What are all these emails I'm getting all of a sudden?!? A guide to subscribing to PubliCola

As PubliCola readers have no doubt noticed, I’ve started a Substack—basically, an email newsletter version of the website (still at publicola.com) that will include some extras from time to time, such as shorter pieces that make more sense as an email than a full post. I decided to branch out after reading an excellent piece by Cory Doctorow about platform sharing—whose takeaway, for the purposes of PubliCola and me, was basically: Social media platforms come and go, so the best approach is to own your own content and syndicate it widely, through every means available. There’s even an acronym for it: Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere (POSSE).

Many writers, artists, and other content creators are trying to get off Twitter (or have already left), for obvious reasons; some have gone to Bluesky (I’m over there! ericacbarnett.bsky.social), Mastodon (never could figure it out) or Threads (you’ll find me there too: https://www.threads.net/@ericacbarnett). In keeping with Doctorow’s advice, I’m trying an experiment where I’m posting everywhere: From Patreon to Threads to Bluesky to Twitter (yeah, still, for now) to Instagram—and, always, my actual website, PubliCola.com. So far, I’m partial to Substack because it’s a writer’s site—it does most of the design and syndication work for me, so I can just focus on the words. Honestly, it’s a lot like early blogs, without the constant fear that you’ll lose everything you just typed or accidentally italicize the entire site with an open html tag.

What this means for you as an email subscriber to PubliCola is that you may be seeing more emails right now. If you’re currently subscribing through my regular email sign-up list, and you prefer that option, just unsubscribe from the Substack email list (the button is way down at the very bottom of this email); if you prefer the Substack version, unsubscribe from the regular email list, which goes through the platform Wordpress. If you have problems with either of these options, please email me at erica@publicola.com (or get in touch through one of the platforms I’m on—I’m running the show over here, and I’m always happy to help out with tech support stuff like this, so really do reach out.