Subscriber Letter 2: Updates and About Me Page

I am excited to announce that I have finally finished a Postcards from Vietnam start page to tell a little bit about myself and explain what I am trying to do here. The page describes the purpose and goals of the blog along with a brief biography about who I am. If you are interested in checking it out, there is a link below.

A thank you is due to John Pearce for lending me another set of eyes to edit the start page, which made it much easier to read. Thank you John.

The start page is the second step of letting other people know about this blog.

The first step involved frequent posts in “Notes” (the social media portion of Substack). Notes have been an amazing tool because it has caused the follower count (about 80% of which are subscribers) to increase by more than 50% in the last couple weeks. This has also caused the total follower count to double over the last couple months.

I have been writing here on Substack for about five months now and I finally feel there are enough articles and my writing discipline and writing skill have picked up enough for me to feel increasingly comfortable sharing what I have been writing.

I would like to send a hearty thank you to anyone who has subscribed, liked or commented. You continue to give me the motivation to keep going.

It doesn’t seem like much to hit that heart button or send some kind words, but you should know that when you do, it makes me feel like I have done a good job that day. That feels great!

I feel like this might be a good time to give an open apology to people kind enough to write comments or send messages if any of my replies have come off as less than grateful or appreciative. I have been told that occasionally my email tone can come off a bit snarky, rude or a bit of “…well actually”.

That is not my intention.

Sometimes I try to add a bit of nuance and find myself being the “…well actually” guy. I hope anyone on the wrong end of some keyboard rudeness might realize that everything is meant with the utmost kindness. If there are a couple ways to interpret what I have said, please interpret it in the kindest lens, because that is likely what I meant. 

This is my first letter to subscribers. (Sorry, I realized immediately after hitting send that I had already sent an update letter making this my second letter to subscribers). If you enjoy this conversational type of communication where I share what I have been doing and talk about what is going on behind the scenes, would you let me know? I would like to create an environment where communication can exist in both directions. 

-Brian

If you are new here, please read this first to learn who I am and what this blog is about.