Don't Forget Me!
Good morning.
I bet you started to think you weren’t ever going to hear from me again.
It’s been over eight months since I last sent out one of these newsletters and now we’re nearing the end of 2021. I stopped working on the newsletter because I felt I needed to give my full attention to revising the novel manuscript I’ve been working on since November 2019. That part of the process is done and I’m beginning to pitch the book to agents.
During that time, I was also continuing my work at Artsy and trying to figure out the next best step in my career. For those of you that don’t know, I left Artsy at the end of November and will be starting a new position in 2022. I’ll be posting about this on LinkedIn (natch) but I wanted to let everyone that’s graciously subscribed here know first.
As of January 3rd, I’ll be the new Global Director of Audience, Social, and Analytics for Bon Appétit and Epicurious. I’m extremely excited about working with the writers and editors at both of those publications and all the people doing the hard work helping them engage audiences for all the great recipes, product recommendations, food writing, and video that both Bon Appétit and Epicurious are known for. I’ve really been enjoying the last month off, but I honestly can’t wait to get to work.
Because of this next phase in my career, I’ve been thinking more and more about what I want to do in this newsletter moving forward. To be honest, there are much better newsletters out there where people are covering the media industry, audience development, the ways that publishers are figuring out ways to create sustainable business models, and just general trends on the internet. A few that I read religiously and that you should read and subscribe to are listed below (in no particular order):
I’ll now be trying to keep up with the trends in audience development each day in order to make sure Bon Appetit and Epicurious continue to engage with and build on their audiences. Since I’ll be more squarely in the media arena than I was at Artsy, I’d feel kind of conflicted weighing in on what other people are doing. It’s not easy.
What I’m getting at here is that I’m going to change the purpose of this newsletter. In 2022, I’m going to turn this into a space where I do limited-run “seasons” all based on a specific theme that will hop around or connect the dots between bits of culture that are resonating with me for one reason or another. That means you’ll most likely be hearing about a lot of forgotten or overlooked (most likely) music and movies from the past and a lot of my personal ruminations. Once a season is done, I’ll take a little break before the next season begins.
If that’s not what you’re into, I totally get it and do not blame you if you choose to unsubscribe. Moving forward, I’m just more interested in using this space to practice writing personal essays and would love to have you along for the ride if you’re up for it.
For now, I’ll be working on the material for the first “season” of this new iteration of the newsletter. I’ll be back in touch once I’m ready to roll it out.
Thanks to everyone who’s read along so far and I hope you all are staying safe and trying to remain optimistic during another difficult holiday season.
—Matt