekly content I’ve always provided: insight into the writing and editing world, information about my personal projects and writing, and so on. That’s what I’ve always done, and it’s what I’m going to continue to talk about. This space is going to range from discussing how to write and publish and market your books to talking about disability, LGBTQIA things, mental health, autism, and all the other facets of myself.
That’s one thing you’ll learn about me pretty quickly: who I am on the page is who I am in real life. I don’t really hold anything back or censor myself to make myself palatable for public consumption. What you see is what you get. I think a large percentage of that is the autism because, frankly, I spent so much of my life being small and hiding that I’m no longer interested in playing that game.
Paid subscribers will receive a few small perks, but nothing earth-shattering. If you subscribe, what you’re doing is supporting me. You’re showing me that the content I produce is something that matters to you. I’m not going to paywall my writing advice because, frankly, I know most writers aren’t made of money.
The stuff you get behind the paywall are early snippets of my current projects in process, maybe helping me come up with cover designs, some downloadable things for authors (like useful PDFs of the publishing process and so on). I might eventually see if I can give away an Affinity Publisher template to help newbies get started in the process of typesetting. Also stuff like maybe my own art of characters, early drafts of maps for the upcoming fantasy series, and so on. Things that normally live on my computer and never see the light of day.
How often am I going to post?
I aspire to weekly on Mondays. I’ve been pretty consistent for years, but there will be periods where I hit times I can’t write. I’m disabled, so there will be times when things just aren’t happening. I’ll let you know if I end up in that position, though. I’m not a content machine, but I do my best to keep up and try and be straightforward with folks.
I also have a monthly newsletter I release via email (not connected to the Substack here directly). If I’m not in a long form blog post, I’m all over the place. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Tumblr, Deviantart… I’ve got fingers in all the pies. And I’m ehprybylski on all of them. I’m easy to find on purpose.
