How to Best Make Your Voice Heard in These Uncertain Times

Changes at Medium and some useful features on Substack

Good Morning Friends,

I’m getting a late start today in what looks to be another busy day. It seems like they’ve all been busy lately and I’m feeling very tired. Normally in the morning I get up and go straight to my computer. But this morning I made coffee and sat with my wife. We watched Bugs Bunny.

The dog came over to stick his nose in between us and began to gently wag his tail. I need more moments like this.

Next week is Thanksgiving, so I’ll have the pleasure of having my kids at home all week. I am in the process of rearranging my office. I’m going to turn one corner into an art studio. I need my kids to sit with me and make art that I can share on this newsletter. I intend to occupy myself with these tasks until the secret police come to round us up and put us in camps.

When I say things like that, people reply, “Oh, that’s never going to happen.”

But there are a lot of things that are “never going to happen” that end up happening. And there is a lot of talk of camps in the news lately. These are not conversations any society should be having, yet here we are.

Changes at Medium

On Tuesday, I sat down for an interview with a couple of people who work at Medium. They wanted to get some feedback on how editors are using their publications. I’m a Boost nominator at Medium, but November has been the oddest month I can remember.

That’s to be expected what with the massive change in the prevailing political winds. We’re in a period of massive uncertainty. I was hopeful that uncertainty would end on November 5th. Unfortunately, the result of the election has magnified the uncertainty by a power of 10 (or more).

I’ve been both writing and nominating the same kind of stories that I’ve always preferred, but nothing is going through right now. To some extent, that’s to be expected. Once the world has stabilized a bit and we see what we’re in for, it will be possible to move forward. But right now our foundation has been ripped away and it’s anybody’s guess what’s going to happen.

There’s been more talk about prosecuting journalists in the news lately too. People say, “That’s never going to happen.” But if people are talking about it, we’re not really safe.

For now, I’d urge people to keep submitting unique personal stories that have some sort of connection to an academic concept. Don’t flood your article with pull quotes. Those are nearly impossible to get through. Also, don’t mention political candidates. Nobody wants to hear about them.

How to make discount codes

I’ve had a few people ask how I make my discount codes. Here’s what you do:

• Dashboard—settings—payments—discounts—special offers

That takes you to a screen like in the screenshot above. It’s a useful way to offer people a variety of ways to sponsor your newsletter. The sponsorships I’ve received in the last few weeks have been very uplifting. Thanks everyone!

How to make sections

Creating sections allows your readers to have more control over the content they consume. I created a “Politics” section a few months back because I know that some people protect their mental health by not fretting over every little bit of bad news (it’s a smart strategy).

Setting up sections is easy:

• Dashboard—settings—sections—add

Once you get there, you can upload thumbnails for each section to make it look nice. I did another article to let you know how to unsubscribe from the sections you don’t want. I don’t want to overwhelm your inboxes with content.

That being said, I’m not sure if your existing subscriber list is automatically added to new sections that you might launch. For example, I’ve been doing a podcast for the last few months. Are all of you getting those recordings? Generally I send out the podcast email at 3PM CST. If you haven’t been getting those notifications (or you want to unsubscribe from them), check out this informative post:

Good things are coming

I think I’m going to take a break from my Zoom meetings for the next few weeks. I have an obligation tomorrow, and the week after that is black Friday. So, I think I’ll offer my next Zoom meeting for paid subscribers on Friday, December 6th at 2PM CST.

Please let me know if you’re interested in attending. It’s a question and answer session and you can bring in anything you want to ask me.

As always, a big part of my mission is to empower the rest of you to share a message of hope and tolerance. The world needs that message now as much as it ever has.

Thanks so much for your support! I appreciate all of you. As always, leave your questions and comments below!

Please consider upgrading to a paid sponsorship if you can! It keeps me going. All of these discounts are forever.

We’re reader supported here! I appreciate you!

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