222: Why I Migrated My Three Email Lists to Substack (BFF Bonus Replay)

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Often the people that you're going to pay to subscribe for have probably given you a lot like this is that thing of adding value in the world. Substack is one of the ways people can actually say thank you. And in a way it's a practice of receiving and receiving that grace and receiving those gifts. And I feel nervous every time I see someone's name who I don't know and I've never met. Join As a paying subscriber.

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Welcome back Free Timers. I hope you've had an amazing summer. I've missed you. I was running crossover episodes in August and I'm just so happy to be here back on the mic and to have you here listening with me. In fact, I took that time off in August not to rest as I was expecting, but to migrate my entire business, all my newsletter lists over to Substack. You're going to hear more in this episode. That's a BFF bonus episode from our private feed and I'm replaying it here because you can hear my genuine enthusiasm. Just one month in. This has been a big summer. I started documenting what was going on because I just couldn't take the pressure anymore in a secret stealth project that I called Rolling In Dough, the D O H with a Face Bomb emoji thanks to some brainstorming help with my friend Brooke and I just started writing. I didn't know what else to do. I had been so fed up by the last three years, the exhaustion, what felt like doors kind of closing in my face in terms of clients I used to serve and not really knowing what was next and hearty Har har Someone should write a book about that. In any case, I just started writing and one of my posts for this new project is called Writing My Way out after the popular Hamilton song. That's what I've been doing. And I did not expect to love Substack as much as I do. It's wild. I am not one to go chasing shiny software objects, and yet at the same time I feel a certain FOMO setting in when I know that there might be something really good there. And every time I was seeing a new feature release like, oh, you can eply other substacks or substackers, now there are notes and comments and you can bookmark posts and you can read in the app away from the chaos of your email inbox. There was so much to love as a reader, and then once I started the project rolling in doe I was just falling in love with the platform as a writer as well, and it's gotten me to write deeply personal essays for the first time in 15 years. And the community that's forming there is so thoughtful and generous, and maybe that will change. And if it will, we'll pivot again. You'll hear in this episode that I am debating whether to move my two mailing lists for pivot and free time over to Substack. I knew I would break a million things in the process, and that has been true. But at the time this recording, I'm in migration process that's about 20,000 people, and I was so nervous to piss everybody off. And I was also so nervous to offer paid subscriptions. But as somebody from the Ryder outreach team on Substack, she was generous enough to have a call with me. She said, don't be shy about it. Explain to people that this is how to sustain your business. And I like to say now that I run a delightfully tiny media company. And it's true, being able to for the first time in almost 20 years of publishing podcasts and writing for free online, there is something so refreshing about inviting people to support the work if you feel called to do so. And also supporting writers and thinkers that I really admire. There's one person I follow who practices what she calls artistic tithing. She says 10% of her income goes to supporting other writers on the platform. I love that. So I now pay for 16 fellow substackers. The latest is Liz Gilbert, who just joined, and at first I was fearing subscription fatigue, of course, like so many of us. But this combined expense has really become the happiest money that leaves my bank account every month. I wasn't expecting that. That's the title of a book, Happy Money that I did enjoy. I just love supporting people and it's a business expense for me. Maybe I'll try to cap myself at 20, but it's about 100 to $200 a month now. That sounds outrageous, but if you think about supporting the people that you really want to see their work continue and that like for me, I've gotten so much out of the writers and thinkers that I admire that their work is priceless to me. It has created so many shifts for me personally and in business, so is just something that I'm happy to do right now, even when funds are so tight. I think you'll like Rolling in Dough if you haven't already checked it out. And an episode I'm going to release with my friend Jonathan Fields coming up. It was still in stealth mode. Nobody knew about it except my private BFF community and a small handful of friends. But now it's at about 300 subscribers and a lot of that is because of Substack's great discoverability. That's one of the main reasons that I did decide to take the plunge and move everything over, because I felt like every time I sent a newsletter, it was just going into the void. It wasn't saved in any archive