I’m thinking very seriously about changing my email newsletter to a monthly digest, as opposed to the (mostly) weekly thing that it is right now. Last month, I saw a severed drop in my open rate, and I’m not sure why, but I suspect it’s a combination of sending newsletters too frequently, getting too many of them flagged or left unopened (though my spam rates have always been quite low), and not being very careful about what I put in the subject lines, as apparently the ISPs will flag you if you use words like “free” or “sale.” So that’s going to be a joy to figure out.
So that’s why I’m planning to turn my newsletter into a monthly thing, as opposed to a weekly thing. To make up for that, I plan to turn this blog into more of a daily thing, engaging with it more and being more open about my writing and everything else. I’d also like to bring on some guest bloggers from time to time, and I have some interesting ideas for that. Here are just a few of the things I’d like to post more of:
- Guest posts & interviews
- Book reviews
- “Best of” genre tropes
- Writing updates
- Family/life updates
- WIP excerpts
- Interesting long-form podcasts
- “How I Would Vote Now,” maybe for more than just the Hugos (or Hugo: Best Novel)
- SF&F news reactions
- Books/games/movies that inspired some of my books
etc etc, as well as the occasional just for fun post.
It’s funny, because I started this blog back in 2007, just as the iphone and social media were really starting to take off. Those technologies led to the “death” of the blogosphere, but I kept on blogging through the social media era, just because I enjoy blogging. Now, it turns out that AI grabs most of its data from blogs, and the best way to improve your AI optimization is to have a prominent blog and post often to it.
So that’s another big reason why I plan to post a lot more. But I don’t plan to churn out any AI slop, though I may use AI for help brainstorming blog topics or breaking down my thoughts for a good blog post. I actually do enjoy keeping this blog, even if only a handful of people read it, so I’m not going to go too crazy with the AI optimization. If anything, that’s more of a side benefit.
What sort of stuff would you like to see me post more of?
