Allow me to (re)introduce myself

For the... third time? Sounds about right

I’m still here! (Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash)

Marhaba (مرحبا), and thanks for reading Semi-Online #18.

Also… yes. the newsletter is now on Substack. So after my first issue in 2021 and a ‘rebrand’ in 2023, I guess this platform move merits another update. 😆

Ugh

I had been thinking about moving newsletter platforms since last year, and I finally decided to do it last February. So I’ve now moved it around from the (since-shuttered) Revue to Ghost to self-hosted WordPress with plugins The Newsletter Plugin, Newsletter Glue, and MailPoet handling the backend and forwarders SendLayer, Sendinblue (now called Brevo) and Mailchimp doing the actual sending to inboxes, to Substack.

That mess is the biggest reason why I moved here. I love WordPress, it still runs my two other websites, and I’ll always be fond of it despite regularly fighting off brute-force hacking attempts. WordPress and its vast plugin ecosystem also taught me plenty about setting up email campaign systems from the ground up. That’ll come in handy if I ever work in email marketing. And in the end, I met my original goal of upskilling.

But running an email newsletter on WordPress was hell for me. Formatting and exports were equally crappy across all the plugins I mentioned, and upgrading workflows requires a fortune in Filipino freelancer terms. Plus after every move, I spent too much time getting the settings and preferences exactly how I liked it. No provider ever makes it easy to just up and go; if you don’t choose their product, they will make you suffer somehow.

The last straw for me was MailPoet giving me the most basic reader stats after I put out this newsletter - and telling me I needed to pay for everything else. MailPoet costs up to ₱6,700 annually, BTW.

Haha, no, bye.

Substack isn’t quite it, either

I’ve avoided publishing on Substack for the longest time, and for several valid reasons:

1. I wanted to avoid digital sharecropping and control the whole process. Whatever I write and where I write, I want to own 100%.

2. That thing I said back in September 2023 about newsletters not being a viable business model (yet?) in the Philippines remains true today. I’m still not willing to play this particular game:

…many Filipino writers have Substacks. However, blogs continue to reign for written content; and the only way to succeed at that is to do ads, offer advertorial packages, and play nice with PR and marketing firms for gatekeeping and free crap. That means it’s all about product placement and reviews; there’s little to no investigative journalism or bias-free industry analyses. And few of our writers have stuck with their free/indie newsletters long enough to monetize them.

…I also wish Filipino readers actually start paying for great online content and respecting professional writers and their work instead of thinking that writing is easy and that all online content should always be free.

3. Filipino newsletter writers still can’t make money off our Substacks (unlike countless writers from the Global North). As I said in that same newsletter, Stripe is the only payment option on Substack. No PayPal, no Wise, no *insert preferred payment gateway here*. Substack has zero problems accepting payments from the Philippines for custom domains, but somehow it has all the problems paying out to Filipino writers via gateways we can access in our currency. 🤔

4. Substack has (had?) a big N@zi newsletter problem. Gross.

Some things can change

Ultimately, I wanted something simple (and free!) where I show up, write something, publish it, and mostly live my life in peace. As hard as I tried to sidestep Substack for newslettering, it meets my current simple needs and it’ll do so until a worthy, free/affordable, Global South-friendly competitor steps up.

The new plan? Forget monetizing and backends for now. This newsletter must be as painless for me as possible, and I’ll address the other things only as they come in. In short, make writing fun (and more personal) again!

That digital sharecropping concern is also quelled (as of now) with Substack’s promise of writers’ full ownership of their content. Let’s see if that holds up over time. As we all know by now: if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.

Re: that N@zi problem, I guess we’ll see if and when it’ll hit Substack where it hurts: its bottom line and reputation.

What about Filipino readers willingly paying for content? Ummm…

I guess I’ll have to let that go, huh? 🙃

For now, I’ll leave you with a short list of what I like and have lined up for the long Holy Week break, a.k.a. the only imposed Catholic holiday that I like because everyone’s out of town and it’s all quiet and traffic-free here in Metro Manila. LOL

1. I’ve been listening to a lot of Phantogram lately. Good stuff.

2. Netflix’s long-awaited adaptation of Cixin Liu’s epic The Three-Body Problem is here! The final trailer sealed the deal for me:

3. I’ve been trying to rewatch X-Men: The Animated Series on Disney+ before I go on to X-Men ‘97. It’s taking me a while though because the original show has five full seasons. 😂 But damn, does the new show capture the original’s look and spirit!

4. I’m not yet done with this autopathography, either. But I did say I’ll take it slow. Like the SSCD disability I share(d) with this author, reading this book requires both time and kindness to self.

thereadingspree

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I guess that’s all for now. Take care of yourself, and see you next time. 😘