page online that's browsable by future readers, and people could forward it to a friend. But it wasn't really built for sharing. Whereas with Substack, I feel like there are so many natural ways for people to encounter the work, which is really exciting. Michael has been describing Rolling in Dough as money in the city, saying I'm taking over where Sex and the City left off because the tagline is divine. Disaster Diaries from a breadwinning business owner living in New York City. Leeann Hughes, who's a longtime BFF member, calls it business reality tv. And I was really grateful for some kind words from Meg Johnson, who says, ever read something that makes your heart scream? Yes, that's every week with Jenny Blake. Meg is a fellow member of Creator Kitchen that you heard me talk about with Jay Acunzo. There's really truly a sense of community forming that's super delightful. So even if you don't start a Substack as a writer, I highly encourage you to download the app. You're probably already subscribed to many more substacks than you realize and just see how your experience is as a reader and a community member of the people that you really enjoy reading and following. I follow a mix of off mainstream political stuff. I follow personal essayists, I follow humor writers, I follow gossip columnists. I mean, like I run the gamut. I'm kind of willing to subscribe to anything and everything, at least in the beginning, but you'll find what works for you and what you really look forward to. So even though I promised myself that I wouldn't create anything new this year, I did break that promise because I parted ways, sadly, with one of my all time favorite clients that PFF alumni and former podcast guest Kelly Thompson calls a big gorilla client. And so rolling in dough and the subsequent move all over to Substack is what's next for me. Because as I said in one of my early posts, if this were a dating situation, I would tell myself to read the room. They're just not that into you. So I'm actually doubling down on one to many, which I have known about myself for a long, long time, but specifically trying to make the one to many communications that I create like this podcast and the newsletters a bit more sustainable. So I hope you enjoyed this episode with my thoughts on Substack After I was one month in and now that I'm two months out, I can say yes, yes, yes to all of it and then some. If you have any questions or comments as a follow up, guess what? You can now leave them for me in Substack because I'm also publishing podcast episodes there too. It's really cool. Now podcasts and newsletters can be published in the same feed, so I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what's on your mind and if you have any requests for a follow up episode. Happy listening.

Hello hello besties. For this month's bonus episode, I thought it might be helpful to reflect on my first month of going live with the super secret substack that mainly you and a small handful of friends got direct access to. Although true to one of the benefits of substack, others are already starting to find it. I'm referring to rolling in Divine Disaster Diaries from a breadwinning business owner living in New York City. Some of you are already subscribed. Thank you so much. One of the things we'll talk about is just how easy Substack makes it for writers to earn a viable living at some point. Doing this now I might have already lost some of you because you're thinking, ugh, enough already. Why do you keep talking about Substack? The reason is that I have not been this giddy and excited about software since I encountered Notion and really started getting into notion in, I want to say 2019. When I feel this jazzed by something, there's just a sense of aliveness and possibility. And it's not just the technical side of the software, it's a sense of community. That brings me back to my early blogging days, the days before social media, the days before it was just all out chaos and clickbait online. So the reason that I keep talking about it is because I was looking over the fence at Substack from its inception. At first annoyed. Why do these people think that we need their help monetizing our platforms? We've been using PayPal and Venmo and all these solutions for years. Or we've had newsletter software. Like in the early days I was on mailchimp and then I moved my entire backend of my business to Kajabi. But even in that time ConvertKit has been releasing so many new and wonderful features for people and that's just to name a few, software for email marketing and powering the back end of your business. Those softwares though can get very, very expensive and there's a big switching cost and not to mention sunk costs of investing in one of those systems, creating intricate years long Evergreen welcome autoresponder series segmenting and tagging of lists depending on who clicks on what over years and years and years. So there's a lot of business equity and software equity that we've all probably built up within whatever platforms it is that we're using. And for those reasons, every time Substack would announce a new feature release, I'd get even more curious. But I'm thinking there's no way I can justify that given how much I've already