Hello my lovely readers!
I hope you have been well and are enjoying the rest of your weekend.
It’s been now a whole week since Mushroom Mail came out, and I honestly have to say that I don’t like the way this first week went.
Not necessarily in terms of how well the project went (we are 10% funded!^^), but more with the way I went at the whole marketing thing. I honestly don’t really like the term ‘marketing’ or ‘promoting’, as it often has a negative and unpersonal ring in my head, although it does describe a way of sharing the word of something.
And that’s what I didn’t like about how I did things the past week. I was way too hectic, the adrenaline of having Mushroom Mail launched and the franticness of wanting it to succeed kind of drove me into this unpersonal and somewhat icky feeling way of just wanting show it off like a product that’s needs to get off the shelves.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a product, but I’ve always wanted my stories and anything that connects to them - letters or books - to have my personal touch. Of course, when I’m tired or don’t have much energy, I tend to just repost something, which I think is alright, but I want the norm to be different.
These letters are absolutely also a way to start making money with my writing - I won’t deny that - but even more so, I want them to be a way to connect with my readers, to share the happiness I get with creating these things. Kind of like when you recommend your favorite show or book and the other person falls in love with it as well and you both can fangirl over it together.
I am truly happy with the outcome of these letters and every single part of them fills me with joy, or the memories of overcoming a challenge. And so I think that they deserve a more gentle and genuine way to be shared on the internet.
As a newsletter friend, you might not have noticed any of these things, but what I want to say with all of this is, that I will (obviously) continue sharing more things about Mushroom Mail on my socials, but it will be more about my thoughts of creating it and behind the scenes fun facts, instead of bleak repetition of the same 5 sentences. On platforms like Instagram and YouTube, I might still go for my tool box of sentences, but at least on Substack, I want to share my wonderful project in a way that feels authentically like me. Step by step, one Note after another.
I guess what I learned is that going with the norm isn’t always what feels right, and when something doesn’t feel right, it’s time for a change.
I’ve learned so much while doing this project and I continue to learn a lot! I’m grateful to have this opportunity and I will do my best until the 24th of October to see where Mushroom Mail will be standing by then.
If you’re interested in the letters, you can still get yours on Kickstarter now.^^
Another thing that I wanted to share is about the personal messages you can send here on Substack, and in general.
I appreciate anyone who would like to chat with me about books, writing or other creative topics.
But I do have one request: Please be straigh forward why you’re texting me through the direct messages if we haven’t spoken with each other before. I know, often times it’s normal to just say ‘hi’ or any other greeting, but I have made too many uncomfortable experiences in this way, which is why I decided not to answer on messages that don’t directly tell why they are writing me.
This is a boundary I needed to set for my own mental health, so I hope you understand.
I will still be happy to have a nice conversation about any of the topics that I mentioned above, just mention the reason you’re messaging me in your message and we can have a nice chat!^^
On a more lighthearted note, I have baked my first cheesecake in a long while and it turned out delicious!
I also finally had some time to continue on my Halloween Stich-A-Long cross stitching project by caterpillarcrossstitch. It’s so relaxing to just watch a movie or an anime - lately I’m also really into watching artist’s vlogs of conventions - and cross stitch pumkins or scary trees, it’s one of my favorite creative hobbies at the moment.
I’d love to get into more fun creative hobbies, so if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear about them in the comments!^^
Thank you for readinf this post and I hope you enjoyed it, even though it had a few more serious topics this time.
I wish you all a wonderful start into the new week and I’ll see you again soon in the next newsletter!
Love,
-Nika.^^
P.S.: I’m sure you have noticed that I tried the video uploading funktion with the short video you got. I actually didn’t really know how it worked, or if it was like the reels tab on Instagram, but now that I do know that it sends them to my newsletter subscribers, I’ve decided not to post them here. I might share some longer videos like the letter unpacking one when I want to share something.
Are you alright with getting a video very seldomly here and there or would you like to read more text newsletters?