Substack

I have been publishing exclusively on Substack for a couple of months now and it's going fairly well. I would love to have more subscribers, but I am sure that feeling will never go away. I've broken the fifty readers threshold for which there is no prize. I have been sending out two newsletters a week, since they are fast to do (for the most part they are taking me less than an hour to put together).

I'm not ready to call the Substack experiment a success. I plan to do it for at least a year before deciding. But I am happy with the format and the way I can schedule posts. I still like the idea of my letters going out through email rather than just sitting on jackassletters.com.

On the backend of Substack I can see statistics about each post. I can see how many people read it, and whether or not they opened any links. So far most people who are subscribed are opening most of the posts (don't feel bad if you don't read every one). I actually have a higher readership than I do subscribers as some of my traffic comes from people posting links to my updates.

Anyway, long story short, I'm happy with what I have going on so far, and I plan to keep it up.

Posted by Christopher L. Jorgensen on 09/08/22 at 11:23 AM

Book Giveaway: Jackass Letters Vol. 2

Update: The number was 9. The winner was notified. He has a week to respond or I will draw another number.

I am going to give away a signed copy of my second book to one of the first 100 people to sign up for the Jackass Letters newsletter on Substack. The rules are simple. Sign up and you are entered. Once I hit 100 people I will use google's random number generator to pick a number and the person who signed up then wins. So if you are the 66th sign up and that number comes up, you get a copy. If you have already signed up you are already entered.

I'll send the winner an email and they will have a week to email me a mailing address. If a week goes by, without a response, I will pick a new number and a new winner.

This contests will stay open until I get to 100 subscribers or until August 10th (whichever comes first).

I reserve the right to modify the conditions of this contest at any time. (In case I forgot something obvious.)

Sincerely,

Christopher L. Jorgensen

p.s. If you don't want to rely on the vagaries of luck, you can always buy a copy. Just click the image below to go to Amazon (or search at the retailer of your choice).

Posted by Christopher L. Jorgensen on 07/10/22 at 10:43 AM

An Idea: Substack

For a long time I've wanted to simplify this site. Ideally, people would visit often enough that they would see all the new content, and maybe they would occasionally peruse the archives, but reality is, I don't update often enough to make  visiting regularly worthwhile. It's easy to forget jackassletters.com exists unless you follow me on twitter.

To facilitate this, I am moving to Substack. By moving to substack I can reply on someone else to keep the backend of the site running. Someone else can manage my mailing list (which only kind of currently exists, since I haven't sent anything to it in years). I'll be sending one last email to the Jackass Letters email list to let people know about the Substack.

Here's the deal. I plan at least 4 updates a month. Maybe more. Maybe less. Give or take a couple. What I am thinking is a mix of old content and new, with some bonus content for the truly dedicated (i.e. paid subscribers). To start off though, I am going to keep everything free. I'll have to spend more time thinking about the paid/bonus content. To be honest, I don't actually like that idea, but a boy's gotta eat, and I hate advertising even more (which is one reason why I have so little on this site).

So sign up. If you regret it, you can always unsubscribe. You won't hurt my feelings.

Now, I need to get to writing!

See you over there. Or here. Or on twitter. Or wherever.

Remember, you can always send me stuff in the mail. I love that. It's the whole reason this site exists.

Christopher L. Jorgensen
PO Box 546
Ames, IA 50010

Sincerely,

Christopher L. Jorgensen

Posted by Christopher L. Jorgensen on 07/01/22 at 12:42 PM

An Admission of Defeat

I've been running Jackass Letters for 13 years (give or take). Sometimes more actively than others. I've written hundreds and hundreds of letters (thousands even!) and gotten a fair number of replies. The one thing I've been unable to do is make money doing so. I like writing the letters. I enjoy sharing them. I think I've built a fairly fun little site, but I think it's nearly time to put the whole thing into read only mode and devote my attention elsewhere.