built in my business backend. I also started to hear the founders on more podcasts as I heard them describe the platform and it really being a place where they're trying to curate editorial writing and personal writing, not marketing, not business, not selling, not advertising, it started to be more and more compelling. Finally, when I had that brunch with my friend that I describe in the story behind Rolling In Doe some of my earliest posts on the Substack, she had been on this platform and I said to her, I'm really curious but I don't know what I would do. Would I move my two main lists? And it all felt so heavy and confusing. But as we started brainstorming personal writing that I could do, that I could pilot the platform, we came on this title that was so energizing I just decided I'm gonna go for it. And the reason that it's a secret substack or I was also calling it a secret pop up substack, is that I didn't wanna make a big announcement. Also because I wanted to build the courage to write so personally, as I haven't done in years. But I also wasn't sure yet. Am I gonna like this? Do I wanna do more with it? How do I wanna carry this forward? I don't know. I just wanted to try it out. I have to say I am more delighted every single day and they're not paying me to say this. I don't have an affiliate thingamajig to give you in the show notes. There's no agenda here other than to tell you I can't believe how surprised and delighted I am. There's many reasons for that, to name just a few. First of all, as many fellow besties have pointed out, and especially those of you who are already on substack, it's really easy to use. You sign in when you go to write a new post. It's super streamlined. Something about it feels exciting, makes you want to write, makes you want to create and craft stories. I don't know why. There's just something about the ease of how easy it is to use and set up that is very, very joyful. Now don't get me started on the settings. I had existential substack settings anxiety when I was first looking at how many flipping options there are, but let's save that for later in this episode. So the joy and ease of use.

We'll be right back just after this.

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The second Thing that has absolutely blown me away is the sense of community. And I'm not just saying that. You know me, I'm a social media curmudgeon 100%. This is different. The people who I'm noticing are on Substack are genuinely reading and they're intellectual. There's a sense that the discourse is about ideas and stories. It's not sensationalist the way that I experience a lot of social media. I experience a lot of social media, as I've said before, kind of foments status anxiety or FOMO or compare and despair. It's a lot of showboating and how perfect everything looks and seems, or it's kind of divisive and controversial. If it's on Twitter or now to be renamed X, Substack feels meaty, hearty, like a hearty stew of conversation. And because they keep releasing features like being able to, like posts, comment on posts, being able to ply other substackers, being able to recommend other substacks, it makes a sense of community more possible because you feel interconnected with everybody and there are ways to promote and share other people's work. You can even now restack a quote from someone else's post, whether it's a newsletter or an article they've written. And you restack. So this is kind of their answer to Twitter or threads or X is notes, what they call it. So kind of shorter snippets. And you can restack something from anywhere on the web. I'm not gonna be too hard on myself with keeping up with that. That's a lot to keep up with. But I love the fact that there is a place to share ideas, to share interesting things you're reading or finding to celebrate another writer where it's just kind of contained in this wonderful sense of community. And I have to really say thank you to those of you who are actively reading. Rolling in doe every time I see you heart a post and comment, it's very uplifting. It's so energizing. It's the first time in such a long time that I' reactions to things I'm doing. You know, podcasting is so quiet. It's often quiet out there unless somebody goes out of their way to leave a review or send in an email and even most newsletters. I feel like newsletter software as it got more complex over the years. It just looks like a newsletter and people don't often think to respond to it. Yes, I do get replies every now and then, but what I love about Substack is that when you share whatever form it is that you're writing, whether it's a newsletter or a personal essay, and I've been experimenting with both, people do feel more. I think it's just easier for them to weigh in and chime in and share and post and heart. And you can also change in the settings what people are allowed to do. So you could say paying subscribers only can comment. And I feel really good about that for mine, because what I'm writing is so personal and almost real time that I don't really want strangers commenting yet. Maybe I'll change that at some point. And there are some, quote, strangers who are paying subscribers now, and that's exciting. I don't mind if someone's