January is the time of fresh starts. So is September. So is the first of any month. So is the start of any day you choose to be a fresh start. You can start fresh and make things better any time you want. Isn’t that wonderful?
But January is the start of the new year, so it’s also a good time to do a cleanup.
Generally, I check on all my websites and book links and all the rest in September, and any time a new book or a new edition or a new distributor shows up, to make sure they are consistent.
But January is a good time to clean up the inboxes of my various emails. That’s not just about dealing with and/or deleting, but about deciding which lists I want to stay on, and which lists to drop.
Our websites are basecamp. I’ve often stated that if a business that wants my money only has a social media page and not a dedicated website, I don’t place my money there. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not serious enough about the business end of the business for me to trust them. We’re certainly watched enough social media sites fail in the last few years to understand the importance of having our own sites.
Newsletters are a vital part of many small businesses. I try to support as many fellow authors and artists via their newsletters as possible. However, some of those need to be cleaned up this year.
My own author newsletter is quarterly, which works for what I do. I don’t have a business/freelance newsletter, because that wouldn’t serve either me or my client base.
Many authors have monthly newsletters, and most of those are fine. Authors who’ve migrated to Substack look at that as a newsletter, and that’s often weekly. Since I’m done with all things Substack, I’m n the process of cleaning out and unsubcribing.
One of the things I’m doing in these early months of 2024 is culling the newsletter subscriptions, especially from those authors who aren’t, in turn, subscribed to my newsletter or supporting my work in other ways (such as liking or sharing posts about it on social media). I don’t want to get into the same cycle I was in a few years ago, of non-reciprocity, where I was doing the heavy lifting in far too many professional relationships. It’s on a case-by-case basis with some obvious exceptions.
I will support as many fellow artists as I can. In return, I hope they will support me. If they’re only looking at me as a customer rather than a colleague, the relationship is not what I need or want from fellow artists and I will adjust, while still wishing them success. If they’re “too busy” to treat me as an individual, they won’t miss that I unsubscribed anyway, and we’ll all be happier.
That will take a lot of pressure off me as far as getting snowed under in my reading, and also allow me to spend more time on the newsletters from my colleagues, and genuinely enjoy them. Instead of feeling as though I have to rush through the material because I have another 100 to read, I can take my time, follow links, and maybe even respond. I can enjoy and build the relationship.
As I do this, I will also look at who is subscribed to my lists, and make sure I am subscribed to their lists, where appropriate, in return.
Energy has to keep flowing between artists, or it gets stagnant. Artist and audience need to have a circular flow, not a stream in a single direction.
I’m taking myself off a lot of product mailing lists, too. If I want something from a particular supplier, I will go and hunt it down. There’s enough paid advertising to let me know when something new hits the market.
Something that I’ve noticed, over the past few months, from product lists, is those aggressive emails demanding that in order to “stay” on the list, I have to do a click through to “prove” I’m reading it, or the threat of dropping me if I don’t open the emails faster. First of all, if my little, tiny newsletter has the capacity to track how many people open and/or read it, a high-paid ad campaign platform can do the same. So you KNOW I’m opening the emails. Don’t make me jump through hoops to “stay on the list” because I won’t. I’m happy to be dropped. Or maybe, I’ll just click on your “unsubscribe” button and save you from following through on the threat. Second, I often put aside promotional emails and batch read them between other tasks that require more attention. I’m going to read your email when it works for ME, not when you want it for your metrics. Quick way to get me to unsubscribe. Third, threatening me isn’t keeping me as a customer, or enticing me to be a customer in the future. That aggressive edge of desperation is a turn-off, not a call to action or engagement.
I am also investing in more paid advertising for my own work, to broaden my reach to a larger public.
Note: that is not, by the way, an invitation for people to try to sell me their ad-making skills. I know how to create my own ads; when I run into trouble, I’ve built a network of fellow freelancers to whom I will turn (and pay) first.
I need to make room for healthier, more reciprocal professional relationships in 2024, and cleaning out various subscription lists is a part of it.
How are you cleaning up for 2024?
