Well, what a time!
If I charged myself an hourly rate for the energy and time I put into researching and thinking about whether I should stay on Substack or move back to WordPress, I would have met my income goal for the month.
It was a tough call, to be honest. There’s this idea that “everyone is on Substack.” Well, and that’s true in some ways. A lot of people are on there. Blogging almost feels old-fashioned in a way. At least, the blogging I was doing back in 2011.
And in some ways, Substack reminded me of those blogging days of yore.
Some part of me never fully felt comfortable using Substack. I had been on there at first because a lot of journalists started Substack accounts to put out calls for experts or products to consider. I did that too for my days of writing for Better Homes and Gardens and The Spruce.
Then that changed. Then, suddenly, I had a platform I didn’t have a big use for. But I hadn’t done any personal reflection blogging or even book reviews on this site for a while.
I originally felt like I could use Substack to promote Substack posts and World of My Imagination posts. But I’ve never felt too comfortable with doing that. I’ve never embraced my Substack as my writing “home.” Plus, there’s so much of Substack you can’t control that you can with WordPress. I also can’t ignore the many issues that people have mentioned (like the whole Nazi thing).
I was so torn, though. I see so many writing professionals I know and admire on the site. So why move?
Weirdly, my analytics made me decide it was time to move on. I am getting more for WordPress than I have for Substack. I’ve seen others mention that Substack tends to inflate numbers too.
Plus, in all honesty, my true purpose in Substack was to do outreach for my freelance writing. And while I’m absolutely still freelance writing (for BetterReport, for example!), and I may even have some needs for experts, Substack is not the place for me anymore.
World of My Imagination was my first-ever blog and what I’d like to call my writing hub home. And I think I’m here to stay again.
I did consider other platforms like Beehiiv, and someone else recommended Ghost. Beehiiv was too expensive to pay for the resources I wanted to use. And Ghost was too new to me and would require me (or so it seemed) to start another platform. I just didn’t want to do that.
When it comes to sending out newsletters, MailChimp just doesn’t have the same user-friendly experience anymore. Let me tell you about THAT! It’s so darn complicated that you are almost pushed to hire an expert to help you. It reminds me a bit of doing my taxes with those paid software places.
MailPoet now handles my newsletter. It’s very WordPress-friendly and extremely easy to use. So, if you’re
And there’s something nice about being back in the place I consider my digital home.