paying. They really value the work. They really need this type of storytelling right now, as Leanne called it, business, reality tv. If that's what they need, and they're willing to meet me halfway and pay for a subscription, they're more than welcome to chime in in the comments, which I'm very grateful for. So it's super energizing in that regard. And I'm also finding it energizing to know that when I post something again, I'm experimenting with sending my newsletters. For now, I'm just duplicating what goes out via Kajabi and then also sending it out via Substack. But what I appreciate knowing is that there's actually an archive. I was getting really annoyed in recent months and years that every time I sent a newsletter, it just disappears into the void. And unless I program it into a welcome autoresponder series, which I do now have, the future subscribers are never going to see it. That was really annoying me. I felt like I wasn't creating true assets in my business. Whereas with Substack, every newsletter that you send gets posted on your archive page. So people, if they find it six months into the future, can go back through your archives and see what you've written and do a binge as you would if you find a new podcast that you really love. So I love knowing that there's a record and that you can link to previous newsletters as well. Because at least with Kajabi, it's kind of hard to link to a newsletter I've sent out. I used to be able to do that with mailchimp, but once I switched, no longer. One of the things that really got me excited was my experience as a reader reading substacks through the app. It's so joyful. I love that finally I can get out of my email inbox and all the chaos that comes with it. Because when I go to my personal Gmail inbox I have work emails, I have emails from friends. I use a surface called sanebox the so I have my sanelater folder that's full of newsletters. Some of them are super salesy, some of them are from stores and retailers, some of them are from politicians that I never signed up for, campaigning and trying to raise money. And then yes, some of them are personal, wonderful, beautiful essays. And they're buried. I'm so turned off by the whole vibe of my inbox most of the time that I don't even want to look in that Sane later folder. Once I downloaded the Substack app on mobile so I have it on my phone, I have it on my iPad. I in the morning with my coffee I can open substack and I have an inbox and it's just what I subscribe to. And I now subscribe to a lot of substacks and I pay for ones that I feel are doing what I'm looking to do right now, which is deeply personal. Thoughtful essays the reader experience was so delightful for me that I decided I would love for my readers to have that experience too. And that's what's motivating me. I'm very, very hesitant and tempted to move all my lists over to Substack. I would break a gazillion things on my websites in the process of doing that and like I said, I would lose all the segmenting and tagging and hard work and things that I've done. Evergreen series and even Sub autoresponder series for people who access the Toolkit or the Author toolkit or the Leader Kit for free time or Pivot. Like there is so much that would break. One of the things that motivates me if I do do it. It will be because the reader experience is so joyful and that when I send out a newsletter, someone could get it in their app if they chose. They would also get it in their email inbox and they could interact with it. You could even bookmark and favorite posts that you like. There's just so much more functionality and possibility. And let's not skip over one of the biggest benefits is it's so much more social and shareable so that if I were to send my two newsletters, which have a much bigger distribution than my current super secret project, people could more easily share it, restack it. It's discoverable, it's searchable and so I feel like the organic growth that is built into the platform and the network effects of how many people are joining the platform makes it very compelling, almost as a marketing vehicle in and of itself. Rather than feeling like my newsletter is standing alone, isolated on an island, and it's all up to me and on my shoulders how I get it in front of people, I do feel like what Substack is enabling is for newsletters to become more social, more shareable, more discoverable. The fact that there's a culture of paying writers for their work on Substack is also deeply refreshing. I have been doing the online thing for almost 20 years, and you probably have a broken record now. I started in 2005, so officially it's 18 years. That's a long time. And so much of what I do and have ever done has been free because that was the culture of the Internet. It was blogging for free. And of course, who's going to pay a 20 something to blog? No one. Cool. No problem. And I've gotten priceless, priceless things from every single quote free activity that I've ever done online. But publishing 14 podcast episodes a month, one of those is behind the paywall here in BFF. So technically, that one's paid. Publishing newsletters, I started that in 2010. I mean, there was just so much, and it does at some point, feel overwhelming and