You may have noticed that I added an e-mail subscription feature to this site. Or maybe you didn’t notice, but I assure you it exists, right below the search widget in the sidebar. In any case, if you were to subscribe, instead of coming back to this site as often as I know you do, you can have a light version of the post conveniently sent directly to your inbox! Oh, the technology!
But there is a great big Uh-Oh that I’ve discovered with this new system: I’m afraid to write. See, now that my posts are sent out when they’re published, they have to be perfect. I often revise my posts after they’re posted, and I still do, but now I hesitate a few days before publishing anything. This is because I realize your e-mail is a precious resource that I don’t want to clutter with anything less than my very best.
Back when I was looking for a subscription plug-in, I wanted an option that provided users the choice of which categories to receive. This was not possible with the plug-in I finally chose — Subscribe2 — so I decided that the next best thing would be to limit which categories are sent by default. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.
Based on my own personal preference, I decided on text-only e-mail notifications as opposed to embedded HTML. I’ve seen occasions when embedded HTML doesn’t render properly and ends up looking goofy and illegible. The downside of text-based e-mail is that it doesn’t support images, so for the infrequent times a post has an image, you won’t know this until — and unless — you follow the link back to the web site. I will make a point of indicating when a post has an image relevant to the content. Again, this isn’t perfect, but it’ll do.
There aren’t many subscribers at the moment, but now that I’ve advertised it for the first time, I hope it will grow. In my experience, it’s easier to follow a site this way. Also, as I’m learning, it’s a good way to receive direct feedback; so by all means, reply! Tell me not to be afraid to write!
Finally, I appreciate you taking the time to read my writing, because as we all know, a writer without any readers is basically just Kilgore Trout. Thank you!
