The Backstage Pass is Moving to Substack

A bit of housekeeping: I am moving The Backstage Pass newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack.  Effective next week. If you haven’t yet subbed to The Backstage Pass, please do so over on Substack.

Why the change?  Substack has two key advantages over Mailchimp for me:

1 – I can add more social elements. I’ve growth and nurtured The Backstage Pass for over 10 years now. One of the nagging problems I’ve had with the newsletter is the lack of interaction I can have with subscribers. Unless a subscriber reaches out to me directly or vice versa, I have no clue if the content I am creating is resonating with them. Other than looking at Clicks or Open Rates and guessing.

But with Substack, I can add social elements. We can have chats for each newsletter issue, discussions about each topic. It’s so much easier to connect directly with subscribers. Now, they do need to be on Substack in order to connect with me on Substack, but the signup process is as pain-free as it is on any other social channel. Please follow me here if you join Substack.

2 – Substack has monetization options built right in. As a result, I will soon be offering a premium version of The Backstage Pass, which will have more ‘premium’ content. This will also allow me to devote even more time to the newsletter, which is something that I’ve always wanted to do. But prior, it was hard to justify spending more time on a stream that isn’t producing revenue. Substack will help me solve that problem.

So if you haven’t already subbed, please do so.  As for Substack itself, I have to say, I am really enjoying the experience there. There’s a strong community vibe, it feels like early days excitement there before all the ‘influencers’, marketers and gurus find it.  I’m sure that’s coming, but for now it feels super cozy. In fact, it really feels like what I think a lot of us wanted to see blogging become: A way for us to connect and support our favorite writers and content creators.