unsustainable. I talked about this with my friend Natalie Liu on FreeTime. I'll link to that in the show Notes. So I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to go over to Substack. And one of the settings is how do you want to charge for the newsletter? And what would you want to put behind a paywall? I can have a free tier and I get to insert where the paywall happens in any given post. And then there's monthly members, there's maybe bonuses for people who pay on an annual basis. And then there's even a founding member tier for people who just want to say thank you or want to support the work Already just a month in, having only launched to BFFs and a small circle of friends that I sent an email on BCC substack is showing me that I have almost $3,500 in annualized revenue. Now, that would mean that nobody who's currently paying monthly would cancel, but I even comped a lot of subscriptions for friends and BFFs and I was happy to do that. So the fact that anyone's paying at all right now is a miracle. It's a Miracle. I can't tell you how grateful I am, how hopeful I am. Those of you who are contributing as paying members. And again, no shade, I know we're all having subscription fatigue. If you can't do that right now, like, I'm so grateful for anyone who's reading it at all, comped or paid. The whole reason I sent it to you and my closest friends is just to have some emotional support, like bumpers at the bowling alley while I get this thing off the ground. But the fact that any money's coming in at all has me feeling like, oh, I just found water as I was walking through the desert, you know, like really uncertain about corporate work. And then here, now this thing. And I don't want to overly build it up or over hype expectations, but it's so refreshing. It's just all I can think to say that there is possibility here. And Substack has created, more than any other newsletter platform has created a culture of paying the writers who you value for their work. I know that it gets overwhelming because there's double or triple the amount of substackers that I would want to pay on a monthly basis than I feel that I can right now. So. So I am being discerning too. And I know that that element might feel like it has pressure, but I think the positive side of that is that you get to pay for the ones that you really need or you really love what they do and you just cannot resist. You must see what is behind the paywall. And often the people that you're gonna pay to subscribe for have probably given you a lot. Like this is that thing of adding value in the world. Substack is one of the ways people can actually say thank you. And in a way, it's a practice of receiving and receiving that grace and receiving those gifts. And I feel nervous every time I see someone's name who I don't know and I've never met join as a paying subscriber, I get nervous like, ah, are you gonna like it? Thank you. I don't even know what to say. I'm just super grateful. The fact that it's enabling creators like us and small heart based business owners like us to meet our readers halfway, our community halfway, and then think about, well, how can I add value? Like, what do people value? What will they want to pay for? And not overly pandering to that, but the fact that it's so seamlessly built into the platform is a beautiful thing. I'm really enjoying it.

We'll Be right back just after this.

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The reason that I'm able to write more personal writing than I have in over a decade, if you don't count like the vulnerable parts of my books, is because I'm able to put things behind a paywall. I would not want to post publicly about corporate clients, some of whom I've been under NDAs with, if I knew that that was going to be Google searchable, or if I knew that strangers off the Internet or even people who work in those companies would be able to come to my website and just easily see and access what I was saying. Because I'm walking a little bit of a tightrope here with this project, the fact that I can practice my thriller writing skills. I just took a masterclass from Dan Brown and leave suspense and then put things behind the paywall, especially things that I wouldn't talk about publicly if they couldn't be behind the paywall. That is super energizing and it makes me feel safer. It gives me a sense of psychological safety because I want to share and I want to be real. And I know that the real sides of running a small business, especially in these last few years, could be so helpful for other people like me who are really going through it. But I just have to do that in a way that feels safe to my reputation, to my clients reputations, to my business, to future work. And this is enabling me to do that. In case you're also wondering about my posting schedule, I've seen people share things online, even recently on Substack, saying if I had to post at a regular day and time every week, I would be allergic. There's no way I would feel creative. And I think that in general, there seems to be a consensus with Substack as there was with Blogging. Write if you have something to say and something that can be said, well, don't just write because there's a deadline. That said, I