MOVING FROM SUBSTACK TO WORDPRESS

The holdiday downtime has given me some breathing room to get this project done, moving 500 or so posts from Substack to my WordPress blog at Social Media Escape Club.

I did this 100% manually, too. I think I tried exporting awhile back and it crapped out somewhere along the line, and I just said fuck it, I’ll do it one at a time, which really wasn’t so bad because some stuff I wanted to reformat, re-do, or remove 100% anyways.

Why move all my posts from Substack to WordPress? Because someday the Substack platform will cease to exist, and I’ll have no record of my work otherwise.

Because Substack makes it too easy to accidentally delete your entire publication, just like how I deleted multiple posts when I thought I was deleting a podcast feed.

I don’t trust the Substack platform anymore.

My first music blog from 2001 is gone because we were young and dumb and moved onto other things, and we didn’t pay the hosting bill, and oops the domain name lapsed.

The 2000+ metal trivia questions I posted on Twitter as @skulltoaster from 2011-2018 are all gone, along with the 1000+ email newsletters via Mailchimp.

If I get locked out of my account, or Substack goes away, five years of writing goes away with it, and I don’t want that to happen.

Each Substack post is getting moved, and in its place I write “this post has moved…” along with a link to its new home on WordPress. This removes any duplicate work which might affect my SEO or domain health… but that’s secondary to me owning my work, my writing, my ideas.

I will keep sending my newsletter via Substack (for now), but it will not be my base of operations. Everything gets written on my blog first, then it goes from there.

Each newsletter post will include just enough meat and bones to make it a worthy open and read, and they’ll be links throughout for anyone who wants to go deeper.

As I wrote earlier this year, “my newsletter isn’t my permanent address, it’s a delivery truck.”

YOU’RE SOMEBODY NOW

I know Gary Vee gets a lot of flack, but man, he’s inspiring people right where they’re at, so what else is there? I mean, look at that scene. Evening time, probably on his way to like 30 different things, took the time to encourage someone.

Sure, there’s a camera there. But man, he’s been doing this for YEARS, and I think it’s great.

THE LG ENV VX9900

The LG enV VX9900 was the most notable phone I owned before the iPhone in 2007 or 2008.

The Qwerty keyboard was great for texting, but my goodness, can you believe we used screens that small? The resolution was pretty good, but still, the screen was so small, yet the phone was so bulky.

Given the chance I definitely wouldn’t go back to using this phone.

NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB

Love this from Jen Mayer of Makeist.

I’m not looking for a job. I’m not waiting to be hired. I’m not leaving it to luck.

I’m making the connections. I’m connecting the dots.

I am actively and intentionally creating my calling: a career I never want to retire from, and a life I don’t need a vacation from.

This is the work: building Makeist into something that’s not just a business, but a life.

Here’s to not looking for a job in 2026.

YOUR CONTRADICTIONS ARE AN ASSET

Love this from Henrik Karlsson’s “Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog:”

Your contradictions are an asset. You’re a lover of classical English architecture and you’re also a dirty little punk—expressing both at the same time is more interesting than sharing just cute pictures of English gardens or just wild trashy stuff. The more you incorporate everything that you love and that comes easily for you, your interests, your sense of humor, your grammatical tics, etc, the more your style emerges.

THE OLD WAY IS GOING AWAY

This quote from Bobby Lee sums it up:

“Let’s talk about Theo’s podcast. What TV shows do better numbers than his podcast? Not many.”

Theo’s shows get lots of views on YouTube, and probably at a fraction of the cost of most big name TV shows. I mean, it doesn’t matter if that’s good or bad, it’s just the way it is. The gatekeepers used to be the TV networks, but now it’s the YouTube algorithm. Build an audience, though, and you’re good. Like Bobby Lee goes on to say, when asked to play a part in a TV show:

“Two days, $1,500 a day… agents and managers take 40%… with taxes I come away with a couple hundred bucks. I’ll just do my thing.” ​⁠

This concept is easy to dismiss, to think that only people with millions of subscribers / views can do this.

Like everyone chasing 1,000 True Fans, try thinking of how to manage 100, or 10, or even one person who likes / shares / reaches out and say they like your work.

We all start somewhere.