Audience, Where Are You?

I'm sorry I ever let you go...

When I wrote for The Calhoun Chronicle, my words reached about 3400 readers a week. The columns I send to the Glenville Democrat/Pathfinder reach perhaps the same. When we published Two-Lane Livin’ Magazine, my words reached about 40,000 readers a month. On The Hur Herald, possibly the same number in a day.

But I no longer work for The Chronicle, I am unhappy with The Democrat/Pathfinder, Two-Lane Livin’ ended five years ago, and The Hur Herald stopped new updates in 2021.

And now, without an outlet, I suddenly feel like writing again.

I lost my groove for a while and lost my audience. The readers of Two-Lane Livin’ Magazine were awesome. Readers of the local news outlets are my community. Readers who read because they know and love me are my people. Oh readers, where are you? I know you are out there, and I need to connect with you again.

We’ve all heard the question: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Writing is the same. If I write and no one reads it, am I still a writer? If my goal is to reach out and communicate, and no one is listening, am I accomplishing anything?

I grieved the loss of the Two-Lane Livin’ audience. I truly did. For more than a year, I didn’t write, didn’t reach out, didn’t create much. I tried to create an email newsletter back then to keep in touch, but so many of them were print readers, not online, and my concept of a newsletter then was too business-like and stuffy.

I hope to make this newsletter more of a conversation. I enjoy working with the substack platform, because it’s simple, and I don’t have to waste time with formatting, design, or things of such tedium. I can just write, schedule an update, and emails go out. I hope you don’t mind my weekly updates in your inbox.

I’m missing my audience, my readers, my people, and I’m hoping you might help me find them again.

Will you share my newsletter? I promise — it will not be filled with promotions, or surveys, or clickbait. Of course, at some point, I will start implementing monetization methods to earn compensation for my efforts, but right now, I just want to reach out. I want to yell, “I’m writing again!” into the internet void and hope that someone hears and wants to read.

I’m yelling, “Hellooooo” into the abyss, and hope to hear more than my own echo.

I don’t have a business plan, I don’t have a game plan. I just want to write and have readers again. That’s it for now, and I’m hoping you’ll help me rebuild my audience. Forward this email or share my site on your social media, even if only to note, “Lisa is writing again! This could be interesting.”

Thanks. I appreciate it.

It has been good “seein’ ya” again. This time, let’s keep in touch.