originally planned to post weekly, but I had so much flowing through me after the big event, the news, as I call it, Capital T, capital N, that I actually had quite a backlog of content. So it was originally just going to release on Wednesdays at 11:11, and then I said sometimes on Saturday so far. And of course I'm starting strong. Things can always taper off. I've been doing two a week, but I'm not writing on Wednesdays and Saturdays. What I'm finding is that I write when I have something to say, when I have truth while it's fresh, when there's something that I want to capture about what's going on or the divine disasters, what it's like to be rolling in dough, a little serendipity signage moment in New York City, or some combination of these things. I even now have a view on my notion collection bucket called Rolling in Dough. So anytime I get a little snippet of a quote or an idea or a writing prompt, I put it straight there so I know what my little drafts might be or works in progress or writing exercises. And then I have found it helpful to schedule Far out for two reasons. One, I'm not waiting to feel inspired on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I'm able to write when I am inspired and then schedule it at a regular cadence. What you're not seeing is that the writing is actually happening in bursts, but the scheduling makes it look really consistent and reliable, which is usually not how my creative process works. The other benefit of that is that it would be too soon and too fresh. And I'm already walking a fine line of having this all be a real work in progress. I have not solved anything yet, so I am taking some risks. When they say don't write from the wound, right from the scar, well, I don't really have the scar formed yet. I'm writing from the events and how I'm handling them. So it's almost like I'm writing a thriller, a business thriller, while living it. But on the other hand, I'm not trying to be an expert. I'm not trying to say, oh, I have it all figured out. Let me tell you exactly what to do. No, I actually just want to share. This is what the roller coaster feels like. That's it. That's it. That's why, as I explained in the launch series, I shifted that one word, that one Tiny little word of saying rolling in dough. Divine Disaster Diaries for Breadwinning Business Owners, which was the original subtitle and it shifted to Divine Disaster Diaries from a breadwinning business owner living in New York City. As in this is not really for anyone. Because even when I had that title I was thinking, oh great, who can I write for? No, this is from a breadwinning business owner. This is my lens, my experience. It's a little edgy and uncomfortable for me to have the focus be on me in this way, but the point that I'm trying to make is that this is not a how to, this is not a solution. This is the emotion behind all of that and what precedes eventually coming through the other side of all that. So I tend to write when I'm inspired. I write first in notion. I use software called OM Writer, which I shared in a recent Time well spent newsletter that lo and behold, now I can link to in the show notes because it's also on substack. Ohm Writer puts me in this really Zen state. Typewriter clicking sounds and really flow oriented music in the background. And then I'll do a writing session. I'll copy and paste that over into Notion. I'll edit again in Notion. When that feels a little more firmed up, I copy and paste into Substack. Of course I could skip Notion altogether, but Notion just is where I organize my whole life. So I like having it there. And then once I put it in substack, I actually read it a couple times before it goes live. And I find things to fix every single time. And I I still cringe once it goes live because inevitably there's typos or annoying word choices that I coulda, shoulda, woulda fixed. But then I end up fixing them in hindsight, to go back to this thing of cadence. And when I write, I may slow it to once a week. That would be fine with me. There is a little bit of a strange relationship knowing people are paying monthly or paid annually. What if I stop before the year is up? Or what if I need a month off? How does that look? What has helped me as a business owner is to say I will cross that bridge when I get to it. I can't let that fear or those concerns stop me or hold me back. And usually the way that I handle those is if I need a month off or if I close the whole thing altogether and there are people who've prepaid, I just come up with another way to add double that value. So okay, I'M closing this those of you who joined at an annual subscription yesterday, here's what I'm going to offer you as a thank you for being here for the day that you were and now that you won't get the next year of posts. But they would have still gotten the archives up till that point. So yes, there are nuanced things that you would need to figure out and more nuanced responsibilities in a way if you're accepting payments from people. But I also find that accountability to be a good thing. I like a little bit of deadline and accountability and having skin in the game when I'm left to my own devices. Oh yeah, just write whenever you feel like it and share it if you feel