In January, I made one resolution,1 and one long list of non-resolutions — of wishes and wonderings. Somewhere in that list I wrote, “Maybe I’ll revive my old newsletter.”
In April, around the time I turned in grades for the course I was TA’ing for in the Duke hybrid Mdiv, I realized I was about to have a little window of time opening up in my week. And I realized that I had settled enough into my new role as a priest at Trinity that I was starting to have some brain space opening up, too. So I migrated subscribers from mailchimp over to substack, and in my first note, I said I’d aim to send a short email every Tuesday. (It has not been every Tuesday.) Here’s how we’ve done:
Number of subscribers we started with: 570
Number of subscribers today: 702 (That’s 23% more in less than eight months — thank you for sharing posts!)
Subscribers who have pledged support: 11. Every time I get a notification that one of you lovely readers has pledged support, I feel all warm and fuzzy and then I think, “probably they didn’t understand what they were clicking.” For real though, to be clear, I have not made paid subscriptions possible yet; at the moment, all subscriptions are free. But your votes of confidence mean a lot, and maybe one day I’ll overcome my fear of commitment and not being enough to make a paid option…
Number of posts: 21 (about three per month)
Reach: Y’all are in 44 states and 21 countries!
Email open rate: 64%. This is higher than average for newsletters, and it’s the main stat I care about. Thank you for opening and reading. That’s at least half the reason I do this. 2
Most read post (2,224 views): by quite a margin, something I almost didn’t write, my long review of Lucy S.R. Austen’s biography of Elisabeth Elliot . (The author is also writing behind-the-scenes bits about this book, if you want more.)
Least read post (861 views): Rogation Days, which connects a somewhat obscure historical church tradition with the climate crisis. Which part of that isn’t interesting?! Does this mean y’all are not going to care about my next post, which will be about an old folk Christmas carol and gender and creation?
Publications recommending Making All Things New: 9
Thank you for reading — for the comments you leave here — for the emails you send —
I usually just write as my whimsy leads, but if you have topics you’d like to hear from me on in 2024, please send your suggestions along.
.Where Goodness Still Grows is available wherever books are sold. Dangerous Territory is now available in an updated second edition: buy it in paperback or ebook at Bookshop, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble. (Audiobook coming December 14 — just in time for your holiday road trips!)
PS: This post was inspired by BDM — reading her year in review felt like a little like the guilty pleasure of peeking into someone’s journal or algorithm…so I thought I’d pull back my curtain too.
I broke it on January 2.
The other reason is that it helps me cultivate attentiveness to my own life, and I need help with that.
It was a good year, Amy! Thanks for being here and writing.
Hey, I really liked the Rogation Days post! 😀 Actually, I’ve liked all of them pretty well!