I've tried all sorts of things to make the site profitable. Ads. Fundraisers. All the various tip jars and direct support services. Hell, I even put the letters into a couple of books, but at best, Jackass Letters is a breakeven project for me. I make enough money from my day job where the postage, paper products, and web hosting aren't going to break the bank, but over the years it adds up. Regardless, nothing seems to work. It could be that I'm just no Lazlo Toth or Henry Root or perhaps the time of the goofy letter has passed. It doesn't really matter.

Jackass Letters has always been a site for me. I enjoy it. I find it worthwhile and entertaining. I've always just invited everyone else along for the ride and hoped they agreed.

Going into this pandemic I thought this site would be what kept me sane, but I should have realized that the response rate would plummet. People don't want to open letters from strangers. It's hard to reply to office mail when you are in a WFH environment. It's also difficult to find the motivation to write when I don't even want to get out of bed. Especially so when I'm just not getting my letters answered. I've written fewer letters in the last year than I have in a long time, and the percentage of responses has been dismal.

All this is to say that I plan to put Jackass Letters back into hiatus.

I could write more about this and my reasoning why, but it comes down to time, money, and the reward to effort ratio. I'm putting more into the site than I am getting back and that's not good for me. So this isn't the end. This isn't goodbye. The site isn't going anywhere and it may even still see an occasional letter, but I can no longer treat it as a labor of love. Time is finite and I need to devote more of mine elsewhere.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Christopher

p.s. I doubt I'll spend much time on twitter going forward either. If you need to get ahold of me, you know where to drop a letter.

Posted by Christopher L. Jorgensen on 03/09/21 at 09:19 AM

Jackass Letters: The Podcast

Since it appears I will be homebound for the foreseeable future, and since it seems like sending out letters is currently not the most productive use of my time, I have decided to reboot Jackass Letters: The Podcast. I even have a number where you can call and leave voice mail to appear on an episode: 515 650 1706! Just make sure you make it clear what you are replying to and who you are.

Previously, I had this idea where I would record myself reading each and every letter on the site. And while that was sort of fun, each episode of the podcast was 30 seconds to three minutes long. Not the length of your typical podcast. I also had this idea that people would read their favorite letters or replies, and I could assemble them all into a weekly episode, but that never really caught on. Add to this, I never did very many episodes at all. They were too labor intensive.

I also didn’t really see enough subscribers or listeners to really make it worthwhile, and maybe I won’t this time either, but one of the things I think I’ll do differently is to make each episode be multiple letters. A couple unanswered letters, one with a reply, commentary on them, explanations of inside jokes, whatever. I’ll probably also talk about what I am doing on the site and new features I’ve added or design I’ve changed or whatever.

I’ll yammer about writing, life, and whatever I feel like at the time.

The first three episodes are up. I think I am looking at a lower-production value sort of thing that I can update without much editing. It’s too easy to get bogged down striving for high value production and perfect multi-take readings with flawless editing.

That’s not me.

The new podcast artwork is by Kenny Durkin. He’s done some other illustrative work for me in the past, and I have a slew of images he made for the relaunch of the the site.

Anyway, if you want to subscribe, you can do so through Apple by going here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jackass-letters-the-podcast/id541474730

Or, you can do it from this website if you use some other app: https://jackassletters.com/podcast

Please hit subscribe, and go ahead and give it a review or a like or stars or whatever the cool kids are doing. And if you are looking for ways to support this site, I will eventually maybe perhaps be accepting sponsorships for the podcast. I am looking at making these weekly, but in order for me to keep up interest I am going to need to see people engaging with the material. Let me know what you think.

I have a lot planned for the podcast, but it's going to take me a while to get there. I'd love to build an audience, so if you enjoy what I am doing, please share my endeavors with those who you think may enjoy my writing.

Stay healthy!

Posted by Christopher L. Jorgensen on 04/23/20 at 06:25 AM