Wherein I talk about the workings of this very site. THRILLING, I KNOW.
My revamped email newsletter has been a blast so far — I’ve sent out three newsletters over the past few weeks with a few free comics and lots of news.
Today I’m sending out another edition with a nice discount coupon for the Greg Pak Shop and some exclusive sneak images that haven’t been shown anywhere else from an upcoming comic book!
Subscribe today and don’t miss out!
A few days ago, I wrote about the precarious state of social media and internet services and how creatives and freelancers might consider revamping their email newsletters in order to maintain contact with readers and fans. That same day, Warren Ellis sent out some similar thoughts in his own email newsletter. And now Heidi MacDonald at ComicsBeat has written about both of those pieces!
Check it out — lots of great food for thought!
And please do sign up for my newsletter, natch!
And you can sign up for Warren Ellis’s legendary newsletter right here.
I’m just old enough that email newsletters made my career possible. And I’m starting to think that they’re going to save us indie creators and freelancers all over again in the coming years.
Back in 2002, when I was taking my feature film Robot Stories around to film festivals, I’d pass around a notebook and collect email addresses from every audience I spoke to. By the end of our festival run, we had no real budget for publicity for our theatrical run, but we had a few thousand email addresses. And that was better than gold. I sent out email newsletters every week, asking our amazing supporters to get their friends in whatever city we were visiting next to come see, come see! And they did!
As the years passed, I sent out fewer and fewer newsletters and spent more and more time on social media. Social media was easier, and let’s be honest — it was more fun. At first it seemed like we were all just goofing around on Twitter, telling ourselves it was good publicity but mostly just cracking jokes. But Twitter proved its enormous value when I started doing Kickstarters. Without Twitter, we’d have been hard pressed to drum up the kind of support we did for Code Monkey Save World, The Princess Who Saved Herself, ABC Disgusting, and Kickstarter Secrets.
But with each passing day, the culture and administration of Twitter seems to get more overwhelmed with negativity and harassment. Something’s going to break. And when it does, where does that leave all of the creatives and freelancers who have put so much of their outreach efforts into the site?
Continue reading Rethinking social media, the internet, and email newsletters for creators in 2018
Hey, fun news! I’m upgrading/relaunching my email newsletter and now’s the perfect time to sign up!
The newsletter goes out around one to four times a month and it’s the best place to get the very latest news about my comics, films, and other projects.
Just enter your email in the form below, and then please be sure to check your email and click the confirmation link in the note we’ll send you. Please check your spam folder if you don’t see the email right away — it might have gotten redirected!
Your email will be used only to send you the Greg Pak Newsletter and you can unsubscribe at any time by selecting “unsubscribe” at the bottom of any newsletter you receive.
Thanks so much!
Another test – trying to see if I’ve got comments working here. Not sure I actually want to use them very much, but testing out the tool.
So I’ve been upgrading and updating gregpak.com, and this is just a test to see if things are working properly and links are going out to Twitter and App.net.
THIS IS ONLY A TEST.
UPDATE: That worked. Now let’s see if it sends it out again when I edit/update the post. I don’t want it to, but let’s see.
So at long last, I’ve taken the plunge and updated to WordPress from the reliable but increasingly rusty version of Movable Type that had been powering this site for the past eight years. And so far, I really like it!
Some of the bonuses of WordPress:
I’m going to try enabling comments just on this post, so if you have any thoughts about the site design or discover any bugs or problems, please do chime in!
UPDATE: I think I broke the comments – they’re not working. Urg. So if you have any thoughts about the site, please feel free to let me know on Twitter!
UPDATE 2: I figured out how to enable the comments! Quirky thing — no “Discuss” module on the post page. But when I click the “Quick Edit” button in the list view of the posts, I got the comment control panel. Anyway, please give the comments a try so I can see if they’re working!