I am using Squarespace for my blog. Squarespace is increasing it prices:
| We’re writing to let you know that your Squarespace plan listed below will be increasing in price upon renewal. This new pricing helps support the significant improvements we continue to make to the Squarespace platform every year. The following Squarespace plan will be affected:
website - Annual Personal
New Price: $192.00
I know there have been prior posts on this subject but I’d like a fresh take on it. As you consider your recommendations, please take the following into account, in no particular order:
I want to keep my domain name (through Hover).
When I post a new article, I notify my readers through MailChimp.
My blog articles often include an image or two and footnotes.
I want the ability for readers to comment.
I want readers to be able to subscribe to receive a notice when a new article is posted.
I will write my articles using Ulysses or iA Writer (still undecided on this).
I have a Medium account but I’m not sure it is the best platform.
My blog articles tend to be on the longer side (probably not best practice, but…).
The cost needs to be less than Squarespace.
If it is helpful, you can access my blog here to get a better sense of my articles.
I think WordPress is your best bet. I think it ticks all your boxes, and it’s relatively simple to use, although the user interface is super-cluttered.
And you can point your RSS feed at Mailchimp and automate that tool.
I use Micro.blog, but I’m just running a hobby blog and I’m willing to put up with its occasional quirkiness.
Yep, WordPress. I’d pay for Managed WordPress, if I were you. There’s WordPress.com, with several pricing tirs, but I’d suggest trying a host, maybe Dreamhost, or Bluehost, they both offer managed wordpress. You will need a plug-in to use footnotes, but that’s a search-click-auto install thing.
Yup. Wordpress. What doesn’t work “out of the box” can be addressed by plugins.
SquareSpace are charging for the simplicity, which given how little effort is required is probably fair. Wordpress is far more flexible but the trade off is more complexity. It is improving on that all the time, though.
If you use Medium, why don’t you use the free Substack? You can also choose to let readers subscribe yearly/monthly for you. You can also connect your domain.
Did you pay for legacy price on Squarespace? Your new price is the current price I am paying for years.
I’ve never considered Substack. I’ll check that out. I have been on Squarespace for many, many years, which may explain why my new price is your current one.
I’m going to check out Substack, thanks for the tip.
Substack has political affiliations some find distasteful, and several newsletters whose authors I respect have left the platform. Pretty good overview here.
I mention this not to bring politics in this forum but to raise an issue that @Bmosbacker might want to consider in his decision.
As for me, I still have a paid subscription to at least one Substack newsletter, but I would not personally host a newsletter or blog with them.
Beehiiv and buttondown seem to be a good alternatives to Substack.
I’m active on Meta services so I can’t point fingers at anybody else for the companies they choose to do business with.
I’ve been experimenting with Medium. I like it. I especially like that I can publish to Medium via Ulysses (I know, I know… , but I did say: “in the spirit of this forum, I reserve the right to change my mind.”
This is a difficult issue. It goes without saying that Nazism, White Supremacy, any form of racism is evil and horrible. Yet, I have all kinds of ethical and moral issues with too many companies and services to even count. Do I abandon those products and services? If I do, I’d have to be a hermit. On the other hand, I certainly do not want to support evil and immorality of any sort. Where does one draw such lines? Are there “red lines” and if so, what is the criteria?
That said, my tentative inclination is Medium if I move my blog.
What would the audience of your writing want you to do? And where would you be most likely to pick up more of the readers you want? That seems worth more than whether you could save one or two hundred dollars and how much you like the posting interface.
For years, social media has been professionally important for me, and reaching the audience was a major concern.
Now social media is less professionally important, and for me the professional part of my social media presence is easily handled by posting to LinkedIn once or twice a week. And honestly, I can skip a week or two.
So that leaves my remaining social media activity – including this right here – as basically a hobby, and I’m still figuring out how much I actually care about reaching an audience versus just doing it for my own personal satisfaction.
I run my website using Ghost which is a blogging and newsletter platform in one. If you use one of the managed ghost hosting like Ghost Pro, you get e-mails included with the blogging site. Ghost is completely open source so you can self-host it yourself if you want, but then you are responsible for having your own mailgun account if you want to send e-mails. Ghost uses node.js so is super fast and less bloated than WordPress. The backend is nice to write in as well so you don’t need a third party writing app. If you prefer a writing app, both Ulysses and IA Writer support Ghost publishing. I’ve often though that if Apple designed a blogging platform, it would look like Ghost.
Ulysses can also publish to a Wordpress blog. Personally, I find it a bit limiting because I don’t have the flexibility in how images are included, but from time to time I will ‘publish’ to Draft status and then finish off in the Wordpress editor.
This forum is my only “social media.”