Dear Reader,
As you will know by now, I have made it my policy these last two years not to email out (or push via the Substack app) every post. This has been despite the suggestion of some of you that I start doing so, as well as the encouragement from Substack to email posts out. Substack is, after all, a newsletter company. And as far as I am aware, I am one of the only writers who doesn’t send every post out by email.
I’ve decided to cave. From now on, you will receive my short stories and essays in your inbox. As I foreshadowed last month, I’m about to begin publishing stories and essays by guest contributors, and it wouldn’t be fair to them for me to deny them the same opportunity that every other Substack provides. I’d also decided that I want to begin sending out the chapters for two new serialized works of fiction which I’m writing: a novel set in the early American Republic and a fantasy novella based loosely on the Roman Senate. I toyed with continuing the old policy for my other short stories and essays. But I decided that it made the most sense to send every post by email, and to give subscribers the chance to opt out.
If You Wish To Opt Out of Weekly Emails:
Please go to the Hardihood Books homepage and scroll to the far right of the navigation bar, as demonstrated in this graphic:
Select the “Newsletters” tab. This will take you to a page that lists each of the sections of my Substack, and includes the sentence: “You can manage your subscription in your account settings.”
Select the link to your Account Settings page. Here you will see a box labeled, “Notifications.”
You can toggle each of the switches to set which posts you would like to receive in your inbox. By default, you are set to receive every post in your inbox if I send it out. If you toggle a switch from green to grey, you will no longer receive those emails.
If you only wish to receive announcements and the Monthly Roundups (which I will continue to send), you can set every switch to grey except for “Announcements” and “Hardihood Books Newsletter,” as shown here:
Alternatively, you can pick and choose which categories of posts you wish to receive. For instance, if you’d only like to read fiction, you can set the switch next to “Essays,” to grey.
If you have any questions about how to do any of this, please reply to this email. The new policy will go into effect tomorrow.
Thank You:
For those of you who use the Substack app, this change will likely make Hardihood Books more convenient for you. If you’d like to receive push notifications for every new story or essay, you can now do so.
For those of you who use email, this change will also make Hardihood Books more convenient. Instead of taking the extra step to find my website and scroll through my posts, you can read every post in your inbox, or you can click through to the site to read in your browser.
If you are not a paid subscriber, you will only receive a preview of paywalled posts. However, every post that is not paywalled is free to forward and share with as many people as you’d like.
As always, thank you for your support,
Ben