本当に久しぶりだね！ Hey folks, and welcome to the quasi-new Bookruptcy.com, which is now—ahem—michaeljriser.com. Because I guess it always should have been, really (and the domain has redirected for a long time anyway). The long and the short of it is that I’ve been trying to get my shit together, and so I’ve got a shiny new (read: reskinned) website and a newsletter.
Why Do You Need a Newsletter?
Excellent question, reader; congratulate yourself. The answer is that I don’t know why I need a newsletter. Because they tell me I do, I guess, and I tend to believe them because they usually know more about this shit than I do. And because everyone has a Substack, but I don’t want a Substack because Substack is run by Nazi-sympathizing garbage-fuckers. I really wanted to use Ghost.io to do both my newsletter and my website, but I can’t afford it, and my existing site is paid up through 2028 somehow (thanks, dark gods of hosting?), so I’m doing the sensible thing for a bag of organs with extremely limited cognitive reserves and absolutely no money: I’m revamping the site and using Buttondown to start delivering a newsletter to my readers. Which hopefully encourages me to, like, have readers. Because I have no money and a dog to feed (who is here, dutifully safeguarding me as I write this).
Except, okay, the real reason I’m doing all this is that I need the energy. The audience. I do better when I can pretend that someone’s listening, even when they’re not. Too often I sit sequestered in my little cave, rotting away, doomscrolling into the void, surfacing occasionally to write toward a slightly more fruitful oblivion, but it’s connecting with people that pushes me forward. It’s sharing ideas, getting inspired, getting some of that cooperative camaraderie.
So Why Do I Need To Subscribe To Your Newsletter In Particular?
I mean, you don’t. Not really. But that’s a pretty shitty sales pitch, so I’m going to offer you a big, fat, ectoplasm-oozing, all-inclusive deal. Here’s what I offer you:
- Horror
I don’t want to give you a bunch of shit you don’t want, so I’m going to stick to that. “Horror” is pretty broad, of course, so given that I’m an author and an avid fan of related genres, that could include:
- Horror/dark/weird fiction reviews
- Tips on writing, thoughts on craft
- Previews of my work and other pre-release goodies
- Essays on religion and horror
- Cheerful, profanity-ridden blasphemy
And one final promise like a nice plump cherry on top, bursting with squirming, larval things you can’t see but will definitely consume:
- Words for meatsacks, by a meatsack—no AI slop of any kind, ever
Eventually I’ll probably create a paid newsletter tier where writing and publishing advice will live, or maybe I’ll make a Patreon Comradery account, or finally use the Ko-Fi I set up a billion years ago and never really used for anything. For now, however, we’ll take it as it goes. If you’re interested, you can sign up right here and get in on the ground floor.
If You Have a Newsletter Archive, Why Do You Need a Website?
Because I have a domain for my website that’s already paid for. Okay, but also. While I’ll more than likely throw some newsletters here as posts verbatim, the newsletter will be more intimate: it’s for people who have given express interest in keeping up with me, so they’ll get more frequent updates and interesting minutiae, while the site will probably stick to chronicling major stuff like upcoming releases, appearances, and that sort of thing.
Thanks for sticking with me through these last few turbulent years. I can’t wait to see what cool stuff is coming around the bend (assuming we survive the fascism), and I look forward to sharing it with all of you. Because you’re a big part of why I do this, and how I keep myself going.
It’s all for you, baby. 🖤
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