No more LISTENINGS!

take two (this was a post, trying to make it an actual email message)

I think I am not going to do Listenings substack posts anymore, or if I do, they won’t have the YouTube links in them. Looking at the statistics, people don’t seem to be clicking on the YouTube videos. It’s a little humbling for me so I want to change direction.

I think I will still do music recommendations and lists, and talk about music, so if people are interested they can see what bands/artists/songs I’m posting and explore it for themselves if they so desire. Instead of going straight to YouTube videos which take you out of the email message containing the newsletter.

I’m also noticing that non-fiction essays about life things (mental illness) seem to get more reaction and views than my novel excerpts or whatever. I’ll probably still do fiction but maybe I’ll just try to balance it out or figure out another way.

It would be great to get feedback from all of you about what you have liked here vs what you have not liked as much. I’ll still put what I want on here, and not let the numbers and statistics rule me to an insane degree, but just having a little guidance from you about what is going over well with you might make the substack newsletters better. So comment below, what do you enjoy most about what I’ve posted so far? What are you not as much of a fan of? It’s my substack but I’m curious about what would entertain you as subscribers. I can see likes and comments and the views that add up but I sometimes wonder if I’m making any missteps or boring anybody. I think it can be a double edged sword to not get a lot of evidence of engagement here as you do on twitter: good because you’re free from that and can be true to yourself, but conversely not so good because you’re kind of in the dark…

Thanks!