Hello hello.
As a general rule, I assume nobody is paying any attention to what I post on my website.
But today someone let me know that they are following along via an RSS reader – a device that brings you every public post, just as a podcast player brings every episode.
And I’m chuffed.
I do have a newsletter, with a list of email addresses, and I love sending out emails. But I also love RSS.
I use it myself, and I wish more people did. It’s great. A good number of my favourite online publishing people are available to me only via RSS – I don’t subscribe to their newsletter (if they even have one), and I don’t follow them on social media (if they’re even on social media).
I like to think there are people out there who might possibly follow me in the same way.
I like to think I can still have the same relationship with readers as I used to enjoy when I wrote for big newspapers and magazines: I felt very warmly towards them, but I didn’t have a ton of distracting metrics telling me what they liked most, what they clicked on, how long they lingered.
Those metrics are handy sometimes. At other times they’re a dreadful distraction – a recipe for trying to please, instead of publishing what I want to publish.
So. I wonder if you’re reading this. I wonder if you will let me know.
Whoever you are.
How thrilling.
👉 My own RSS set up.