Beginning with the second volume, The Goreletter will also be made available as a “blog” (a.k.a. “weblog”) for the purposes of generating an RSS Syndicated Newsfeed. RSS allows readers to get the newsletter “fed” to them without having to use e-mail; it allows newsletter publishers to circumvent spam filters and “bounces” that occur when subscribers mailboxes are full and so forth. One article I read by online journalism guru Steve Outing claims that up to 38% of all newsletters never make it to their subscribers because of problems with e-mail systems. I want readers to have as many options as possible, so I think an alternative — not a replacement — is in order. Thus, The Goreletter weblog was born.
To read RSS newsfeeds, you must either download a newsreader and install it on your computer (I recommend Feeddemon) or subscribe through a website that syndicates headlines, like Bloglines.
Given the “live” abilities of syndicated RSS, I will often post the specific departments from the newsletter (Blather, Weird Web of the Month, etc.) as I finish them to the “blog” and even list breaking news items and extra material that might not appear in the newsletter itself. The e-mailed version of the newsletter will continue to be mailed on a monthly basis and will essentially compile the best material posted at the blog from the previous month. One exciting element of the blog site will be that you can choose to filter by department, so that, for example, you can browse all the “instigation” prompts that have been posted every month all on one page.
However, to read material from the first year’s thirteen issues of The Goreletter, you need to review the archives at my creative writing website, gorelets.com.
Additionally, if you want to read my dry thoughts about teaching, you can visit my unapologetically academic weblog called Pedablogue.
Otherwise, my main website continues to be gorelets.com. The blog will simply be a nice supplement to it.