like it. And no one's gonna pay for anything. I don't do it. The whole reason I'm able to stay so consistent with my podcast is that I pay a production team who's waiting on me. There's deadlines, they're asking for things. It keeps me accountable. And the only reason that I record four plus solo episodes a month is because I pay for recording space. And I pay enough that it hurts if I go into that studio and I waste that time. It hurts. I think I'm paying at least $50 an hour and now they just changed my favorite room. The only room with Natural light is $125 an hour, so I obviously don't use that one anymore. But the point is $50 an hour. It hurts to sit there and not know what to say or not come out of a recording day. Usually I do a three or four hour block to not come out with at least two solo episodes. That would be a bare minimum of me paying for four hours of studio time. So now with substack, having paying members helps me rise to the occasion and says hey, show up jv. Okay, I don't know what to write, but there's something in there. We're all living our lives. We have truth while it's fresh. We have things that are in process. You might not want to share as much as I'm sharing, but this is just a long way of saying that I don't expect that. I get inspired every Wednesday and every Saturday. I like scheduling things because it allows me to live the thing first and then I am finding that having a month or two delay of when that truth Walt's fresh topic goes live, by the time comments are rolling in about it, I'm past it. I'm not still living like the hardest day ever. And then now everyone's commenting on it. That would be kind of awkward. So I like the fact that I write while it's real and fresh and present and it's all in my mind and in my heart, but by the time that it comes out, I've usually metabolized it in some small way, even if not completely and forever. And I obviously don't have the hardy har har 2020 hindsight. Oh boy, what a year. I don't have hindsight of looking back at myself now a year from now, or five years from now. Oh, how wise I'll be. And how I'll probably laugh at the way I was handling things, or shake my head or who knows what. But doesn't everybody say that's part of the creative process? It's like if you don't cringe when you look back at it, you're not challenging yourself enough. So I'm embracing the cringe. I'm embracing the awkward. And I'm grateful that I schedule things a month or two after they happen so that it buys me a little time to process solo and within myself before other people are engaging with those events. My reflections a month in are completely overjoyed and delighted. I'm a little unsure what I'll end up doing with my other two newsletters for Pivot and time well spent. For now, I'm going to double publish. It's not ideal because then I'll be maintaining two lists of people, but when I send out a newsletter, just until I make the final, final decision, I'm going to publish to both places. And I even imported my podcasts. I am creating extra work for myself, but I do love the idea of podcast episodes going live in the Substack app as well, which will be extra work. Currently I put my podcast up in Megaphone, Squarespace and now Substack, but for the first time ever, beyond Spotify's comment feature, any substackers any Substack readers would be able to reply to a podcast in the comments. Heart the episode reply. Share your thoughts. I've even seen people do reader threads and I want to do one soon. Putting a call out for your Divine Disaster Diaries stories. And so I just get super excited and it's breathing new life into my work and my relationship to sharing my work and my thoughts and stories publicly online. It's motivating me to take writing classes. I signed up for a woman who teaches writing. I'll put the link to her in the notes who talks about serialized memoirs on Substack and I'm going to do three one on one coaching sessions with her. There's really a magnet here for me. To each their own. There doesn't need to be for you I completely understand and respect and I'm not trying to record this to tell anybody. You should move to Substack, but I know that a lot of us are curious about each other. Like ooh, have you tried this? What are your thoughts? What are you thinking so far? And so I just wanted to share with you right from the beginning of this project how it's going and Substack does office hours every Thursday so you can chime in in the comments. The software and the platform and the community and leadership behind it has helped me get a lot of my creative mojo back and that would not be possible without you here, listening, being part of BFF and being part of this new project. So I'm deeply and forever grateful to all of you as well. I would love to know your thoughts. Let me know in the comments on Circle and just share your experiences even as a Substack reader if you try out the app. Even if you don't plan to move any of your content over there, there's a lot to love from the reader point of view too. So I'll put all the links and resources I mentioned in the show notes and I'm wishing you a wonderful rest of your day and a wonderful month ahead. Bye everybody.

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