Since last we spoke, I’ve made some changes around here.
After taking a few months to get used to Substack, this little part of the digital world will, in future, house most of my writing.
Why am I doing this? I’m glad you asked. Mainly to streamline things.
I currently have a few websites:
Joanne Tracey - my author website
And Anyways - Travel, wrap-ups, monthly link-ups (What’s on My Plate, What’s on my Bookshelf, What’s on my Calendar)
BKD - Recipes, the monthly kitchen diaries, cookbook reviews
Sunshine-Coasting - all about the Sunny Coast (I haven’t touched this one in ages)
an author newsletter I’m ridiculously slack about
I also have my astrology site, which is a whole other story.
Aside from costing me in maintenance, they’re clunky to manage.
In the past I’ve separated my work because:
I have people who follow me for my writing but don’t want to see the foodie stuff,
people who follow me for my foodie stuff and don’t care about the writing and
others who turn up just for my travel posts.
Now, though, Substack can do it all, and, going forward, that’s what will be happening. What you’ll find here will be:
The Ramble - weekly (ish) newsletter about whatever I feel like writing.
The Bookshelf - monthly book posts.
The Writer’s Den - occasional posts all about writing. Podcasts I’ve been listening to, tips, tricks, vents.
Time For Tea - the cookbook I’m (sporadically) writing in real time
The Kitchen Diaries - monthly kitchen diary and cookbook chat.
The Scribbler - my old author newsletter with all the publishing news.
My author site will remain exactly that—a landing page for my books, and I’ll continue to post my travel blogs on and anyways. Until things settle down, there will be some doubling up of recipes on BKD. Other than that, Substack is where it’s at.
I’ve set up Substack so you can subscribe only to the sections that interest you. While you’ll automatically be subscribed to every section, you can change your preferences in your settings:
Click on your profile pic in the top right-hand corner, select “Manage Subscription.”
Select which sections you want to receive email alerts about. It’s that easy!
If all of that seems like too big a decision right now, that’s okay—you can change your mind anytime.
Now, the biggie… my Substack is free. While I’m happy to pay food writers and recipe developers for their time and subscribe to a handful of paid newsletters, I tend to write about what I’m either curious about or learning about. I also promote my work through newsletters and blog posts, so I feel strongly that charging for said promotion is, at the least, disingenuous. I’d prefer that if people choose to support my writing, they do so by buying one of my books or leaving a review on Goodreads.
Finally, thank you so much for being here. I hope you stick around and see where this adventure takes us.
Hi Jo - I'm finding Substack to be a really interesting place to dabble in. I'm keeping my blog because it costs me nothing, it feels comfortable, and it gets plenty of traffic from all the years of posts on there. I can see the appeal for you to make things more cohesive and I'll be interested to see how you go with it all.
I've seen a lot of Substacks with paid content, but I don't pay to play....I find there's enough here for free to keep me engaged, so I have no plans on monetizing - I'll stick with the occasional paid collaboration - less pressure to perform!
I really haven't explored here much and every time I do I run into the article I want to read requiring me to pay so thanks for making yours free. I will miss you in the blog world when you do exit but perhaps "and anyways" will still be around for a while. Bernie