Alora Fane

I've written this week's blog post on Substack instead! Have you ever even heard of that??

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how I've been wondering for a while about where else I could write blog posts, as this website is closed off from any opportunities to make new social connections. The view counts decrease over time as long-time readers fade away, but never go back up again because how would they?

There are places like Twitter (does anyone call it X?), which I've used a bit before, but ideally I want somewhere where I can write long-form text content in my own little space rather than just as a thread in a large, anonymous community.

I've thought about it for a while, and Substack came up in my mind as a possibility. I've seen a few people using it, though I don't know much about it, like what kind of people use it, what reputation or connotations it has, whether the sorts of people who'd be interested in my stuff would even go there (the impression I get is it's more mature than some other platforms, and most users are writer/journalist types?).

I've set up an account and written a couple of posts already; ∞ here's the latest one ∞, which is what I would have written here if I hadn't written it there instead.

Substack offers a bunch of benefits over my personal blog, but I'm not without concerns, so I'm not definitely moving over there completely. I'm just experimenting at this point.

One of the biggest benefits is that it's essentially a mailing list, which is something I've been meaning to set up for ages but never got around to. Meaning you actually get notified about posts.

If you're interested, I look forward to seeing you over there... maybe!

I'm also quite curious to know what thoughts or assumptions you have about the place, especially if you're reluctant to join up there.

6 COMMENTS

LevProtter42~3M

One issue with substack is that they messed up the web code, so it has serious performance issues on some mobile devices.

Tobias 1115~3M

Do you know of any better alternatives?

astralwolf92~3M

Are you talking about astralcodexten? That’s because he wanted a custom and very heavily modified version of substack for his site, which yes is plagued by usability issues. I don’t think the default offering Tobias wants to use has any problems

Maniafig222~3M

I'd never really heard of Substack prior to this, or if I had then I must've forgotten about it soon after.

It doesn't really seem like a place to talk about game dev or to keep a personal diary? Perhaps if one was like some entrenched industry developer and was talking about how to manage the workfloor realities of creative development or something. It does mostly seem to be newsletters, book authors, lifestyle gurus and that type of stuff, people come there to read because they want to read pundit pieces or such.

It even markets itself as such, "a new economic engine for culture".

It doesn't really seem like someplace I'd visit for anything but your blogs, and that'd just be because I want to read your blogs, even if I'm very inconsistent with replying to them.

Tobias 1115~3M

That's the impression I've got of it too, but as I said in a post on there, I've yet to find any better alternatives. 'Blogging' communities seem to be about maximising SEO stuff for profit, and 'Journalling' communities seemed more based around the aesthetics of physical notebooks.

If you know of anywhere better I could post about the stuff I write, I'd be happy to try there instead!

Just from having Substack for a handful of days, I've been occasionally getting notifications about new subscribers (though they could just be people from here), which would never happen on this blog.

capnbunnypaws11~3M

Tumblr? That one seems perfect for what you're looking for.