A Special Announcement About my Work
I’ve been maintaining this blog since 2017 with an ambition to edify, evangelize, and encourage others by sharing wisdom acquired through study and my lived experience as a Catholic. Readership is essential in work like this, and I’ve always found it was discouraging that my work was being seen by only 0-4 readers at best. I’m not hoping to become famous or to have brag-worthy numbers. It’s just disheartening when you work hard to touch and help others, but you’re not even able to reach them. I decided just to let God handle it. If he wants an article to be widely read, it will be. If he doesn’t, then it won’t be. May His will be done—Amen! Then something switched a couple of months ago.
In April 2023, I branched out into Substack. I planned to use it as a satellite presence to broaden the reach of my articles. But a strange thing started to happen. People started reading my work! But they weren’t reading it at my blog; they were reading it over at Substack. Substack’s community and subscription model have resulted in a growing readership that continues to encourage me. So I have decided to reformulate how I publish my work—for your benefit as much as my own.
Substack Role
Going forward, major articles will only be published to Substack. I have to go where the readers [mostly] are. I’m building an audience at Substack after three months where I was hardly building one on my blog after six years. I’ll also use Substack Notes (Like Twitter, but more focused and civil), and their threaded chat feature. I’m also providing my podcast exclusively on Substack. In short, Substack will be my main platform for my most important work, and for interaction with my readers/subscribers.
At the same time, I prefer my blog’s look, form, and functionality to Substack which can be a little limiting in some ways. So the blog will continue to serve a very important purpose, too, that I think you will all enjoy and benefit from.
Blog Role
My blog will continue to be the “central headquarters” of A Catholic Adventurer. While Substack has helped my mission considerably through readership, my blog offers more functionality and freedom than Substack. So I’ll continue to maintain my blog site, but here’s what the new normal will look like.
I will continue to use my blog to publish and share some simple and fun content. I’ll write short blog posts, commentary on news articles, my Twitter Files, and publish graphics, videos, and other entertaining content exclusively here on my blog. I also plan on having live interaction sessions here. In addition to all of that, I will use my blog to brainstorm upcoming articles. This will help my thinking process, but it also provides the reader with a teaser of what’s coming and some thought points that will add to your own knowledge and wisdom and give you something to think about before an article is complete. I’m really excited about that because I believe everyone will enjoy and benefit from it.
Once completed, major articles will only be published and available on my Substack. My blog will only carry the first couple paragraphs of a final major article, with a link that will take you to the full article on Substack. I also plan on producing subscriber-only content, so please consider subscribing to my Substack.
Why Subscribe to My Substack
Substack bypasses social media and drops articles directly into subscribers’ inboxes. No worries about shadow-banning, post suppression (which I suffer from a lot), and no need to open a browser, because the article is sent to you; you don’t have to go out and get it. The free Substack app also makes reading, interacting and saving articles dead easy. Substack is a readers’ community, not the carnival atmosphere of most modern web use or the Wild West atmosphere of social media. Substack respects writers, readers, the human connection between the two, and the reading experience in general. You really have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by supporting and following my work on Substack. Subscribe at my Substack, or using the simple form below. Great things are happening and I’m excited for you to be a part of it.
Ave Maria, Virgo Fidelis!