Update on Project V

Cast your mind back to January, my decision to enact Project V and trial the ‘dot-dot-dash’ format: weekly rambles and a monthly deep dive. Ten weeks later, the results are in, and they aren’t great.

Let’s EVALUATE!

summons back all the planners who had been totally excluded from the process since writing the creative brief

Let’s start with the data, and, oh.

Well, that’s probably not good.

I don’t conduct exit interviews. However, I think it is safe to guess that:

• Some readers that didn’t want to read this newsletter every week

• Some readers that joined for a key moment (probably cyberpunk) and the increased frequency acted as reminders to finally unsubscribe

Well, that’s still ok, right?

I don’t want to fall into a type of reverse survivorship bias. The people that left are gone! I should be worried more about the people that stayed, right? As long as they’re satisfied, I can find more people like them.

How can I tell if they’re happy? If I’m simply shedding ‘casual’ or ‘accidental’ readers, those were the low-engagement folks. As they depart, my engagement metrics should actually rise and…

[No image here, but imagine something along these lines.]

Oh.

If I was only losing unengaged readers, the % of people opening and/or clicking should be on the rise. But those numbers - although not breasting boobily into the abyss - aren’t much better. I’m not just shedding the chaff, I’m boring the wheat as well.

Now I have to account for the strong possibilities that:

• Some readers didn’t want to read this format

• Some active readers didn’t want to read this content

And you know what? That’s fair enough. Let’s park the misery for a moment and talk about two positive outcomes.

First, I have heard directly from more people over the past two months. Which is amazing! I love getting emails back. Yes, I’m terrible at replying (promptly/at all), but I love it!

Second, I’ve hit ten straight weeks of delivering weekly! One goal was to build better writing habits, and it happened! Not counting Paul’s excellent guest post, I managed to get 25k of ‘incremental and incidental’ newsletter writing done: that’s writing just for the heck of it. That’s a long way from Adam Roberts (seriously, what is UP with that guy?), but I’m pleased.

Basically, all the metrics might be shite, but the process evaluation is glowing! Look at all the exclamation marks! We can work with this!

Let’s go back to objectives. What do I need from this newsletter?

• Writing practice. For personal satisfaction and betterment, but this isn’t a diary. I need to work on writing for an audience.

• A platform. I’m starting to loathe that word. I’m genuinely blessed with a lot of platforms - editorial matter in anthologies, columns in magazines, articles in books, talks to willing (and occasionally unwilling) audiences. But they’re scatty and fragmented and slow. At the end of the day, I need a (flails) thing-place that can collect (if not cohere) the stuff I do, and allow me to talk about and around that stuff. And, let’s be honest, I want a thing-place that helps me get more things.

The dot-dot-dash format was one tidy way of achieving both objectives. Weekly emails gave me regular writing practice. And each indidivual email that covered the scatty, fragmented things I like to write about (strategy, books, bbq,…) in a light-touch way.

But it ain’t working. FINE. BE THAT WAY.

The new plan!

Here’s what I propose:

• Drop back to fortnightly (data says so) - so two monthly emails

• Longer reads (‘cause I still have opinions. So many opinions.)

• One email will focus on strategy, and also include the ‘interesting links’ round-up

• One email will focus on books and book reviews, and also include the BBQ updates

This is slightly bipolar, but feels like a manageable split. Those feel like the obvious groupings, and both seem ‘useful’ - both to me and to you.

Your thoughts, please.

Would this approach work for you?

And, yes, I’m overthinking it, but (whispers) that’s part of the fun.

I’m going to keep the ‘What Genre Am I?’ survey open for a little while longer. 

I will say that (by design) we’ve got some contentious ones in here. Is Red Rising fantasy or science fiction? What about Frankenstein? Or the Civilisation game series? Some very interesting answers. (Also a shout out to the person that commented ‘why’.) (I DON’T KNOW.)

what I’m cooking

• Two more pork tenderloins. Or ‘fillets’ as some would have it. These are at the sweet spot of a) good BBQ practice, b) quick to cook (evenings, not weekend), c) really healthy (zero Weight Watchers points!), d) cheap ( <£4 at Lidl!). Are they great? …no. They’re fine. In the culinary ecosystem of our home, they’re filler: basically interchangeable with chicken breast, but for half the price. If Big Tenderloin are looking for a spokesperson that can stand up on camera and be like ‘this right here could be your generic weekday protein!’, they’re welcome to call my agent.

• All the thighs. ALL OF THEM. Why are chicken thighs so good? Wait, I know. Everything I said about pork tenderloin applies to chicken thighs except the healthy part, and, yeah, that’s where the action is. They’re quick and yummy to smoke. As my BBQ Better Half Paul points out, they’re great at holding flavour. Basically they’re a canvas for whatever spicy mad science you’re keen to try.

• Mutton. There’s a community farm nearby and every week I diligently buy one stupidly oversized gourd from them. Two weeks ago, it was an actual big ass pumpkin. I laboriously chopped it up and then used that as a massive gourdy bed for a mutton leg. Turns out that pumpkin, slowly boiled in fatty sheep goo, is pretty exceptional.

• Brisket. My local Lidl does £10 briskets. I was dubious, but you know what? They’re not huge, by any means, and they’re slightly overly trimmed, so you have to be careful, but… they feed 3-4 and they’re pretty great value for money. Anyway, absolutely killed it with this one. Intolerably smug, etc. Actually, screw Big Tenderloin, maybe Lidl should sponsor me?

And finally… a newsletter that’s doing really well!

Shelfies is six months old and is ticking along very nicely.

We’re on Instagram now (I KNOW I HATE MYSELF FOR IT), where these candid shots of well-loved books are a very, very, very interesting counterbalance to the perfectly composed shelves of #bookstagram. Authenticity vs aspiration! CHOOSE YOUR SIDE. Or don’t! But please do follow and share; we’re proud of this little go-er.