A Fond Farewell to gotAngst

I’ve been looking for ways to make my world more efficient so I can focus on writing and keeping in touch with everyone who reads my books. This required some research, tough decisions, and a bit of work. The effort has been worth it, and I’m excited to share what’s coming next.

Rebranding

My lovely and patient wife does marketing for a living. She sat me down and gently told me to let “gotAngst” go as a platform and social handle. I’ve used this moniker for a decade, but after several long therapy sessions (all of them included rum) I concluded that she was right.

gotAngst was perfect when I was just writing Angst books. Now that I’ve moved on to other series, with more stories to come, it makes sense to rebrand myself, and my blog, to djpwrites.

It’s a little hard to let that one go – so I’d like to raise a glass to Angst and gotAngst. That’s how it all began, and I’m grateful. Thank you.

Once I made that decision, I got to work.

Goodbye WordPress

Eight years ago I moved my site from blogger to WordPress. It was a great decision to host my blog on its own platform, but I have a love-hate relationship with the WordPress content management system.

WordPress is free until you want to make it better. In order to rank high in Google searches, the pages on your site need to open in 0-4 seconds. You also need to optimize your posts for search engines. It’s also important to keep the site secure from hackers. Oh, and don’t forget newsletters and sharing posts on social media and… you get the idea.

The plugins I purchase to make all of this happen cost over $600 a year. That doesn’t include the time I spend making updates or fixing it when something breaks. I don’t really want to be a website administrator anymore. I just want to write.

Hello Ghost

Ghost is lightweight content management system that’s simple to use, incredibly fast, and has all the stuff I need already built in. Their philosophy is that they made Ghost for blogging, not building websites.

I’m almost done moving my stuff over to the new platform. Everything has gone smoothly, though I’m sure there are a few things that could use some polish.

Ghost is different, and you may notices some changes because of how it works.

Newsletters

Ghost built a newsletter system into their platform, and newsletters are tied directly to blog posts. That means I’ll be sending out newsletters more frequently. I’m sharing this now, so you know. My goal is twice a month. No offense taken at all, if you wish to unsubscribe. Also, please keep in mind that new emails will come from djpwrites.com.

Commenting on Posts

Commenting on posts in Ghost requires a login. This is to reduce spam. To give you some context, the previous software I used on WordPress blocked over 100 spam comments this month.) You don’t have to purchase anything or even sign up for the newsletter when you create an account.

Purchasing Books

I’ve always made signed copies available for purchase through gotAngst or djpwrites. That won’t be available on the new platform, but you’ll still be able to purchase signed books through Facebook, and of course the usual online storefronts like Amazon.

Roadmap

There’s more. Below is a list of things I’d like to do. It all depends on my time, and more importantly, your interest.

• Medium.com: I’m considering posting a monthly article about living with Parkinson’s. (Mostly humorous, because, hi, it’s still me!) Medium has a paywall so I’ll likely cross-post on djpwrites.
• Serialized Story: I have a fun idea for a science fiction / space opera series that I’ve been working on for a while. My plan is to release a chapter every week on Kindle Vella – Amazon’s platform for serialized stories. I’d also make these available on djpwrites for a subscription fee. I’m still working on details, so it’s worth your time and money, but it won’t cost more than $1,000 a month. (Okay, really, it’ll be cheap. We’re talking dollars less than a coffee at Starbucks.)
• Facebook Group: I’ve been putting this one off. There are a lot of authors who start a Facebook group and then quickly throw in the towel. There are several reasons I’m considering this. I want to do it is to keep in touch with all the people I’ve met at cons, and readers I haven’t gotten to meet. I also spend a lot of time writing in my basement office and would love to discuss everything nerd from books to movies.

Thank You

That was a lot, so thanks for reading! I’m excited about what’s coming next! I’d love to know what you think about all of this. Seriously. Everything from getting rid of gotAngst to my future roadmap. Your opinion means everything!