Never looked back

I put Mailchimp on my website a couple years ago and never looked back.  Thinking I’m done I never looked at it after that.  Wanting to build a mailing list to grow my audience  I needed a way for people to sign up to be notified when a new comic went out.  I figured that’s just what web cartoonists do.  Just another tool in the ole repertoire, another leg under the table.  Once a week I would get an email notifying me my subscription base had jumped over 100 people.  I was excited my audience was growing.  

Unfortunately I would check the list of emails every now and then confused.  They were always names and numbers that seemed foreign to me.  A string of computer terms ending in dot something I’ve never heard of from the other side of the world for all I knew.  I was becoming disheartened that every sign up I got just wanted me to turn around and do their sign up.  Or they linked out to some product or service to sell I’ve never heard of.  I’ll admit after a while I would only skim the list.  There might have been some actual followers in there for all I know.  

Let it ride

I let it ride for a while longer having already decided I needed to dump this spam producing machine.  I will admit I probably didn’t give Mailchimp the attention it needed or fine tuned the delivery enough.  It’s not Mailchimp’s fault, per say, but the lack of attention I gave the platform.  But I was looking for something simpler to guide me.   A better way to communicate and share Dragin.  Then I heard about Substack, a new way to create and sign up for email updates.  Not just Substack, but Bluesky, too.  They both provide a fresh start completely scrapping my old, untrusted user base for a new audience I can hand pick and check the sources.  It was then I realized I no longer needed to hold on to an untrusted collection of compromised email sources and spam bots.  

New journey

At first I was frustrated at the lost time but now I’m excited to start a new journey on a new platform, two in fact.  Both untarnished by the business and bureaucracy all social media has inevitably fallen victim to.  I’m posting this to not only share my excitement for starting fresh with more knowledge but to also reach out to those of you I may have lost in the process of moving platforms.  If you’re out there come join me on Substack and Bluesky as Dragin and the gang continue their rampage through the webs and the socials.  Of course the main website dragincomics.com will always stay put.  Oh, and bring a friend or 10!