A Reader's Plea: Slow Down

I'm Unsubscribing (Not Because You're Bad)

Two hundred emails in a day. I mean two hundred, in a few hours. I see interesting pieces going by, I keep scrolling because I know there’s more, and I end up reading the same writers over and over. Not that it’s wrong, we all have our favorites, I do it too, obviously. It’s just that mine post a bit less, and I actually get a chance to enjoy what they write.

Picture this, dear authors. My Sunday starts with me waking up and trying to get my brain going with coffee. I drink it while I scroll Substack and catch some news on X… I read a few articles, dig into something, reply to messages that actually matter to me, then drift into other stuff. At some point the cats start scratching at my knees because they want attention, so I stop and deal with them. Then the dog. Then I make Italian coffee for my wife. Then the kids, toys everywhere. It’s my wonderful, good routine. I say that like it’s peaceful. It mostly is. And by the time things calm down a bit, when the kids are not about to destroy the house and my wife doesn’t need me for anything, I finally open my inbox and there’s a flood of Substack emails. Too many. I can’t keep up. I just close everything, and I get the kids ready to go out.

I take them to the lake. We go looking for fishermen actually catching fish, and the kids are just watching everything. I know exactly what’s going through their heads. I remember thinking the same stuff when I was a little boy. They’re really hoping for a mermaid. It’s kind of serious for them.
We get ice cream. I obviously end up covered in it while my daughter, the little one, eats hers sitting on my lap. Yeah, my good routine. Then we head home. I think I’ll just sit in the garden for a bit and catch up on Substack, and there it is again. Another ninety emails. In what, three hours? On a Sunday.

I know it’s my own fault for subscribing to so many publications, but I like reading. I like having a connection with writers I care about. Yet I’ve started canceling some subscriptions and it bothers me. I don’t want to do it, but I am.
There are writers who post constantly. Two, three, four pieces a week. Some even twice a day. I get it. The idea is to stay present, build a relationship, stay in the game. But it’s just a lot. It turns into this pile of notifications in the inbox, and at some point it just feels like noise.
For a lot of writers this is work. Some are journalists, some run it like a small newspaper. There’s a rhythm to it because people are paying for it. I get that too. I just don’t think it always lands the same way on the reader side. Sometimes it’s just too much. And I notice the writers who send me less. When something from them shows up, I open it with no hesitation. It feels rarer. More worth it somehow.

I don’t remember William Gibson because he ships a book to my door every day. I remember him because Neuromancer rewired the way I see the world when I was twenty. Since then I just read him. Whatever he writes, wherever he puts it. That’s how it works with writers you really love. You don’t need them reminding you they exist, if it’s good, you remember. That’s the thing. It’s not really frequency or volume that builds a connection with a reader. It’s value, it’s meaning, it’s that heartbeat you can find in it (yeah buddy, I’m quoting you again, but that changed my life).

I think the problem is Substack is kind of a hybrid. On one side it works like a mailing list, and that was never really built for something that sends messages every day without starting to feel like spam. On the other side it works like a social feed, this constant stream of content. And those two things don’t really fit together. They kind of collide. There are no real rules about frequency either. It’s all up to the authors, but you can choose not to send everything by email, just keep some posts on the platform. Not everything has to land in readers’ inboxes.

There’s also something practical to keep in mind. I’m not saying this to scare anyone, but when an inbox starts getting too many messages from the same source and people stop opening them, email providers can start flagging them as spam. It’s not really the reader’s fault, it’s automatic. So the more you send, the more you risk your work not even reaching the people who actually want to read it. It’s a bit of a paradox, but that’s how it works.

It’s all the same space, readers and writers. We need less noise and more time, more attention. That’s the deal. Write as much as you want, just be thoughtful about what actually goes into people’s inboxes.

This is just a request from one reader, and it’s worth what it’s worth, but please… slow down.

Michael

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