We’re On The Move – Ruth Crilly

If you subscribe to my blog posts by email then you might notice something slightly different about the next one, arriving tomorrow: it’s being sent by a new provider. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about because – for you – there is no other change.

Oh, apart from – and this is a massive bonus, depending on whether you actually enjoy my posts or not – the fact that you’ll be seeing my emails more often and more consistently from now on. Once a week, and always on a Tuesday.

Obviously if you cannot stand receiving my posts by email then this news will devastate you and it is an absolute necessity that you find the unsubscribe button on this post right now and then click on it. For everyone else, this should all come as brilliant and exciting news. Because it is brilliant and exciting: we’re returning to an era of regular blog posts. We’re going back to the days (and the title) of A Model Recommends – unbiased reviews and slightly unhinged takes on the world from your favourite erstwhile mannequin. Best beauty buys and book recommendations and travel stuff and all sorts of useful bits and pieces, interspersed with some of the more ridiculous life updates and observations that burst forth from my fertile mind.

 It’ll feel like 2013, all over again. Except that it’ll be coming from a slightly different place.

Before you begin to panic about the olden days and feeling as though everything is being uprooted; this website isn’t going anywhere. You’ll still be able to drop in for a pootle about in the archives and many of the new things I publish will be here, too; but the majority of my writing will now be on Substack.

Why? Well, we have to move with the times, baby! There’s a whole post about this – the first post in our new home, actually, and it will be arriving in your inbox soon – but in essence, if you make content in this day and age then you really need a platform to post it on. So that people see it. Unless you’re a dedicated beauty blog, or you post recipes, or things that the general public are likely to Google and hunt out, it’s very difficult to get new eyes on your content. I mean, how many people will really be Googling “what does a merman’s penis look like?” (The speculative answer to that particular question is within this post.)

I feel utterly fortunate to have such a huge readership here, but a lot of my writing isn’t the sort of stuff that is necessarily very searchable online. It’s there for enjoyment first and foremost. And it would be lovely if more people could enjoy it.

I have been looking into a platform for my writing for a while and have chosen Substack. It just seems like a really lovely place to be, where it’s easy to comment and reply to comments, easy to reshare other people’s work and to build up great communities. You can also leave voicenotes, written notes and video content for your followers and hold live video streams: it’s as though someone has delved inside my brain and designed the exact platform that I’ve always wanted to create and use.

And there’s definitely a pull, for me, in that I don’t have to build or maintain any of that platform – just log on and spend 100% of my time writing things, rather than spending half of my online life updating website plugins or trying to work out why the hell comments can only be WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

You’ll see (or you might not, I haven’t fully worked out the settings yet!) that there are various ways to use Substack. Some people charge for their content, some people charge for all of it on there, others have their newsletters available completely free of charge. My new weekly post is completely free. If you are receiving this post by email then you are automatically subscribed – I have simply moved my existing subscriber list over to the new provider. You don’t need to do anything at all – well done, congratulations, be excited for the years ahead!

If you do not wish to receive my future ramblings then please unsubscribe by clicking on the link on this email – it’s right at the bottom. If you ever change your mind, or you hear people whispering about that brilliant A Model Recommends on Substack – “it’s like listening to Lady Whistledown!” – then just search me out and re-subscribe. There will also be a huge banner at the top of my website with a link to take you to my posts, in case you get really, really lost.

If you’re not currently subscribed to receive my posts by email (bloody hell, this is getting complicated!) then you can sign up to the new weekly posts here.

Right. This isn’t goodbye, it’s a huge hello again. Hello again to regular posts, to more writing, to a little return to how things were before shortform content took over the internet and we all developed the attention span of a gnat. See you next week. A huge, genuine heartfelt thank you to those who have followed for so many years and have seen me through so many different blog eras and iterations. This is going to be the best one yet and I couldn’t think of better people to bring along for the ride.

You’ll get your first email from the new home at around 10am BST tomorrow – if you don’t see it then have a look in your spam filter, and if it is in spam then make sure you mark it as “not”. Until then, my loyal friends!